Condi Strikes Back
From the Washington Post:Let us be clear. Even their most ardent advocates did not contend that these ideas, even taken together, would have destroyed al Qaeda. We judged that the collection of ideas presented to us were insufficient for the strategy President Bush sought. The president wanted more than a laundry list of ideas simply to contain al Qaeda or "roll back" the threat. Once in office, we quickly began crafting a comprehensive new strategy to "eliminate" the al Qaeda network. The president wanted more than occasional, retaliatory cruise missile strikes. He told me he was "tired of swatting flies."
Through the spring and summer of 2001, the national security team developed a strategy to eliminate al Qaeda -- which was expected to take years. Our strategy marshaled all elements of national power to take down the network, not just respond to individual attacks with law enforcement measures. Our plan called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, ground forces and other targets -- taking the fight to the enemy where he lived. It focused on the crucial link between al Qaeda and the Taliban. We would attempt to compel the Taliban to stop giving al Qaeda sanctuary -- and if it refused, we would have sufficient military options to remove the Taliban regime. The strategy focused on the key role of Pakistan in this effort and the need to get Pakistan to drop its support of the Taliban. This became the first major foreign-policy strategy document of the Bush administration -- not Iraq, not the ABM Treaty, but eliminating al Qaeda.
Matt's Chat
Clarke's book is looking more and more like a hatchet job to me. Cooked up in New York for Democratic political gain before the campaign season even started. It's lie after lie after lie after lie... Again... Still... Whatever... These people are starting to get easier to read too... I haven't looked in to it yet, but I can't help but ask if this guy (Clarke) was fired too...Update
The damning evidence against Clarke can be found at Security Focus.In happier times prior to 9/11, Clarke -- as Bill Clinton's counter-terror point man in the National Security Council -- devoted great effort to convincing national movers and shakers that cyberattack was the coming thing. While ostensibly involved in preparations for bioterrorism and trying to sound alarms about Osama bin Laden, Clarke was most often seen in the news predicting ways in which electronic attacks were going to change everything and rewrite the calculus of conflict.Why won't I be surprised if I don't see this guy asked any questions about this stuff? These hamsters are getting more predictable...
September 11 spoiled the fun, though, and electronic attack was shoved onto the back-burner in favor of special operations men calling in B-52 precision air strikes on Taliban losers. One-hundred fifty-thousand U.S. soldiers on station outside Iraq make it perfectly clear that cyberspace is only a trivial distraction.
Saddam will not be brought down by people stealing his e-mail or his generals being spammed with exhortations to surrender.
Clarke's career in subsequent presidential administrations was a barometer of the recession of the belief that cyberspace would be a front effector in national security affairs. After being part of the NSC, Clarke was dismissed to Special Advisor for Cyberspace Security on October 9th in a ceremony led by National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and new homeland security guru Tom Ridge. If it was an advance, it was one to the rear -- a pure demotion.
Mark's Remarks
It is a shame, really, that the media at large, aka the Partisan Media of Kerry Lovers(tm) does not vette and report these biases and axes that Clarke has to grind. They guy was a man who missed the shot, he flubbed the forecast, and he was demoted. In fact, he was not even in the loop on much of what he is conjecturing about. The guy was demoted to deal with his little cyberterrorism and that only when Bush came to town. So, in an effort to rewrite his own failed tenure as terror boy, and to bolster Kerry support for his friend, who happens to be a chief advisor to Kerry, Mr. Clarke decided to write a book full of conjecture and half-truths to damn the Bush administration. Isn't it a shame that our brave troops are fighting overseas and they have to read about these attacks by people who instead of pointing fingers should be looking for ways to address the problem?
Dickie Clarke, you sir, are an assclown. Nuff said.
