Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing Account Of Bush White House War On Terror!
Review: As the sitting White House National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism on the President's National Security Council for more than eight years during both the Clinton and Bush administrations, former intelligence analyst Richard Clarke sat in the literal catbird's seat to observe as well as participate in the national security apparatus in action. As a consequence, his new book detailing the specifics of the government's progress on the war on terror both before and since the advent of 911 is provocative reading indeed. The portrait he paints so convincingly is that of a Bush administration populated by political ideologues and characterized by shooting from the hip at targets of opportunity. Thus, no one within the new administration wanted to believe in the frightening evidence of a mounting Al Qaeda threat in the weeks and months before September 11, 2001, despite the persistent warnings of advisors like himself. Instead, they seemed preoccupied, as former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neil suggested in his recent book, with regime change in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Astonishingly, the morning after 911 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested attacking Iraq in the total absence of any evidence linking Saddam Hussein's regime to the attack on New York City or Washington, since Iraq represents a target-rich environment, as opposed to Afghanistan, which has so few. President Bush himself cornered Clarke and attempted to pressure him into finding a link between Hussein and the attack on the World Trade Center on 911 attack. To Mr. Clarke, the Bush administration was intent from that time on to use 911 as a convenient excuse to attack Iraq, something they seem to have desired to do from the very outset of the administration. Indeed, Clarke's impression of the modus operandi of the so-called "Vulcans" such as Paul Wolfowitz, Condi Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld is one of a previously set ideological agenda, of having a predetermined objective to attack and conquer Iraq, and then attempting to use the events of 911 as justification to proceed toward that objective. Indeed, the available public record suggests as much, with not only Mr. Bush, but also Mr. Cheney and Ms. Rice, as well as Mr. Rumsfeld trotting out a garden variety of ostensible rationales for invading Iraq in the post-911 time frame, all the way from the original "Axis Of Evil" comment in the 2002 State of The Union speech to the spurious linking of Saddam with Al Qaeda to the use of nerve gas against the populace some dozen years before to failure to comply with United nations resolutions since the 1991 attack by the international coalition that deliberately stopped short of regime change due to fear of destabilizing the region. Mr. Clarke has more than enough criticism to go around, and both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush find themselves seriously criticized and called to task for their lack of appropriate action, given what Mr. Clarke feels was the clear and present danger the evidence he offered indicated. So this book is no simple hatchet job against the Bush administration, as it casts aspersions on both sides of the political fence in terms of ascribing blame for our present set of circumstances regarding lapses in national security. Yet he reserves special scorn for the current administration, given its self-serving and somewhat cynical use of the 911 events to turn the political landscape upside down. What Clark describes as being tantamount to treason is the fashion in which President Bush has politicized the situation for short-term political benefit without taking serious and meaningful action to actually meaningfully combat the set of threats themselves. Most surprising to Clark is the way in which the Bush administration has done so little to accomplish relatively inexpensive and yet quite effective action against the terrorist threat, such as strengthening the infrastructure or beefing up border security, while hugely increasing the administrative manpower and salaries of personnel within agencies such as Homeland Security, which do little to actually counteract terror threats. Like many observers, Clarke believes the war in Iraq is at best a distraction from the real threat, robbing the country of valuable resources with which we could much more effectively protect ourselves and extend the reach of American power to combat terrorism. Meanwhile, he views the growth of terrorism and the extension of its world-wide capabilities with alarm, suggesting that our ineffective military actions as well as our inattentiveness to key details which would bolster internal security have led to increased danger and higher threat levels rather than the reverse, and wonders aloud how long it will take for this nightmare scenario to play out with potentially devastating consequences. He is utterly amazed that Bush attempts, through a cynical and self-serving media campaign, to convince Americans we are winning a war on terror we are not really fighting well at all. This is an absolutely riveting read, albeit in less than stirring prose or striking narrative. It serves as forewarning that we are on a wrongheaded and very dangerous path, and that it is high time for a course correction. I highly recommend this book! Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Read
Review: This is a complete history of terrorism as far as the American interests are concerned. Pretty detailed and convincing. The author's knowledge of the subject is commanding and the flow of the book is easy to follow.
If you want your questions answered on several 9/11 related events like me, this is the book for you. Good insight into the functioning of the white house and politics involved.
MUST READ!!!
Rating:
Summary: Clarke illuminates
Review: I am an independent who is seeking a truth that neither party saw fit to tell us. I lost friends in 9/11 and could never understand why anyone would believe that Bush and his self righteous administration were tough on terrorism. Since such a tragic crime happened on their watch, Bush should admit that he was not tough at all, but incurious, and complacent. Forcing the American people to make sacrifices is how a president claims "toughness." Promising lopsided, exhorbitant tax cuts that are not paid for, going after Saddam for invented reasons, consistently connecting 9/11 to Iraq, and on and on, is deadly spin, not truth. Richard Clarke dares to attempt to explain how the administration shirked their responsibilities against Al Queda in order to make a perfidious case for war against perhaps the weakest dictator left on Earth (we now know how weak and contained Saddam was since Gulf I.) That's his first thesis. His second, more powerful one is that by going after Saddam immediately and unnecessarily after 9/11 - usurping resources from the fight against the real criminals - "Bush" has haphazardly allowed Al Queda to "morph into a many headed" monster that has now become infinitely more difficult to defeat. Clarke argues persuasively that Bush has also made the world infinitely more dangerous rather than safer. In other words, Bush and his team have failed us all and we will pay the price for our ignorant, unquestioning following. Clarke is a true hero who lays out the disastrous sequence in detail. He is unfortunately, as a result, ceaselessly being attacked for daring to speak out. Shame on Bush, and shame on the Repubicans for such slanderous character assassination. And shame on the Democrats for not having fought back hard enough, for Clarke, and earlier, for the nation.
Rating:
Summary: This book supports the truth about 9-11, Iraq and Bush
Review: This book reveals how President Bush and his followers have ignored and manipulated intelligence to acquire the reality they needed in order to justify their secret agenda.
While they may not have specific responsibility for terrorist acts,
they show complicity by their intentional ignorance.
The Bush people know how to play terrorism to their own political advantage; this book shows how it is done.
Rating:
Summary: Life Imitates Art
Review: Richard Clarke has shown us in "Against All Enemies" that Donald Rumsfeld is the avatar of Milo Minderbinder. Remember him from "Catch-22", the American officer who thought WWII was launched solely for him to make money? Remember how he cornered the market on Egyptian cotton, caused a glut, then tried to market it as candy by coating it with chocolate and selling it to American troops? When Rumsfeld said, immediately after 9/11 when all signs pointed to the Afghanistan-based Osama bin Laden as the architect of the plot, that he'd rather bomb Iraq because there were "...no good targets in Afghanistan", what he was saying was that there was nothing of value there; there wasn't a huge pool of oil in Afghanistan like there was in Iraq. Bombing Iraq in retaliation for what bin Laden did is like the old joke about the man who loses his wallet in a dark movie theater but goes outside to look for it on the street because "...the light is better there". Mr. Clarke was a national security pro with no political ax to grind. He is a registered Republican and served in more Republican than Democratic administrations. When a man like this documents that the Bush people ignored the threat of real terrorists to go off on a fanciful war of acquisition he must be taken seriously. "Against All Enemies" is another log on an already blazing bonfire.
Rating: 
Summary: Frightening if true, and it probably is.
Review: It is hard impossible to tell with 100% certainty what Richard Clarke's motive for writing this book is. It is obvious that he is being partisan at this point, against Bush at least, the only question is why. I don't doubt for a moment that part of his motive has to do with the way his own staff was cut back, and his own role diminished, yet this does not invalidate anything he says. He points out both the pros and cons of all previous administrations, republican and democrat alike; while painting a picture of the Bush administration as vastly incompetent compared to all predecessors that he has dealt with. This picture is terrifying to say the least. I for one have never been much of a political conservative, but I try to be fair and look at everyone with both skepticism and openmindedness. The truly terrifying thought that is now occurring to me as I watch the news and now that I've listened to this book is that both the Republican party itself and especially the current administration are vastly worse than I previously suspected. If this book is true, this means that the Bush administration playing right into Al-Qaeda's hands and putting the USA on the brink of destruction.
Rating:
Summary: A Compelling History Of 4 Presidents & The War On Terror
Review: There is a veritable plethora of political books on the market these days. Richard A. Clarke's "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," stands out amongst them all as an absolutely riveting, intelligently written discussion of the most harrowing issue of the new century - terrorism. Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar for both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush is an authority on the subject. He began his federal service in 1973, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, served under seven presidents and has been involved with national security until he resigned his position in 2003. After devoting two decades of his professional life to fighting terrorism, Mr. Clarke probably knows more about al Qaeda, Osama bin Ladin and why our government failed to prevent September 11 than anyone else in this country. Clarke's account of the action in the White House on 9/11, as Crisis Manager in the Situation Room, reads like a novel. I have read many firsthand accounts of that day - as a Manhattanite I was deeply and personally affected - but this insider's description of how government leaders operate in crisis mode is the most fascinating. There is much that is disturbing in this book about the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and their administrations' approach to terrorism: misplaced priorities; credible warnings ignored; a lack of vertical communication; lack of intelligence and analysis; little cooperation and information sharing between the CIA and FBI; a Cold War mindset; inability to see the "big picture;" and an obsessive focus on Iraq when there was no proof of a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11. There is more than enough blame to go around. I don't think this is a book about blame, however. Whatever your politics, no one wants the United States, or any country in the world, to be vulnerable to terrorist acts. I believe that Clarke treats both Bush administrations and the Clinton presidency fairly. This political memoir also chronicles the rise of al Queada. Clarke's writing style is crystal clear and concise. His knowledgeable account of the goings-on in the Beltway's corridors of power is compelling and highly readable. This is an extraordinary history of The War on Terror that began two decades ago. Highly recommended - for people from all over the political spectrum.
JANA
Rating:
Summary: Love Him or Hate Him, He's Got It Largely Right
Review:
You cannot discuss 9-11 or Iraq, and be credible, without having read this book carefully and thoroughly (many of the other reviews strike me as glib, superficial, and not representative of having actually read the book).
Clarke begins by pointing out that four US Presidents, not one, are responsible for the over-all failure. Clarke strikes out at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, throughout the book. Clarke confirms both all the reports of CIA failing to tell FBI, FBI leaders ignoring their own field reports and consequently failing to tell the White House clearing house on terrorism, of any and all the indicators and warnings received from June 2001 to September 10 2001. Clarke confirms that as of January 2001, despite a decade or more of Al Qaeda activism, "most senior officials in the administration did not know the term." The historical review, going back to the Iranian revolution of 1979 (which overturned a CIA coup much earlier) and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (which mobilized global jihad), is quite helpful. The failure of the White House to kill the Republican Guard in the first Gulf War, and the post-Gulf War decision to put thousands and thousands of US contractors into Saudi Arabia, thus further inflaming Saudi dissidents, and the related misadventures in Lebanon as well as over-tolerance for Israeli aggression on the Palestinians, are all put into useful context. The book begins with a solid meticulous review unlike any other I have found. CIA and FBI both take substantive and deserved beatings. The CIA Directorate of Operations--with the full backing of the DCI-- cannot be considered to be anything other than "chickenshit" in the manner in which it blocked just about every proposed initiative including the arming of the Predators and the insertion of language-qualified personnel into Afghanistan. Clarke lists four strategic mistakes: 1) CIA becoming overly dependent on the Pakistani intelligence service; 2) CIA importation to the Afghanistan jihad of Arab extremists it did not understand; 3) USG's quick pull-out from Afghanistan without flooding them with water, food, medicine, and security first; and 4) US ignorance of and failure to help Pakistan stabilize itself and survive the deadly mix of millions of Afghan refugees and thousands of radicalized Arab Muslims. The Saudi government's sponsorship of Bin Laden as a religious revolutionary with a global mission beginning in 1989 cannot be denied. The book documents what we knew and when we knew it, and how we chose to ignore it. 1993-1994 were clearly turning point years--both the 1993 World Trade Center car bombing, and the discovery of a network of suicidal terrorists based in the US and tied to the blind Muslim preacher in Brooklyn, should have but did not lead to a nation-wide cleansing and appropriate border controls and foreign intelligence measures. Al Qaeda was formed in 1990. It would be five years before CIA and the FBI would realize this. On page 84, Clarke makes my day by providing the ultimate OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) story. After ordering a strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters, Clinton refused to go on TV until it was confirmed. The $35 billion a year intelligence community could not confirm it--no spies or agents on the ground, satellites out of position, etcetera. Bill Clinton, without telling anyone, called CNN, CNN called its Jordan bureau, whose cameraman had a cousin who lived near the intelligence headquarters, who confirmed the strike." Got to love it--all money, no eyes. When will Congress get it!? Clarke confirms the many ugly stories about CIA's operational incompetence in Somalia (professionals will recall we sent old dogs without language skills, two of whom went nuts, literally, afterwards). The following quote should be hung in CIA's entryway until we get a serious clandestine service: "They had nobody in the country when the Marines landed. Then they sent in a few guys who had never been there before. They swapped people out every few weeks and they stayed holed up in the U.S. compound on the beach, in comfy trailer homes that they had flown in by the Air Force." Sure, there have been some improvements, but as CIA operations super-star Reuel Gerecht says, until diarrhea is accepted as part of the job description, the DO will never be real. Clarke sums up the Clinton era by saying that policy was good, and intelligence bad. The bureaucracy was not willing to take terrorism seriously nor to work as a team. He sums up the Bush the Second era by saying that both were bad. Clarke slams George Tenet repeatedly, identifying 1994 as the year in which he blew the chance to nail Bin Laden and the Saudis early on. Clarke fails Congress for failing America in 1995, when its oversight should have identified the failures of the past two years, and moved to correct them. The Atlanta Olympics stand out as a major success story, and I emphasize this to note that there were successes, and there were extraordinary new means developed of planning, of inter-agency coordination, of rapid response. The Secret Service emerges from Clarke's book with its reputation much enhanced. Saudi mendacity and Canadian complacency (the latter fixed since 9-11, the former not) get special mention. Prince Bandar is labeled a liar on more than one occasion. There are many other important points raised by this book, including specific recommendations for addressing our global vulnerability to terrorism, and they will not be listed here. Buy the book. One final comment: this is a very intelligent man who has actually read books and done some cross-cultural historical thinking. He laments the fact that politicians with power tend to view visionaries with knowledge as nuts (page 131). This is a brilliant book that should be read in detail, not--as Rich Armitage confessed to the 9-11 Commission on C-SPAN--the way Washington reads: checking the index for one's name. Washington has become stupid. Richard Clarke is not.
Rating:
Summary: Rise above the rancor for the message
Review: In his gripping "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," Richard A. Clarke gives us the "human intel from boots on the ground" on what occurred in the White House before, during, and after the al Qaeda-driven devastation on September 11, 2001. Read the text, not the hype, and make up your own mind. The book's intro section recounting the day and night of the horrific attack ought to be a model for narrative technique in establishing a complex matrix of dedicated people, places, concepts, and events. Mr. Clarke has done his nation yet another service , after his thirty years in the trenches, by showing us the inner workings of a nation under attack.
Rating:
Summary: If you read just one political book this year, this is it
Review: Clarke is an insider who has first-hand knowledge of Bush and his advisors. He breaks the biggest rule there is (never tell tales out of school)to inform the American public about the war on terror. His thesis is that Bush et. al. either used intelligence or ignored it to further an agenda that may increase our threat from terrorism, not diminish it. This is a startling criticism. Not much has come out of Rice's testimony. Not much will probably be revealed before the next election. If you are looking for sources of information, at least read this and decide for yourself--either Clarke is sounding a klaxon of alarm, or he is furthering a cynical agenda of his own. It's up to you to decide which is true.
| 
