The Annotated Richard Clarke

[RainDog]

I had posted this in GD, but it will get lost. This is a really good blog site for those who haven't had a chance to get the book yet.

The blogger below is posting exerpts from Clarke's book, along with comments and denials from the Bushistas.

He's currently up to chapter 9.

http://www.roadtosurfdom.com /

"Finally, Wolfowitz turned to me. "You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because FBI and CIA have failed to find linkages does not mean they don't exist." I could hardly believe it but Wolfowitz was actually spouting the totally discredited Laurie Mylroie theory that Iraq was behind the 1993 truck bomb at the World Trade Center, a theory that had been investigated for years and found to be totally untrue."

[salin]

1. Thanks for the site...

just picked up Clarke's book, Dean's book and Blix's book yesterday. Have started Dean's book (have been reading his column's in FindLaw for nearly the past 2 years) and it may be a little while 'til I get to the other two. Another family member is currently reading O'Niell's book - said it was interesting for the first half - but by the second half it is fascinating and a 'page turner'. Says the description of the cabinet meetings are frightening in their implications (e.g., how decisions are made, what is ignored, etc.)

[JPZenger]

2. Maureen Dowd Column on Clarke

Here's an excerpt from a great column by Maureen Dowd in today's New York Times. Full text at www.nytimes.com - click Dowd on right side under editorials:

"Dick Cheney, Rummy et al. were on amber alert, "preserved in amber," as Mr. Clarke put it, obsessing on old G.O.P. issues that had been hot when they were last in power, like a menacing Saddam and a Star Wars missile shield to protect America from the awesome might of the Evil Empire...

Clark writes ... "Bush and his inner circle had no real interest in complicated analyses; on the issues that they cared about, they already knew the answers, it was received wisdom."

Donald Rumsfeld told the 9/11 panel that there had been no point retaliating for the Cole bombing in October 2000, "four months after the fact," because that might have sent a signal of weakness.

So it was too late to whack Osama four months later, but not too late to re-whack Saddam 12 years later?...

Paul Wolfowitz was completely uninterested in Al Qaeda unless he could use it as a rationale to invade Iraq as part of his grandiose dream to remake the Middle East in his image. (And John Ashcroft was just too busy covering up immodest statues and trying to cut counterterrorism funds.)

In the Clarke book, Mr. Wolfowitz fidgets as Mr. Clarke urges that armed Predators target Osama at a meeting in April 2001. "Well," Wolfie whines, "I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden."