Seeing Red
A top counterterrorism veteran puts the Bush White House on the defensive over 9/11 and the decision to invade Iraq
There was one moment during the 9/11 hearings last week when everything seemed to stop--the partisan bickering, the blame game, even the media spectacle. All eyes were on Richard Clarke, the hard-charging former White House counterterrorism czar and the man who sparked a frenzy with his shrewdly timed new book. His opening words, directed to the families of the victims of 9/11 sitting behind him, sent chills throughout the room. "Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you," Clarke intoned. "We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness."
The man whom one 9/11 commissioner had already called "the elephant in the room" managed to upstage himself in one of the most riveting episodes of political theater in recent years. His new book about the war on terror, Against All Enemies, was already drawing both praise and flak for its biting accusations that President Bush's efforts against terrorism, and the invasion of Iraq in particular, have "left us less secure." Now, here was the ultimate insider, a dedicated civil servant who worked for four different presidents and spent eight years helping the White House fight terrorism, issuing a full mea culpa, then cataloging the deficiencies he saw in two presidents--Bill Clinton and George W. Bush--and the bureaucracies they commanded. Through it all, Clarke remained cogent and collected, deflecting his Republican critics on the 9/11 commission and blocking out White House attacks on his credibility and motives.
Clarke's appearance nearly overshadowed the most high-profile chapter yet in the fullest public accounting of what went wrong before September 11. A parade of luminaries, including current and former secretaries of state and defense and CIA Director George Tenet, took their turns. Another figure--Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice--stirred up even more attention by her absence. By the time it was over, the hearings, with their echoes of past inquiries into Washington scandals, provided an unusual and often disturbing glance into the inner workings of the secretive world of intelligence and national security.
Giving the spectacle an extra charge was the political backdrop, as an increasingly embattled President Bush crafts his campaign for re-election around his record in the war on terrorism. Bush aides worry about the impact of Clarke's accusations that the president was insufficiently focused on terrorism before 9/11 and has made mistakes since. Campaign strategists say this could, if not countered effectively, become a big area of vulnerability by raising doubts about whether Bush is an effective wartime leader better able to protect the country than John Kerry. Most Americans are still inclined to believe that Bush did all he could to prevent the terrorist attacks and then took appropriate action after 9/11, his advisers say. "It's inside baseball right now," says a top Bush campaign strategist. "We want to put it away quickly."
Attack mode. That, so far, isn't happening. A visibly worried White House lashed out at its former aide, the level of concern reflected by the number of top White House officials who hit television news programs. Most of the attacks were quite personal, with Bush aides suggesting that Clarke bears a grudge for having been passed over for a promotion, is looking to sell books, and may be seeking a job in a Kerry administration. (Clarke stated under oath that he wouldn't take such a job). Some officials cited what they branded disparities in Clarke's accounts, and Vice President Cheney even went on Rush Limbaugh's radio show to declare that Clarke was "out of the loop"--an attack Rice was later forced to retract even as she joined the chorus of Clarke critics (Page 28).
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