Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror

Dick Clarke has served four Presidents - both Republican and Democrat. His frustration with the Bush administration and its War on Terror is palpable in all of his writings and pronouncements - both public and private. In order to state his case and share his personal views of the failures of many of the policies leading up to and subsequent to the events of September 11, 2001, Clarke has opted to deliver an interesting one-two punch combination - a non-fiction account of his life inside the National Security teams of the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, and then a novel that projects the potential fallout from the policies currently in place. In this present posting, I will address his best seller, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror." In a follow-on posting I will talk about the novel, "The Scorpion's Gate."In the Preface to "Against All Enemies," Clarke does a clear and cogent job of delineating his premise, the parameters of his argument and the limitations of his subjective point of view:"As the events of 2003 unfolded, I began to feel an obligation to write what I knew for my fellow citizens and for those who may want to examine this period in the future. This book is the fulfillment of that obligation. It is, however, flawed. It is a first-person account, not an academic history. The book, therefore, tells what one participant saw, thought, and believed from one perspective. Others who were involved in some of these events will, no doubt, recall them differently." (Page xxv)"All [American leaders] have sworn to protect that very Constitution `against all enemies.' In this era of threat and change, we must all renew our pledge to protect that Constitution against all foreign enemies that would inflict terrorism against our nation and its people. . . . We must also defend the Constitution against those who would use the terrorist threat to assault the liberties the Constitution enshrines. Those liberties are under assault and, if there is another major, successful terrorist attack in this country there will be further assaults on our rights and civil liberties. Thus, is it essential that we prevent further attacks and that we protect the Constitution. . against all enemies." (Page xxvii)Fair enough. Clarke has given us an appropriate "let the reader beware" warning that he is sharing personal recollections and is not a historian. With that caveat firmly in mind, I found myself sharing Clarke's frustrations as he recounted what went on behind the scenes in the White House as the Bush administration settled into its responsibilities to lead the nation. Despite the best efforts of Clarke and his team to convey the urgent nature of a potential terrorist threat, it took months for Clarke and his cohorts to succeed in scheduling a meeting with Condi Rice for a thorough briefing on the threat. That first meeting occurred on September 4, 2001 - 8 months into the Bush administration, and one week before the Al Qaeda attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.Clarke paints a picture of decisions being made based on pure ideological bases, rather than on the basis of analysis of facts and credible intelligence findings. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, emerge as the chief ideologues in Clarke's account."On the morning of the 12th, DOD's focus was already beginning to shift from al Qaeda. CIA was explicit now that al Qaeda was guilty of the attacks, but Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy, was not persuaded. It was too sophisticated and complicated an operation, he said, for a terrorist group to have pulled off by itself, without a state sponsor - Iraq must have been helping them.I had a flashback to Wolfowitz saying the very same thing in April when the administration had finally held its first deputy secretary-level meeting on terrorism. When I had urged action on al Qaeda then, Wolfowitz had harked back to the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, saying al Qaeda could not have done that alone and must have had help from Iraq. The focus on al Qaeda was wrong, he said in April, we must go after Iraqi-sponsored terrorism. He had rejected my assertion and CIA's that there had been no Iraqi-sponsored terrorism against the United States since 1993. Now this line of thinking was coming back.By the afternoon on Wednesday, Secretary Rumsfeld was talking about broadening the objectives of our response and `getting Iraq.' Secretary Powell pushed back, urging a focus on al Qaeda. Relieved to have some support, I thanked Colin Powell and his deputy, Rich Armitage. `I thought I was missing something here,' I vented. `Having been attacked by al Qaeda, for us now to go bombing Iraq in response would be like our invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor.'Powell shook his head. `It's not over yet.'Indeed, it was not. Later in the day, Secretary Rumsfeld complained that there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq, which, he said, had better targets. At first I thought Rumsfeld was joking. But he was serious and the President did not reject out of hand the idea of attacking Iraq." (Pages 30-31)Clarke describes several similar scenarios in which those who were responsible for analysis and intelligence reported to Bush and Rumsfeld that there was no credible evidence to tie Iraq to any recent terrorist activity against the U.S. In each case they were told, in essence, "Go back and look again, there must be something there."The mindset of the ideologues in the administration, as described in Clarke's account, reminds me very much of theologians who are guilty of looking for verses in the Bible to buttress positions they have already arrived at, rather than letting the text help them to inform their positions. In technical terms, it is the difference between "exegesis" and "eisegesis." Let me take a moment to explain. "Exegesis" - "reading out" - is the discipline and art of delving into a text and reading out of the text the substance and intent of the message as it was framed by the original author. "Eisegesis" is "reading into" the text our ideas and prejudices to look for ways to support those pre-formed ideas.For example, in reading the verse: "I will make you fishers of men," good exegesis would involve learning how Jesus' original audience of fishermen, tax collectors and Galilean zealots might have understood his message and applied it to their lives in 1st Century Palestine. Inappropriate eisegesis of the same text would be to use the verse as an advertising slogan to convince 21st Century Americans to buy a new composite fishing rod, or to use it to claim that Jesus must have been opposed to eating red meat!So, instead of "exegeting" the intelligence findings and analysis of the experts to deduce that al Qaeda - and not Iraq - was culpable for the 9/11 attacks - Rumsfeld and his team seem to have been guilty of "eisegesis" in grasping at straws and looking to pin the blame on Iraq. Such an approach is not only intellectually dishonest, it borders on demagoguery.Clarke makes a strong case that in going after Iraq instead of concentrating on al Qaeda in our "War on Terror," we have not only missed the prime target, but have also succeeded in further alienating the rest of the Muslim world - thereby spawning a whole new generation of radicalized terrorists and enemies. He also argues that we have pinned our allies in the Arab world into a tight corner that makes it difficult for them to openly support the United States."The new leader of Central Command understands. General John Abizaid told the New York Times that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are `involved in a fight against extremists that is crucial to their ability to maintain control. . . It's a battle of ideas as much as it is a military battle . . . not the type of fight that you're going to send the 82nd Airborne' in to handle. Yet Abizaid's bosses in the Pentagon and the White House do not seem to understand how to fight the battle of ideas or the limits on the ability of our shooters to defeat the al Qaeda ideology." (Page 263)As the new Congress - both houses of which will now be controlled by the Democrats - prepares to debate where we go from here with regard to Iraq, these will be crucial deliberations. Let's hope that political ideology - from either side of the aisle - does not trump reasoned discourse and analysis of what will best serve the long-term interests of our nation and of the world in which we have the burden of remaining standing as the last Super Power.In this book, Clarke has pulled back the curtain on earlier processes and decisions that were flawed and were driven by personal vendettas and agendas. If his revelations hold to a higher standard those who will be debating our future in Iraq, then he has done our nation a service in the telling of the story from his vantage point, and he will have contributed to forestalling assaults against our way of life . . . "against all enemies."Al

It's hard to argue that there is much new here. And it is tempting to view this as Clarke's effort to vindicate himself and secure his reputation as the world's foremost authority on fighting terrorism. But the book does tie things together in convenient and well reasoned parcels, so it is a good, solid document on the issue of Islamic terrorism.Clarke traces the arc of terrorism back to 1979 and the Revolutionary government in Iran. Afghanistan's long woes and the fall of the Soviet Union figure into the equation. He discusses the transition from state sponsored terrorism which essentially ceased at the end of the Iran-Iraq war to network sponsored terrorism of the al-Qaeda kind.Clarke establishes his credentials and his credibility. He has been a central figure working at a high level from the White House to fight terrorism since the mid 1980's. He knows the history of terrorism. He knows its motive forces. He knows the characters involved, and their modus operandi. He understands terror's consequences. He knows what it takes to prepare good responses, and understood for at least four years prior to 9/11 how woefully unprepared the US was (and is) to respond to a large scale attack.He lambastes the FBI for completely ignoring the problem of terrorism before 9/11, though he acknowledges that the problem is partly institutional. The FBI is barred by law from investigating crimes until they occur. And he admits the historical necessity of this point. He lambastes the CIA for completely ignoring terrorism before 9/11. Here again, he points out that the reason had to do with the agency's desire for self-preservation. In this case, a cold war institution fights to preserve its status a decade after its raison d'etre has ceased. And it does so not by engaging where it is needed, but by fighting bureaucratic turf wars. Hmm.He spends a full chapter discussing how he built an anti-terrorism program under Clinton. He discusses how supportive Clinton was to the idea. He shows how brilliant Clinton was in selling the program to staffers and high ranking scientists. He points to some of its victories.One such victory was the prevention of Millenium disasters. The tiny knot of people he worked with noticed that there was much 'chatter' about something happening on January 1, 2000. So alert levels were heightened. But the breakthrough was almost completely accidental. An operative on a ferry from Vancouver acted suspiciously. When confronted, he ran. His car was found packed with explosives meant to be deployed at the LA airport. His interrogation led to another cell in Jordan. A third cell failed accidentally by piling too many explosives into a small boat, causing it to sink in mid-harbor.In one way, this example illustrates how a single centralized, small group of motivated people can energize local law enforcement people to do the leg work it takes to detect terrorist acts before they occur. If this level of functionality had been in place in the Boston Airport on 9/11, we would not be discussing that date here.And this brings us to the question of subsequent failures. By July of 2001, Clarke was so fed up with the total lack of response of the Bush administration to even discuss the issue of terrorism that Clarke had asked to be reassigned to a lower status position working on cyper security.Bush had been neither capable of comprehending the danger nor interested in hearing about it. He was completely uninterested in terrorism, even though (or perhaps because) Clinton had told him it was his top priority. Bush aides were spouting ideas about state-sponsored terrorism that were products of conservative think-tank fantasy. These ideas were historical dinosaurs long before George Herbert Walker Bush lost the election to Bill Clinton. But they were the gospel and all the Bush team were believers.So arrogantly and dogmatically did they hold their prejudices that they simply would not listen to anything Clarke said. This despite the fact that Clarke was arguably the most capable, most knowledgeable, best informed, and most accomplished fighter of terrorism in the USA. It was in this as it has ever been with the Bush administration "Don't confuse us with the facts, because we already know all the answers." (My words, not Clarke's)The section on what happened on 9/11 is slim. And the ideas about what America might have done to prevent it are slimmer. Probably 9/11 would have occurred in exactly the same way had Bill Clinton been President. The thing that could have prevented it - highly qualified and motivated airport screeners - was politically impossible in the post Reagan 'shrink government until it hurts" years. Only real hurt could change this fact. In other words, the governmental problem that contributed most to making 9/11 possible was an attitude about government inherited from the Reagan years.But even if the catastrophe was inevitable based on the political climate, the response to 9/11 would have been different under another administration. Firstly, the Clinton administration would have focussed on Afghanistan. Tora Bora would have been shut down before bin Laden got there. Clarke's team had run the game plan already and planned to be there first. And the manhunt would not have stopped until bin Laden was captured.The war in Iraq would never have happened. The endless and fruitless departmental shuffling in Washington to secure de "Vaterland" ahem creata a "Homeland Security Agency" and a body of law turning the US into a police state in contravention to constitutional principles and bodies of international law would not have occurred.And in the end, America would not be doing as it is now - to quote a bumper sticker - "Making enemies faster than we can kill them."

A fascinating inside take on America's war on terror, focussing on where the author thinks it went wrong.Chapter 1 expertly captures the initial confusion and panic on that September morning inside the US administration. They knew an attack had begun but that many more could soon follow, a list of key targets was quickly put together and buildings evacuated. The White House was emptied, the president rushed onto a plane and towards a safe location. As passenger information began to filter through it was quickly established who was responsible. The book captures the scramble to ground all planes, to find out how many may be hijacked, 100 was the number feared at one stage, video conferences were hastily arranged to try and put together as much information as possible and to take quick decisions. Inside bunkers the US leaders tried to coordinate the responsible, a death toll of between 10,000-50,000 was feared in New York at tone point. It seems early on obvious it was a huge failure on the part of the FBI and the CIA to find and arrest the hijackers. President Bush was described as privately furious and demanding retribution. The writer also records his shock when after an exhausting long day he returned back to the office only to be told he must discover evidence to prove Iraq was behind the attack.The next few chapters are devoted to a how we got here case.Chapter 2 begins by explaining how 1979 was a pivotal year for the US in the cold war. The middle east suddenly became increasingly vital, the US lost one of it’s few allies during the 1979 revolution in Iran, a new hard-line islamist movement took power, meanwhile the Soviets entered Afghanistan in large numbers, not pausing just around Kabul but moving into every area of the country, taking the US and Carter totally off guard. Under Ronald Reagan the policy was to expand US influence and weaken the USSR. There was genuine concern that the Soviets could keep driving down into the middle east and take control of the world’s oil supplies. This fear though was probably based on faulty intelligence it’s admitted. The main charge laid at the door of the US government during the 1980s according to the writer is that it allowed Iranian and Syrian backed terrorists to drive them out of Lebanon, demonstrating that terrorism could defeat US willpower it seemed. The author though does believe it was right to support Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, given the hostility now in Iran to the US and it’s interest. The main plan though was to use Afghanistan as a base to draw the soviets into a conflict, forcing them to massively overspend and damaging their economy. The Afghan rebels scored some early victories but by 1985/6 helicopter attacks were beginning to take their toll on the rebel forces. By supplying them with Stinger missiles this took away that air power advantage. The author believes this was a correct strategy, and that no stringers were later used against American forces, given that they had limited battery life, many were returned and the funding ended once the soviets left. Had the soviets not made the mistake of trying to conquer the rural mountain regions they may have had greater success it’s argued. Clarke though believes the US made 3 mistakes, 1 being too reliant on Pakistan to channel arms, 2 little being known about the Arab volunteers entering the country, I’m not sure about this, wouldn’t it be just obvious they'd be hardcore jihadists? 3 the US lost interest in the country once the Soviets pulled out, the US had little influence now over events on the ground after. The US government did achieve it’s objective, winning the cold war did matter according to Clarke.Chapter 3 looks at the Bush years in the early 1990s.The Gulf war is quickly covered. There’s no embarrassing admission from Clarke that Saddam was a US ally during the 1980s. He seems to have skipped over this part. Some he argues were keen to avoid staying for years in Saudi Arabia to defend the country, therefore a quick victory, with a big broad collation was the correct approach. Clarke argues the US should not have entered Iraq afterwards, expect to protect forces encouraged to rise up against Saddam. The major US concern again during this time was oil, though the US government tried to argue otherwise. Saddam taking control of the worlds oil was not acceptable.The book also covers how close Iraq had come by 1991 to developing nuclear weapons, though ones it probably couldn’t yet deploy. By that period though the world was changing, the cold war was over, religion was becoming a more powerful political force in the middle east, new splinter groups, failed states, rogue nations were emerging. Little is said about Bush, the writer doesn’t seem to like giving him any credit compared to Clinton. The world trade centre bombing in 1993 is covered then, another security failure, attacks on US home soil were unexpected at the time it seemed. Terror networks were uncovered, Bin Laden’s name is mentioned though his role appears unclear at the time. Clinton at the same time had to deal with the fear of weapons of mass destruction across the world falling into the wrong hands, Saddam still a threat in the middle east, state sponsorship of terrorism, and new terror groups different from those in Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine. A plot is uncovered by Iraqi intelligence officers to try and assassinate former president Bush, this is foiled and Clinton allows a limited retaliatory strike. Clinton it feels can do little wrong in Clarke’s eyes.The book does suffer slightly from a “I was right all along” sense. How much of this was hindsight, how fair is it to look back to the 1990s and say we should have seen all this coming? For instance keeping US troops in Saudi Arabia seemed the right thing to do at the time, what was Richard Clarke’s view on that and how much did he see that as stoking anger against the US in the middle east? Clinton had 8 years in office, Bush had less than 1, yet he takes much of the blame in Clarke’s view for failing to take down Al-Qaeda.The rest of the book continues on through the 1990s. Bin Laden by this point with in the Sudan, exporting arms and financing terror in Egypt, the Philippines and Bosnia. Clarke oddly though claims Bosnia was a US success, though I’m not sure I agree with that. After much pressure Bin Laden switched location to Afghanistan. The military and the CIA under Clinton were reluctant to take action, seeing any mission to take him out as a risky anti terror opp on hostile foreign soil. There were even concerns it might be illegal too. Nor was there an appetite to invade and try to occupy Afghanistan. Russia had been there for over 10 years and taken heavy casualties, never fully controlling the country. By 1996/7 the CIA was looking into plans to snatch Bin Laden from Afghanistan, even drawing up plans to land on a small dirt airplane strip. It was decided thought the compounds he was staying in were too well guarded and casualties would be high.Meanwhile back on US homeland Clake had a great fear that there might be a bio weapon attack or a chemical attack. It was clear to him that many cities were unprepared, committees squabbled over funding and many mayors were not interested in the threat. The writer describes how he pushed hard for increased funding, rehearsals for attacks, a fire truck that could decontaminate an underground station and hundreds of people all at once. We then push forward to 1998 with US embassies bombed in Africa. Clarke pushed hard for a strong retaliation, cruise missiles strikes were launched by Clinton against terror camps in Afghanistan, though Clarke believes the build up of ships near Pakistan allowed Pakistan to tip off the Taliban that the strikes were being launched. Clarke even believed that Pakistan army intelligence officers may have been embedded in the Taliban at the time. Equally Pakistan would not have allowed US planes to fly over it’s airspace on the way to bomb targets in Afghanistan. Cruise missiles though take hours from being fired to hitting their targets, often the surprise is lost. Helicopter raids were also ruled out too. Instead Clarke then describes himself looking at how to cut off the finances of the terror group. This involved difficult conversations with the Saudis, Clarke describes the FBI as slow to respond, feeling themselves to be bound by the law, the CIA was also experiencing a culture of not getting to grips with the issue. Drones were launched over Afghanistan, but back in the late 90s they had no weaponry.Next came the bombing of a US ship in Yemen while in port, killing 17 US sailors. Security in Yemen was poor and Clarke was furious the ship had chosen to dock there. Terror camps in Afghanistan were not bombed though and Clarke saw this as a missed chance. The location of Bin Laden was also unknown. Intelligence was very poor, they often found out after where he had been staying, but never where he would be in say 3 days time. President Clinton was now out of time and election brought a new administration into power.Clarke seemed to find himself with reduced influence in the new administration, few people took his warnings seriously, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice all missed his warnings he claims. Meetings he asked for urgently were delayed. The new administration was more concerned about Iraq, not a terror organisation few people had ever heard of. A plan was suggested to put pressure on Pakistan and to finance the Northern Alliance. The director of the CIA though seemed to be on board with Clarke’s view. In the months leading up to 9-11 information wasn’t shared properly which should have prevented the attacks.Clarke then sets out what the US response should have been after the attacks. Bush should concentrated firstly on tightening up homeland vulnerabilities. Next Al-Qaeda should have been vigorously pursued and destroyed it’s funding cut off while Bush travelled the middle east, rallying support for the US and urging the Islamic world to unite against terror.What in fact followed was in invasion of Iraq which according to Clarke inflamed world opinion against America, the motives for war always shifting. Bush declared you were either with him or against him, meanwhile new departments were created, security became messy, departments began competing with no clear focus or overall leadership. Clarke makes it clear though he still believes in the civil rights and liberties of it’s citizens. He doesn’t want to see suspects arrested and held without trial or access to a lawyer. To his dismay the US government was also slashing funding by 2003 for police and fire departments, right at the wrong moment.Clarke views the war on terror as a battle of ideas, a new ideological mission is needed he writes to spread American ideas of plurality, democracy and capitalism. Clarke accepts that in the late 90s Clinton signed into law that regime change would become US policy. Still he feels this is not a justification for invasion. Efforts by the US government to link the war on terror and 9-11 with Iraq appalled Clarke, though Bush later did admit there was no evidence Iraq was involved in 9-11. Clarke feels strongly that the US failed to properly deploy troops quickly into Afghanistan in a search and destroy mission. The Taliban and it’s allies were able to slip away to the mountains to regroup, while the US held back it’s forces for an invasion of Iraq instead. The book claims this actually then overstretched the US army, a further mistake was then disbanding the Iraqi army, many of whom did not resist initially the US invasion, pensions were removed, a huge mistake he claims. Now the US had 100,000 trained armed hostile Iraqi fighters ready to go after them. The book though finishes with an apology that 9-11 was allowed to happen. The book makes it pretty clear that president Clinton was a good president who took it all very seriously, any failures Clarke feels is because he was let down by his military and CIA, where as Bush did not treat the threat seriously enough and took the wrong actions after the attack.All in all a pretty good read, partly 1st person account, but also very descriptive and providing lots of context and background information. The book is also very early 2000s, things have changed quite a bit now in the Middle East. Iraq in 2021 is in quite a different state to the country at the time this book was being written. While the threat to the US from Islamic terror attacks has not gone away, there has not been another big one either.

I only bought it to read the lies. I wasnt disappointed. Cant believe they still pushing this false narrative.

Good reading

Very interesting to read which reasons the government had to downplay the al-qaida threat. And fascinating to look into the machine of state that is geared to create saftey for the nation. so many nuts and bolts are not aligned that one wonders how long it will take before another terrorist attack. Written by an astonished insider.

Excellent read! Very detailed analysis from the only man who could tell this story.