Condi Rice etc.
Probably Condi Rice's best line yesterday (to former Senator Bob Kerrey):
"I'm aware, Mr. Kerrey, of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the Cole and to the memories was to do something about the threat of Saddam Hussein. That's a strategic view," she said slyly as some in the room applauded and laughed. "And we took the strategic view."
Instapundit has also noted this part of her remarks, and he links to a similar quote (thanks to Tom Maguire, tracking down the speech in question) by Kerrey.
It is worth remembering that many intelligent Americans reacted to 9/11 by saying: Arabs from the Middle East have attacked us. Let's take out Saddam Hussein.
It wasn't just Bush and the neo-cons.
Update: On the other hand, part of Richard Clarke's charges (as self-serving as they are) seems to be holding up. When there was a flurry of reports of impending terrorist action in December 1999, Clinton made it clear he was going to keep asking Cabinet Secretaries about it--Clarke was coordinating the meetings. Rather than keep saying what Condi Rice just said under oath--the reports are either vague or lacking in details that are needed for specific action; problems in communication are structural; we have more information about history than we do expert recommendations for action; we haven't been told what to do--Clinton's Secretaries pushed their staff to dig up any and all relevant specifics--"shake the tree." This effort seems to have prevented an attack at the time, and a similar effort might--stress on might--have prevented the 9/11 attacks. See Fred Kaplan in Slate, Kevin Drum, and Matthew Yglesias.
Instead of any such effort, Rice's proud boast is that a full report was being prepared, and in fact it was ready a day or two before 9/11. No other issue received the treatment of a full report that took months to prepare--not Iraq, not missile defence, only Al Qaeda. But amongst the Bushies, with a president who is not known as a great reader, is the "long report that takes months" an indication of a high priority? Isn't it rather an indication that an issue has been pushed into limbo?
I would guess that in that crowd long reports are for sissies. Give Dick Clarke something to do. Real people (mostly men) of action just act.
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