"The Bush administration has squandered the opportunity to eliminate al Qaeda....A new al Qaeda has emerged
and is growing stronger, in part because of our own actions and inactions. It is in many ways a tougher opponent
than the original threat we faced before September 11, and we are not doing what is necessary to make America safe
from that threat."
No one has more authority to make that claim than Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar for both Bill
Clinton and George W. Bush. The one person who knows more about Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda than anyone else in
this country, he has devoted two decades of his professional life to combating terrorism. Richard Clarke served
seven presidents and worked inside the White House for George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush until
he resigned in March 2003. He knows, better than anyone, the hidden successes and failures of the Clinton years.
He knows, better than anyone, why we failed to prevent 9/11. He knows, better than anyone, how President Bush reacted
to the attack and what happened behind the scenes in the days that followed. He knows whether or not Iraq presented
a terrorist threat to the United States and whether there were hidden costs to the invasion of that country.
Most disturbing of all are Clarke's revelations about the Bush administration's lack of interest in al Qaeda prior
to September 11. From the moment the Bush team took office and decided to retain Clarke in his post as the counterterrorism
czar, Clarke tried to persuade them to take al Qaeda as seriously as had Bill Clinton. For months, he was denied
the opportunity even to make his case to Bush. He encountered key officials who gave the impression that they had
never heard of al Qaeda; who focused incessantly on Iraq; who even advocated long-discredited conspiracy theories
about Saddam's involvement in previous attacks on the United States.
Clarke was the nation's crisis manager on 9/11, running the Situation Room -- a scene described here for the first
time -- and then watched in dismay at what followed. After ignoring existing plans to attack al Qaeda when he first
took office, George Bush made disastrous decisions when he finally did pay attention. Coming from a man known as
one of the hard-liners against terrorists, Against All Enemies is both a powerful history of our two-decades-long
confrontation with terrorism and a searing indictment of the current administration.