Anyone have the book "The Clinton Wars"?

[paulthompson]

I'm looking for a quote along these lines (below is from the author of that book):

When we left office, the Clinton national security officials held several lengthy briefings for the incoming Bush administration, warning that terrorism was an imminent danger. I reveal in The Clinton Wars that Don Kerrick, a three-star general, who was our last deputy national security adviser, stayed on for several months into the new Bush administration, and sent its national security officials a memo stated: "We will be hit again." Kerrick said that his memo was ignored. "They were not focusing," he told me. "They didn't see terrorism as the big mega-issue that the Clinton administration saw it."

Can anyone give me the exact quote and page number in the book, cos I don't have the book. I'd like to add that to the timeline.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

1. here ya go

'Don Kerrick, a three-star general and outgoing national security adviser, overlapped for four months with the new Bush people. He submitted a memo for the new National Security Council warning of the danger of terrorism. "We are going to be struck again," he wrote. But as Kerrick explaiend to me, he received no answer to his memo. "They didn't respond," he said. "They never responded. It was not high on their priority list. I was never invited to one meeting. They never asked me to do anything. They were not focusing. They didn't see terrorism as the big megaissue that the Clinton administration saw it as. They were concentrated on what they thought were higher priorities than terrorism." The Principals meeting of national security officials took up terrorism only once, after constant pressure from Clarke, on September 4th, 2001, and at that meeting they discussed using unmanned Predator drone spy aircraft, but no decision was made. "Unfortunately," said Kerrick, "September 11 gave them something to focus on."'

p796-7

[paulthompson]

2. Thanks a lot!

That'll come in handy for my next update.

[DulceDecorum]

3. Isn't DU

Wonderful?
:bounce:

[paulthompson]

4. Yep. Speaking of help...

Does anyone have this one, from the Age of Sacred Terror?

The new Bush Treasury Department "disapproved of the Clinton Administration's approach to money laundering issues, which had been an important part of the drive to cut off the money flow to bin Laden." Specifically, the Bush Administration opposed Clinton Administration-backed efforts by the G-7 and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that targeted countries with "loose banking regulations" being abused by terrorist financiers. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration provided "no funding for the new National Terrorist Asset Tracking Center."

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

5. collector of Clinton-era books at your rescue :)

'While the interagency negotiations continued for the policy review, established efforts to counter terrorism were in trouble elsewhere in the administration. At the Treasury, Secretary Paul O'Neill disapproved of the Clinton administration's approach to money laundering issues, which had been an important part of the drive to cut off the money flow to bin Laden. Prodded by the Clinton administration, the G-7, the multilateral Financial Action Task Force, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development had developed programs that sought to embarrass countries with loose banking regulations into tightening them up, making it more difficult for money launderers. As a result, more than thirty countries began working with these organizations to clean up their banking sectors. But O'Neill and others in the administration, supported by conservatives and some banking groups, opposed the crackdown as "coercive" and contrary to American interests. Nor was there any interest in tracking terrorist assets. Clinton had pushed in his final budget for the creation of a National Terrorist Asset Tracking Center; on paper the new entity was supposed to be getting organized. Under O'Neill, no funding for the center was provided and the work on terrorist finances slowed.

p339

they cite for the whole paragraph

Adam Cohen "Banking on Secrecy", Time 22nd Oct 2001

and

William F Wechsler "Follow the Money", Foreign Affairs July-Aug 2001

[paulthompson]

6. Thanks again!

You know, since you're being so helpful :), I won't have any time soon to read the Clinton Wars - is there anything else really interesting and 9/11 related in there? I understand he talks some about how the Republicans stifled some of Clinton's anti-terrorism efforts?

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

8. ...

'Military leaders who remained in office in the Bush administration saw terrorism moving "further to the back burner," as Hugh Shelton put it. "The squeaky wheel was Dick Clarke, but he wasn't at the top of their priority list, so the lights went out for a few months. Dick did a pretty good job because he's abrasive as hell, but given the level he was at" therewas no breaking through into the new team's field of vision.
Under Shelton, the Joint Chiefs had not come up with more military options. There was still a strong belief that al-Qaeda was first and foremost an intelligence problem, but the Chiefs were frustrated by the lack of CIA "information operations" - actually disinformation operations - to create dissent among teh Taliban. In the last year of the Clinton administration, the Joint Chiefs started developing a project of their own, which they planned to launch in 2001. But when they were briefed, thge Pentagon's new leaders killed the project. "Rumsfeld Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz were agaisnt the Joint Staff having the lead on this," says Shelton. The two had been pruning away tasks that the armed forces had taken on in recent years, but that they did not consider to be military missions, and the disinformation project was one of those trimmed. In the early months of the administration, Rumsfeld's attention was on military doctrine, inclusing the existing guidelines that US forces needed to be able to fight two major theater wars, for example in the PErsian Gulf and on teh Korean peninsula, almost simultaneously. Missile defense and military restructuring were the key issues. According to Shelton, "this terrorism thing was out there," as far as Rumsfeld was concerned, "but it didn't happen today, so maybe it belongs lower on the list ... so it gets defused over a long period of time."'

p335-6

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

9. I'll have a skim through later today, but

I don't remember anything "new" in there. He talks about the whole "wag the dog" problem Clinton had in launching missile strikes & also the Republican congress blocking post-Oklahoma anti-terrorism legislation but I think both of these are covered more extensively in Richard Clarke's book.

[paulthompson]

7. Also

While I've got you, what about this one from a summary of the Age of Sacred Terror:

The most damaging remarks came from Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until Oct. 1, 2001. Shelton told us that in the Bush administration terrorism had moved "farther to the back burner." He also recounted how the Joint Chiefs of Staff, frustrated at the lack of progress in dealing with Al Qaeda, had begun a disinformation program in the last year of the Clinton administration to create dissent within the Taliban. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz shut it down. Counterterrorism, the new leadership felt, was not a military mission.

--

I have "farther to the back burner" quote but would like to know more about the stifling of this disinfo program.