My opine--He is tired of the overheated debates on the talk shows.
"In short, both administrations failed." says Clarke.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/opinion/01clarke.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=printOctober 1, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Blinded by Hindsight
By RICHARD A. CLARKE
FIVE years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, three years after the 9/11 commission report, and just weeks before a national election, the issues of what happened before those attacks have resurfaced. Suddenly, we are again witnessing heated disputes about such insignificant issues as whether the Clinton administration prepared a draft “strategy” or, alternatively, “a series of required decisions” about Al Qaeda for the incoming Bush administration.
This spectacle was set off by a partisan rewriting of history billed as a television docudrama and shown on the anniversary of the attack. Mr. Clinton, justifiably, denounced the untruths about his administration’s record.
But the effect of his comments was to send the nation’s attention in the wrong direction — toward an argument over the minutiae of what happened a decade ago rather than on an intelligent debate of what to do now. What followed was as predictable as it was unfortunate: talk shows, Web sites and others responded with a heated, partisan exchange of accusations of who did what when.
For most Americans the history is clear and well told in the 9/11 commission report: Almost 3,000 people were killed. In the years before that terrible day, the Clinton administration prevented some attacks and tried to destroy Al Qaeda and its leadership, but was unable to do so, in part because the institutional bureaucracy did not believe the magnitude of the threat.
As for the Bush administration, it deferred action on Al Qaeda until after 9/11, and then took a number of steps in response, including invading Iraq, but was also unable to destroy Al Qaeda or its leaders.
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