The Rest Of The Book
Richard Blow is the former executive editor of George Magazine. He is author of American Son: A Portrait of John F. Kennedy, Jr., and is writing a book about Harvard University.
It's hard to look forward to Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission without indulging in a little schadenfreude.
After all, it was maddening to watch Rice insist that she couldn't testify under oath even as she dashed across the airwaves to throw mud at Richard Clarke. Rice tried so frenetically to smear Clarke's reputation, it'll be gratifying to see her held accountable. But enjoyable though Rice's testimony may be, I'm not sure it's the most productive exercise that could emerge from Clarke's book.
We all know by now that Against All Enemies blames Rice for ignoring Clarke's warnings about Al Qaeda. Yet the book raises a number of other issues that the media have largely overlooked. And unlike the question of affixing blame for 9/11, they pertain to our future ability to prevent terrorism.
First is the possibility of chaos at the Department of Homeland Security. Clarke argues convincingly that creating the department was exactly the wrong thing to do"that it was a politically motivated maneuver likely to increase bureaucratic disorganization exactly at the time we need our security apparatus to function smoothly. Department head Tom Ridge "opposed the idea of creating a new department and loathed the idea of its becoming its Secretary," Clarke writes.
Well, we're stuck with it now. But Congress should shine a light on its status. Already one element of it, the work once done by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, is in complete disarray. (Imagine an agency that actually functions worse than INS did.) What other parts of DHS aren't working?
Another missed opportunity in the war on terror is what Clarke calls the promotion of "a counter-weight ideology" to undermine the efficacy of Al Qaeda's appeal. The United States needed to reach out to Muslim hearts and minds just as much as it needed to capture Osama bin Laden, Clarke argues. Instead, we invaded Iraq. Still, it's not too late for the White House to reconsider how we promote ourselves to the world. A little less cowboy posturing and a good deal more humility would help.
Another source of concern, according to Clarke, is our relationships with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Neither nation is what you'd call stable, and the possibilities of a nuclear Pakistan run by Islamic extremists or the fall of the House of Saud are both plausible and chilling. Yet because of the Iraq invasion, the United States depends on the support of both nations. As Clarke argues, we need to focus on what we can do to ensure their stability, so that they don't become greater terrorist havens than they already are.
It's too late to stop 9/11 or the war in Iraq, no matter who takes the blame for not stopping the first and starting the second. But it's not too late to pay attention to Richard Clarke's other warnings. Imagine the horror if one day we find ourselves looking back again and saying, 'Why didn't we listen?'
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Published: Apr 06 2004
