Summary
As was thoroughly predictable in this election year, the September 11 commission's hearings and surrounding commentary have rapidly degenerated into an exercise in monumental finger-pointing.
Hoping to undermine President Bush's national security credentials, many Democrats, and a large chunk of the media, have sought to exonerate the Clinton administration, which failed to deal with al Qaeda over its eight years in office. Their claim is that, unlike the incoming Bush administration, Clinton officials had at least appreciated the strategic predicament al Qaeda presented. They agonized about it, held many long meetings devoted to the subject and tried to push a recalcitrant and ossified national security bureaucracy "to shake the trees," in Richard A. Clarke's vernacular.See the full content of this document
Extract
Shaking the Trees ; Gorelick's Smoking Gun
Leaving aside the question of whether the quality of one's statecraft should be judged by the same emphatic criteria as personal relationships, rather than by the actual policy outcomes, a just-declassified Clinton-era memo delivers a devastating blo...
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