Rob Knight

Richard Clarke was right

February 11, 2005

Of course those of us here in the land of reality knew that. I wish the same was true in the land of cable news. But I think that might be asking too much.

Condoleezza Rice testified before the 9/11 commission that no one could have possibly known what Al Qaeda was going to do. That may be true, no one could have known. But it seems many people in the intelligence community had a pretty good idea that something big was brewing, Clarke being one of them.

Here is his memo to Rice from January 2001.

Now the appropriate question is, as it has been since September 12, 2001:

What was the administration doing to thwart al qaeda before 9/11?

There was Cheney's terrorism task force. I think they met once.

The FAA was warned, they did nothing.

Bush and Co: strong on terrorism after you're attacked.

By the way, the National Security Archive is a wonderful place to find declassified government documents. As I've mentioned before, You can find everything from Rumsfeld chumming up to Saddam while Saddam used chemical weapons on Iran.