Richard Clarke also drew up the plan used in Afghanistan

[underpants]

You know the actual war on terror. This is the sort of thing that happens when you have people in office who plan and not just react.

The US began it's assault on alQaeda in Afghanistan a month to the day after the horrible attacks on 9/11. At the time I was impressed with how quickly W&Co. were able to put this together (though we know that Rummy and Wolfowitz wanted to use that day as an excuse to attack Iraq) but we now know that plans such as that take longer than 30 days to put together even if it doesn't include a lot of armor and mostly foot soldiers. Clarke, who was a holdover from the Clinton administration and advisor to four presidents, presented the plan in January 2001 but like with anything Clinton was brushed off and ignored under the guise of "policy review". Well low and behold when they needed to act they dusted off the plan and acted like they came up with it, just like they take credit (and are given credit) for their abject failure leading up to 9/11.

Here is the story.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,769399,00.html

Monday August 5, 2002

The Bush administration sat on a Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing president and competing priorities, it was reported yesterday.

The plan, under which special forces troops would have been sent after Osama bin Laden, was drawn up in the last days of the Clinton administration but a decision was left to the incoming Bush team.

At the key briefing, Mr Clarke presented proposals to "roll back" al-Qaida which closely resemble the measures taken after September 11. Its financial network would be broken up and its assets frozen. Vulnerable countries like Uzbekistan, Yemen and the Philippines would be given aid to help them stamp out terrorist cells.

But the Time report quotes Bush officials as well as Clinton aides as confirming the seriousness of the Clarke plan. The sources said it was treated the same way as all policies inherited from the Clinton era, and subjected to a lengthy "policy review process".

[sadiesworld]

1. Of course they are now trying to portray him as some kind of

whacked-out opportunist.

[underpants]

2. I was wondering how they would try to paint him

Just like O'Neill who have a guy with impressive creditials who had worked for several Presidents coming out with insider information on the inner workings of this crowd of clowns and immediately they have try to discredit him somehow. They don't argue with what is said they just crank up the "politics of personal destruction" machinery.

What cowards.

[sadiesworld]

3. What is pretty funny is Bushco's charge that part of Clarke's motivation

is sour grapes b/c they decided (unlike Clinton)that the position of counterterrorism czar wasn't cabinet-level worthy!