March 23, 2004 NY TIMES EDITORIAL

Debating 9/11

Richard Clarke is an angry man. Mr. Clarke, the former counterterrorism coordinator for the Bush and Clinton administrations, seemed to be seething during an interview on the CBS News program "60 Minutes" on Sunday night, when he said the president had "done a terrible job on the war against terrorism." The more colorful anecdotes he offered up in support of that judgment are bound to be cited over and over in the presidential campaign — like his contention that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld argued for post-9/11 strikes against Iraq rather than the Taliban's Afghanistan by saying "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan."

Mr. Clarke is scheduled to testify this week before the special presidential commission investigating the 9/11 attacks, as are members of the Clinton administration who warned top Bush officials during the transfer of power about the terrorism threat. The hearings are sure to produce fireworks — both from Mr. Bush's critics and his defenders, who will demand to know why the Democratic administration didn't act more aggressively against Al Qaeda if the Clinton White House was so aware of the threat it posed to the United States.

Since the hearing is taking place during a presidential campaign, it's unlikely that a spirit of bipartisan decorum will prevail. Nevertheless, it's good to bring this debate out in the open. The memories of Sept. 11, 2001, are still so raw that it has been hard to regard anything about that terrible day as a subject for political debate. But now President Bush is running for re-election on his record in responding to the terrorist attack, and that transition needs to take place.

Richard Clarke has served honorably under presidents of both parties, going back to Ronald Reagan. His words are very much worth listening to, but it's not necessary to find all of his criticisms of the current administration equally persuasive. Mr. Clarke's central complaint — that the president failed to respond to his urgent request for a cabinet-level meeting on terrorism until days before 9/11 — is far from conclusive evidence that the administration failed to take the threat seriously until disaster struck. (Sam Note: Bull$#@*! The president dumped the bipartisan Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security's recommendations, almost a three year study on exactly the threats such as 9/11 prior to the attacks and then congress RUSHED most of it into law afterwards. Conclusion: Bush ineptly handled national security when given a chance to do something right about it when handled to him on a BIPARTISAN silver platter. Hell, he could have also proven to be a "uniter" as he campaigned but we all know what a lie that was.)

The most persuasive part of the critique by the former anti-terrorism czar concerns the administration's obsession with Iraq. Mr. Clarke says he and intelligence experts repeatedly assured top officials — and Mr. Bush himself — that Iraq was not involved in 9/11 or in supporting Al Qaeda. This fall, when the public has to judge Mr. Bush's decision to invade, voters will know that the president's own counterterrorism adviser had warned him that he was on the wrong track.



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