Nah, Richard Clarke was just the head of a committee. The chiefs were working on a draft, and suggested that Clarke go work on the deputy level.
The deputies felt that Al-Qaeda was tied in with a host of other issues, and that instead of handling this threat separately, it should be included in the package of a long series of meetings to formalize an appropriate Iraqi policy.
Clarke was so annoyed at the bureaucracy that he resigned and decided to work on cyber-terrorism instead.
It's worth pointing out that what was known was very shallow. The original attack was originally thought to be months earlier, which was later thought to be postponed for an indeterminate series of months. Further, they didn't know where the attack would take place; the most likely target was thought to be Israel. Shit, talk about pre-emption! Attacking Al Qaeda before 9/11 would probably have been widely frowned upon. The only thing we had to go on was the sinking of the Cole, and assignment of responsibility to Al-Qaeda was just a preliminary opinion, just like Oklahoma was originally thought to be caused by foreign terrorists.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2004-03-25 08:06 am (UTC)The deputies felt that Al-Qaeda was tied in with a host of other issues, and that instead of handling this threat separately, it should be included in the package of a long series of meetings to formalize an appropriate Iraqi policy.
Clarke was so annoyed at the bureaucracy that he resigned and decided to work on cyber-terrorism instead.
It's worth pointing out that what was known was very shallow. The original attack was originally thought to be months earlier, which was later thought to be postponed for an indeterminate series of months. Further, they didn't know where the attack would take place; the most likely target was thought to be Israel. Shit, talk about pre-emption! Attacking Al Qaeda before 9/11 would probably have been widely frowned upon. The only thing we had to go on was the sinking of the Cole, and assignment of responsibility to Al-Qaeda was just a preliminary opinion, just like Oklahoma was originally thought to be caused by foreign terrorists.