Word: partisans
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...Neither side in the partisan wrangling over 9/11 has shown much interest in exploring the origins of al-Qaeda, and the lessons that may be learned from it. That may be because the practice of relying on and empowering dodgy elements as allies and proxies in America's wars remains a strategic staple. Saddam Hussein became an enemy of Washington only after he invaded Kuwait in 1990; in the early 1980s the same tyrant had been supported by the Reagan administration in his war against Iran, then Washington's most immediate foe in the Muslim world. More recently, in Afghanistan...
...book." Cheney added, "I don't know the guy that well ... but judging based on what I've seen, I don't hold him in high regard." Other Bush figures accused Clarke, who is a friend of Kerry's chief foreign policy adviser, Rand Beers, of being partisan. Describing Clarke's apology for 9/11, a Bush adviser remarked, "It's political bulls___. It's great political bulls___, but it's political." The lead charge against Clarke was that he had changed his story over time (see box). Clarke had anticipated the assault, telling 60 Minutes, "They'll launch their dogs...
...does the claim that Clarke is partisan satisfy. He voted for Republican Senator John McCain in the 2000 presidential primary, he told Salon. He promised the 9/11 commission he would not take a job with a John Kerry administration, if there is one. "He is very smart. He is abrasively aggressive, and he is wholly self-centered," says a senior Republican who has worked with Clarke. But, he adds, "he is not partisan...
...While Clarke claims that he is "an independent" not driven by partisan motives, it's hard not to read some passages in his book as anything but shrill broadsides. In his descriptions of Bush aides, he discerns their true ideological beliefs not in their words but in their body language: "As I briefed Rice on al-Qaeda, her facial expression gave me the impression she had never heard the term before." When the cabinet met to discuss al-Qaeda on Sept. 4, Rumsfeld "looked distracted throughout the session." As for the President, Clarke doesn't even try to read Bush...
...Leaving aside the fact that Bush never fails to insist that the terror threat is as great today as it was on 9/11, these passages reveal the polemical, partisan mean-spiritedness that lies at the heart of Clarke's book, and to an even greater degree, his television appearances flacking it. That's a shame, since many of his contentions - about the years of political and intelligence missteps that led to 9/11, the failure of two Administrations to destroy al-Qaeda and the potentially disastrous consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq - deserve a wide and serious airing. From...