Through dumb luck, I walked into Border Books at the Desert Ridge Mall in North Phoenix this afternoon and stumbled upon Richard A. Clarke, giving a lecture and book signing for his latest release,
The Scorpian's Gate, an as-yet fictitious thriller about the fall of the House of Saud. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Clarke, he is a former U.S. counterintelligence chief, an expert who served under four separate Administrations (Reagon, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II). He is famous for having provided
scathing testimony (subscription required) against the Bush administration at the 9/11 Commission hearings and writing the book,
Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. Mr. Clarke has been castigated repeatedly by the White House and news media and proclaimed a liar. Nearly everything Richard Clarke has written or spoken about has since proven to be true.
More below the fold ...
I arrived in time to hear hear Mr. Clarke responding to several questions from the audience, most of which focused on the lead up to the war in Iraq and how U.S. intelligence is normally gathered. I'll paraphrase below some of the interesting points he made (apologies for my phrasing and any other unintentional word mangling):
In response to uncovering the truth about the intelligence gathered prior to the war, he reminded the audience that this has yet to be properly investigated. The report, which should have been prepared over a year ago, has only now been demanded by Senate Democrats. His thoughts were that the investigation would eventually reveal how much information was at our disposal.
He also talked about how it has never been this country's practice to take another's country's word for anything and that would include former officials. [My take on this comment: Chalabi -- Why did the administration put such faith in him?] In fact, he went on to say, that's why we have 2,500 or so intelligence agents working for the U.S. government. Did we believe the Shah of Iran when he told us all was well and that the Iranian people were perfectly content under his Regime? In comparison, today, should we take the word of the Saudi rulers that their people are content, or should we be concerned that they might go the way of Al Qaeda given some of the acts of violence and discontent we've seen in the last couple of years?
In answer to a question regarding Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Clarke paused. He said that his answer could best be introduced by way of a short story. He asked the audience to recall the Pink Panther movies starring Peter Sellers. In one of those movies, Inspector Clouseau enters a hotel and walks through the lobby where a large dog is resting under the check-in desk. It growls menacingly at him. He asks the inn keeper, "Does your dog bite?" "No," the man responds. Clouseau then reaches to pet the dog whereupon the animal launches itself into the air and impales its fans into his hip. Clouseau stands there, with the dog firmly attached and suspended parallel from his body. "I thought you said your dog does not bite," he accuses. "That is not my dog," the inn keeper replies. And so, Clarke continued, that is exactly the situation with WMDs in Iraq. We asked, "Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction?" What we should have asked is, "How many does Iraq have?" The answer would have been "very few." We should have asked, "Is there any evidence that Iraq would use them directly against us." To these questions, we would have found no evidence that there was any threat to the United States, certainly not enough to justify an preemptive invasion. Mr. Clarke went on to note that there are at least 24 countries that have some form of WMDs. We have yet to attack these countries and many of them would be much more capable of directly attacking against us if they wished to do so.
One question was specific to Mr. Wilkerson's recent statements (former chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell). Mr. Clarke commented that it is clear from the statements made by both Powell and Wilkerson, that there was never a formal meeting where a decision to invade Iraq was made. Rather, it has always been the intent of this Administration to invade Iraq.
Powerful stuff. I was not able to stay for the entire lecture, but the portion I heard was excellent. Mr. Clarke is an able speaker and addressed questions in a well-reasoned and articulate manner. The questioners all appeared to be people genuinely interested in understanding how we could have gone to war against Iraq, given what we know now. They are asking the obvious question: How could our intelligence gathering fail us so miserably? Lone voices like Clarke's have tried to tell us again and again: It was not the intelligence that failed us, but rather the Bush administration. And just down the street, at my local bookstore, the American public is finally putting the pieces together and reaching the same conclusion.