Brad DeLong explains what Richard Clarke is too diplomatic to say straight out:
If there is one thing clear from reading Against All Enemies, it is that Clarke is f***ing apeshit. I've never seen anyone so apeshit. Clarke had thought he was leading a successful counterterrorism effort against al Qaeda, and then at the start of 2001 these idiot neocon Cold Warriors came in and messed everything up with bureaucratic bull****. Because the Bush administration blocked his plans, September 11, 2001 happens and 3,000 Americans die. And then the White House takes 911 as a poiltical football and runs with it. And then it uses 911 as a phony excuse to launch a war on Iraq that—in Clarke's estimation—greatly strengthens al Qaeda.
And I had thought that Paul O'Neill was mad at and disgusted with the George W. Bush administration…
Actually, by all accounts, Clarke just uses nicer words to say it.
