More on Clarke from that April 2, 2000 Washington Post article:

“After the bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment buildings used by U.S.

military personnel in Saudi Arabia in June 1996, associates say, Clarke

prepared a memo for Clinton arguing that Iran was behind the attack. Much to

his annoyance, then-national security adviser Anthony Lake quashed the memo

on the grounds that the case against Iran was circumstantial at best.

(Evidence subsequently provided by the Saudis has convinced many U.S.

intelligence officials that Clarke’s instincts were right.)

“…As the millennium countdown continued, the Clarke team moved its

operations to the Y2K Center at 1800 G St. NW, where they set up a secure

communications facility. Most of the team was dressed informally, but Clarke

wore a tuxedo. Shortly after midnight, he received a congratulatory phone

call from Sandy Berger, who was at the Lincoln Memorial with Clinton. “It’s

still too early to celebrate,” Clarke told Berger, referring to fears that

the terrorist cell linked to an Algerian arrested near Seattle in

mid-December, Ahmed Ressam, might still be planning an attack on the West

Coast.

It was too early to celebrate in a larger sense as well. “It’s not enough to

be in a cat-and-mouse game, warning about his plots,” Clarke says, referring

to bin Laden. “If we keep that up, we will someday fail. We need to

seriously think about doing more. Our goal should be to so erode his network

of organizations that they no longer pose a serious threat.””

So it sounds like Clarke was saying the right things back in the ’90s and

before 9/11. But today he seems to have no recognition of what the world, or

domestic political reaction would be, had Bush attempted to “erode bin

Laden’s network” by invading Afghanistan in early 2001. The anti-war

movement we see today would be defending the Taliban as victims of

unilateral, preemptive, American imperialism. U.S. troops would still be in

Saudi Arabia, Saddam would still be in power, and much of the world would

believe America was attacking Osama “for no good reason”, based on a vague

threat of future attacks that could never be verified.

Hey, did Leslie Stahl ask Clarke if he still thinks Iran was behind the

Khobar Towers attack?

If they were, would that justify… “post-emptive” U.S. retaliatory strikes

against Tehran?