Author Archives: jsh54

The Affordable Courts Act (ACA).

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The Affordable Care Act offered the states the opportunity to create health insurance exchanges, but then set up barriers to states actually creating such exchanges insurance. To create its’ own exchange, a state had to create a new state-paid staff to set up and operate the exchange: run a call center to explain the plans, regulate the plans offered by the private insurance companies, and set up the web-site through which people select their insurance. All this would cost money[1] and require some horse-trading in the legislature that could mess up other deals. Recognizing this, the federal government created a pool of money to subsidize the creation of state exchanges. The continuing costs would fall on the states. Moreover, many state legislatures were in the hands of Republicans who were opposed to the whole thing to begin with. It should surprise no one that thirty-four–about two thirds–of state legislatures opted to let the federal government carry the weight. Thus, most people buy their insurance through federal exchanges, rather than through state exchanges.[2]

Recently, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to one provision of the ACA. The case of King v. Burwell turns on the meaning of the language in the ACA regarding subsidies for people who purchase insurance through the exchanges. Do subsidies go only to people who purchase insurance on state-created exchanges or do they go to all exchanges, state and federal alike?[3] The Supreme Court will issue an opinion on the case in June 2015.

In a subtle bit of propagandizing the court, Margot Sanger-Katz recently penned a story in the New York Times that explains the likely consequences of a Court decision restricting the subsidies to state-created exchanges.[4] First, subsidies would end in the thirty-four federal government-created exchanges. This would drive up the cost for many insurance consumers beyond what they could afford. The individual mandate to purchase health insurance, a corner-stone of the ACA, could not be maintained if insurance costs rose dramatically. Second, any effort to replace the federal exchanges with state exchanges would involve an immense amount of work in a restricted period of time.

The Court will probably issue its opinion in June 2015. October is the enrollment month, so states would have from June to October (about four months) to create exchanges. Only eight states will have legislatures in session in June. This may cut down the time for legislative action to the extent that is necessary. It took three years to create the original exchanges. They turned out to be plagued with what the Obama Administration is pleased to call “glitches.” Doubtless people have learned a lot from the first round of experiences. The trouble is that one of those lessons is that it isn’t possible to create an exchange over-night. States will have to hire teams of people to create and manage the exchanges. They will have to find the additional money (see fn. 1 below) somewhere in the middle of a fiscal year. They will have to find the people somewhere. (I foresee a big money harvest for Massachusetts health insurance professionals.) Then computer programs will have to be purchased and adapted to suit the needs of each new state exchange. There is a good chance that chaos will reign for a time if the Court overturns subsidies for federal exchanges.

This leads me to believe that Chief Justice John Roberts will side with the Democratic appointees on the Court and against the four Justices who have always opposed the ACA.

Or, already existing state exchanges could start enrolling residents of other states as well. You can go to another state’s public colleges and universities if you pay out-of-state tuition. Why can’t insurance customers pay out-of-state premiums? Not a lot higher. Just enough to create a positive revenue stream.

[1] One current estimate of the cost to establish a single state exchange is about $40 to $60 million. Then the annual operating cost would be added on that. Obviously not the end of the world, but a hard sell to state legislatures in the middle of a recession.

[2] President Obama’s unilateral abandonment of the “public option” looks worse and worse all the time—in retrospect. Lots of human decisions look worse in retrospect.

[3] To an ignorant—Republican—layman like myself, the answer is clear. Congress did not pass an enormous and complicated piece of legislation with the intent that it should fail. Congress did not intend that subsidies be restricted to the state-created exchanges when it was creating the federal exchanges as a back-up system. Congress intended both forms of exchanges to receive subsidies. End of story.

[4] Margot Sanger-Katz, “Many States Unprepared to Set Up Health Exchanges,” NYT, 11 December 2014.

 

“The Battle of Algiers” (1966).

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Saadi Yacef was born in Algiers, the capital city of Algeria, in 1928. He learned the trade of baker, but didn’t learn to read or write. Yacef became involved in nationalist politics from 1945 on. From 1947 to 1949 he was a member of a secret nationalist para-military organization. The French stomped on this organization. Escaping the round-up, Yacef went to France for three years. While working as a baker, he thought a lot about what he had learned about conspiracy. He returned to Algiers in 1952. When the Algerian war for independence broke out in 1954, Yacef joined up. From May 1956 to September 1957 he commanded the Algerian nationalist forces inside the city of Algiers. The French captured him in September 1957, then kept him in prison until the end of the war in 1962. In prison he purportedly wrote a memoir of the Battle of Algiers. That memoir became the basis for the screen-play of the movie “The Battle of Algiers.”

Enter Gillo Pontecorvo, who was born in Pisa, Italy, in 1919. Well-off, Jewish, and trained in science, Pontecorvo fled Mussolini’s Italy for France in 1938. While scratching out a living as a journalist, he met a lot of interesting people in Paris and got started in the movie business. After the Second World War broke out, Pontecorvo returned to Italy to join the Communist Party and the Resistance movement. He led the Communist Party’s resistance organization in Milan from 1943 to 1945, so he knew a good deal about living on the run and blowing up things. After the war, Pontecorvo taught himself to make movies. He remained a Communist until 1956, and never stopped being a “man on the Left.” His movies had a strong anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist strain in them. So he was a natural for the Algerians who were seeking a director to tell the story of their war against the French.

Pontecorvo had his own style. He shot the movie in black-and-white. He shot it on location, with the eager assistance of the post-colonial Algerian government. The combined effect is to make it look like a documentary. He liked using amateurs, whose faces looked right for the scene, rather than professional actors. (His one exception in this movie was Jean Martin, a former member of the French Resistance and a paratrooper in the Indo-China War, who plays the commander of the French paratroopers.) You can see he had watched a lot of Eisenstein.

Colonel Mathieu, the para commander is a composite of several real French officers (Jacques Massu, Marcel Bigeard, Yves Godard). Many of the other leading characters are based on real people: Andre Achiary (the mustached police officer), Ali “la Pointe” Ammar, “le petit Omar,” Hassiba Ben Bouali, Djamila Bouhired (who later married Klaus Barbie’s defense attorney), and Zohra Drif (actually Yacef’s girlfriend at the time). Some of them are still living.

The movie came out in 1966. The French government banned it for five years; Fidel Castro’s Cuba awarded it a big prize. So that’s a wash. The movie deserves to be evaluated in its own right as a work of art. More to our purposes is the reception it has received from professionals in the insurgency line of work. Andreas Baader, one leader of a 1970s German terrorist group, claimed it was his favorite movie. Israeli audiences flocked to see the movie in 1988 when it was shown at the same time as the Palestinian “First Intifada” broke out. In Summer 2003, shortly after completion of the major military operations phase of the Iraq War, the US DoD’s Directorate for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict sponsored several showings of the movie in the Pentagon. So, a lot of people at the sharp end of the business thought that it had some lessons to teach. What are they?

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XIX.

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The “planes operation” called for a large group of “muscle hijackers” to seize the cockpits of airliners in flight, then bar to door to any rebellious passengers while the smaller number of pilots flew the planes into buildings.

The “muscle hijackers” all obtained new passports in their home countries, then during September, October, and November 2000, obtained visas to enter the United States. (p. 340.) The muscle hijackers were back in Afghanistan from late 2000/early 2001 until Spring 2001. In Afghanistan they were given advanced training on terrorism, much—but not all–of which dealt with seizing control of an airplane in flight. (pp. 341-342.)

In April, May, and June 2001 the muscle hijackers began being moved toward the United States. (pp. 341-342.) In early July 2001 Midhar, the original hijacker who had bailed out for a time, returned to the United States. (p. 344.) Upon arrival in the United States, most of the muscle hijackers were brought to Florida. They seem to have spent their time going to gyms to work out. Thus, the muscle hijackers were in the United States from April through August 2001 at the longest. Three to five months for something to go wrong for al Qaeda; three to five months for the US government to notice something odd about twenty foreigners.

During Spring and Summer 2001 the pilots made several reconnaissance flights. Some of these were across the United States in the same type of planes they would command during the final attack; others were in small aircraft along the “Hudson Corridor” air route that passes Manhattan. (pp. 352-353.) They also did a lot of practice flying in small planes.

In June 2001 UBL pressed KSM to attack in June or July 2001, possibly to coincide with a visit to Washington by Ariel Sharon, but KSM resisted this pressure. (p. 360.) Instead, in July 2001 the “planes operation” had to be postponed until September 2001 because of another glitch (probably the uncertainty over one of the pilits, Zaid Jarrah). (p. 360.) Jarrah differed from the other hijackers in a number of ways and he also resented the domineering Atta; by July 2001 the conflict between the two men aroused concern that Jarrah might back out of the operation. (pp. 352-353.) In late July 2001 Jarrah returned to Germany with a one-way ticket purchased by his girl-friend in Germany.

In early July 2001 Mohammad Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh met in Spain to confer on last details. Atta was trying to co-ordinate four transcontinental air flights that would be departing almost simultaneously from East Coast cities. Moreover, Atta was aware that national leaders were usually on vacation in August and therefore out of Washington, DC. He wanted to delay the attack until early September. (p. 356.) NB: Atta wanted to kill a lot of members of Congress.

On 10 July 2001 Zacarias Moussaoui arranged to take renewed flight training in Egan, Minnesota, with the course scheduled to run from 13 to 20 August 2001. In late July 2001 Binalshibh wire transferred $15,000 to Moussaoui. (p. 354.) On 10 August 2001 Moussaoui left Oklahoma for Minnesota; on 13 August 2001 he began his simulator training, but aroused the suspicion of his instructors; several days later he was arrested by the INS. (pp. 354-355.)

Then things began to move forward for the operation. In the first half of August 2001 Jarrah returned to the United States to assume his place as one of the pilots. Moussaoui was now irrelevant. Between 29 June and 17 September 2000 Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, another nephew of KSM wire-transferred $114,500 in five tranches. (p. 324.) Between 25 August and 5 September 2001 all the plane tickets were purchased. (p. 357.) The attack would come on 11 September 2001.

 

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XVIII.

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The 9/11 Commission believes that UBL had arranged for someone in the United States to receive Hazmi and Midhar, the first two al Qaeda agents to arrive in the United States. Who were the contacts?

One likely candidate was Fahad al Thumairy, a Saudi consul in Los Angeles and an imam at the King Fahd mosque there who is believed to have been an extremist. However, there is no concrete proof. (pp. 313-314.)

The most likely candidate was Mohdar Abdullah, a Yemeni whom jailhouse snitches subsequently claimed had boasted about having foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. (p. 316.) Abdullah drove the two men from Los Angeles to San Diego, served as a translator, helped them get California driver’s licenses, helped them sign up for languages classes and flying lessons, and introduced them to his circle of friends. (pp. 318-319.) Abdullah seems to have helped Hazmi get a job at a gas station where Abdullah worked. (p. 322.)

A third possibility is Yazeed al Salmi, who only came to the United States in July or August 2000. On 5 September 2000 Hazmi deposited $1,900 of al Salmi’s travelers cheques in his own bank account and withdrew the same amount of cash; al Salmi then lived in the same apartment with Hazmi until about October, when he moved in with Abdullah. (p. 322.)

Hazmi and Midhar arrived in Los Angeles on 15 January 2000; by the end of May 2000 they had abandoned the effort to learn to fly. They could not learn English, so they could not take flying lessons. Indeed, Midhar had become homesick and flew back to Yemen to visit his family in early June 2000. Hamzi hung around the mosque, then got a part-time job in a gas station.

The plot did not seem to be going forward. Nevertheless, KSM and OBL were not easily deterred.

A group of Muslim students living in Hamburg, Germany, had become radicalized by some means that still is not clear. In late 1999, fired by a desire to join in “jihad,” four of the group had left Germany for Afghanistan. Here they were recruited by al Qaeda. The intent was to use them for the “planes operation,” but they were not told exactly what their mission would be at this time. By late January 2000 they were back in Hamburg trying to get visas for the United States; in March 2000 Mohammed Atta, the alpha dog in the group, began contacting US flight schools. (pp. 231-245.) The first three of these pilot-candidates arrived in Newark between 29 May and 27 June 2000. They soon settled in Florida, where they signed up for flying lessons. By December 2000 all three had obtained pilot’s licenses and had begun simulator training for flying very large jets. (p. 328.)

Ramzi Binalshibh, the fourth pilot, could not obtain a visa for the US in May and June 2000, so al Qaeda hunted around for a replacement.

One obvious candidate turned out to be Hani Hanjour, a Saudi with an FAA pilot’s license who was discovered to be training in one of the al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in Spring 2000. Between June and 8 December 2000 Hanjour was prepped for his mission, then sent to the United States by way of San Diego. (pp. 326-327.)

For a time, they thought that Zacarias Moussaoui also might serve. He was sent to the United States by KSM in October 2000. (pp. 325-326.) From February to late May 2001 Moussaoui took flying lessons in Norman, Oklahoma, then stopped. (p. 355.)

Between January and October 2000, al Qaeda sent seven candidate-pilots for the “planes operation” to the United States. All entered the country without hindrance.

What we learned from the Report of the 9/11 Commission XVII.

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At the end of June the CIA ordered its station chiefs to contact their liaison with host-nation services and to get disruption operations going. (pp. 370-371.) During July and August 2001 disruption operations were carried out in about twenty countries.

On 5 July 2001Clarke called in the security representatives from a bunch of domestic agencies for a security briefing from the CIA. The briefing was not particularly helpful. (pp. 371-372.) On 6 July 2001 the CIA informed Clarke that al Qaeda sources said that the next attack would be “spectacular” and unlike either the embassy bombings or the attack on the USS Cole. (p. 372.)

Then nothing happened. In mid-July 2001 CIA received reports that Bin Laden had been forced to postpone execution of, but had not abandoned, his operation. (pp. 372-373.) On 27 July 2001 Clarke told Rice that reports had stopped coming in, but that he believed that the attack would still come in the near future. (p. 373.)

On 1 August 2001 the Deputies Committee decided that it was legal for the CIA to kill Bin Laden or his henchmen. (p. 306.) On 4 August 2001 Bush wrote to Musharraf again to ask for his assistance against al Qaeda. (p. 299.) On 6 August 2001 President Bush received a Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) from the CIA which reviewed al Qaeda’s commitment to launch attacks against America and which stated that the FBI was investigating al Qaeda operations in the United States. (pp. 374-376.) Then everyone went on vacation for August.

On 4 September 2001 the Principals Committee met on al Qaeda for the first time. They approved the draft presidential directive on dealing with al Qaeda. (p. 308.) This directive established a new policy of giving the Taliban yet another “last chance,” then coercing them with covert aid to all sorts of anti-Taliban elements within Afghanistan, then working to overthrow them if they still would not play ball. (p. 299.) At the Principals Committee, “Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was skittish, cautioning about the implications of trying to kill an individual.” (p. 309.)

On 9 September 2001 two al Qaeda suicide bombers killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance.

On 10 September 2001 the Deputies Committee met to work out the last details of the policy approved by the Principals Committee a week before. (p. 299.) Hadley told Tenet to draft the documents authorizing these actions and also authorizing the use of lethal force against al Qaeda leaders. (p. 310.) The Americans had arrived at the decision for decisive action against al Qaeda: the gloves had come off.

Two State of Denial Solution.

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Creating the state of Israel was a mistake. It was an injustice for European settlers to create a new state on Arab territory without the consent of the Arab peoples. It would have been better to admit all the European Jews who survived the Holocaust to the United States. However, it was a mistake made more than sixty years ago. People often learn to live with awkward circumstances. People in the democratic, capitalist West came to accept the existence of the Soviet Union without wanting to take long, soapy showers with Communism.

In 1948 Israel’s war for independence created many Palestinian refugees in camps in Egypt’s Gaza Strip and the West Bank that was absorbed into Jordan. Had Egypt and Jordan so desired, they could have created a Palestinian state out of these territories. Thus, the “two state” solution initially failed because of the ambitions of predatory Arab states.

In 1967 Israel’s armed forces over-ran the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the course of fighting a preventive war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. In 1974 the UN proposed ending the conflict by creating two states, with Israel transferring sovereignty over the occupied territories to new Palestinian state. This became the accepted solution for the next forty years.

Late in his second term, President Bill Clinton worked out a peace offer from Israel to the Palestinians. Israel would transfer Gaza, 95 percent of the West Bank (eventually), and a big chunk of East Jerusalem to a Palestinian state. In return, the Palestinians would end the struggle with Israel and accept its right to exist, and also abandon the “right of return” for Palestinians displaced in the 1948 war. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) rejected the deal, insisting that Israel had to evacuate all of the West Bank, including Jerusalem.

In 2005 Israel ended its occupation of Gaza. In 2007, Hamas—the rival to the PLO for leadership of the struggle against Israel—seized control of Gaza. Hamas soon launched missile attacks on Israel. In response, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) battered Gaza until Hamas cried “uncle.” Then they clamped a tight blockade on Gaza meant to starve Hamas of military resources and to make life so miserable for the people inside the “world’s largest open-air prison camp” that they might re-think their support for Hamas. It didn’t work. Moreover, the “Arab Spring” rebellion in Egypt brought to power a government of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, so long-standing Egyptian border controls were relaxed. Hamas rushed to bring in thousands of missiles in preparation for a new attack on Israel. Hamas then began the war in Gaza in Summer 2014. That war put the final nail in the coffin of a two-state solution to the Palestine conflict.

The Palestinian situation on the West Bank soon deteriorated following Arafat’s rejection of the peace deal. Israeli settlements increased in number and size. This created “facts on the ground” that will shape any future peace negotiations. In sum, in any future peace settlement, the Palestinians will have to accept less than they were offered in 2000. Fat chance.

Israel is a small place, but Gaza is relatively remote from the centers of Israeli population. The West Bank in contrast, is close to these centers. A West Bank that came under Hamas rule would pose a mortal danger to Israel. There is little reason to think that the PLO could put up much more of a fight against a Hamas coup in the West Bank than it did in Gaza.

In addition, states have certain rights under international law. It would be impossible to impose effective disarmament on Palestine. It would be difficult for Israel to respond to terrorist attacks out of Palestine without bringing down a hail of criticism and international action.

Solving this problem is going to take a lot of new thinking, not old nostrums.

“Giving up on the two-state solution,” The Week, 12 December 2014, p. 11.

Ferguson.

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First, it is worth pointing out that Michael Brown robbed a store shortly before the encounter with Darren Wilson. Brown shoved the much smaller store employee who tried to get in his way. Soon afterward, he shoved the door of the police car shut when Officer Darren Wilson tried to exit. Then he struggled with Wilson. Was Brown, in fact, a “gentle giant”? Or did he have a history—written or unwritten—of violent encounters? If Brown was the “gentle giant” alleged by friends and family, what brought on this fit of physical aggression on the day he died? What put him over the edge into serious anger on his last day?   I haven’t seen any reporting that addresses these questions. Based on the little I have read about Michael Brown, he appears to have been an unpleasant person. This is not a capital crime.[1]

Second, I think that Darren Wilson succumbed to rage during his encounter with Michael Brown. I myself succumbed to rage one time. During a prolonged argument, someone did something that put me over the edge psychologically. During this episode, I was “outside myself” in some sense. Unthinking. Acting—I guess—on some deep impulse. Not feeling pain, and with time slowing down. That’s evidence for a huge adrenalin dump. At the last moment, God saved me from beating the other person to death.[2] So, that’s the basis for my thinking about this particular aspect of the case. The whole thing took place in a very compressed span of time” 90 seconds. What critical things happened? Brown shoved the door closed on Wilson when he was trying to exit the vehicle. Wilson grabbed Brown around the neck through the window. They struggled. Wilson at least believed that Brown had reached for his weapon, so he drew and fired within the car. Brown broke off and moved away. Wilson exited the vehicle, fired at Brown, and ordered Brown to stop. Brown turned to face him, then approached Wilson. It isn’t clear to me what happened after that. In any case, Wilson then shot Brown a bunch of times. The last one went into the top of Brown’s head while he was lying on the ground. A fatal wound, even if the other ones were not, fired after Brown posed absolutely no threat. To me, this is evidence that Wilson had lost control of himself. He revved through most of his mag, firing a total of twelve rounds. Racism and Rage aren’t the same thing.

Third, I think that District Attorney Robert McCulloch chose an unusual path for the grand jury, one that was unlikely to result in an indictment of Darren Wilson. In Anglo-American law, a trial is a confrontational procedure in which both the prosecution and the defense seek to structure the evidence to generate conflicting interpretations of that evidence. A decision emerges from the confrontation of the interpretations.   The jury must find for guilt or for innocence unanimously. Otherwise, you get a mistrial and a go-around. However, District Attorney Robert McCulloch short-circuited that procedure. Dumping all the information available in the case in an unstructured mass into the lap of the grand jury, with no one to provide an alternative explanation, and then letting them sort it out for themselves is a ludicrous procedure. If he had wanted to find out what happened, then he would have actively sought an indictment. New York judge Sol Wachtler once said that if a prosecutor wants to, he can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Apparently, Darren Wilson isn’t a ham sandwich.

[1] At least, I hope that it isn’t for my own sake.

[2] Afterward, I felt dirty, and empty, and afraid—not of the Law, but of my newly-revealed, previously-unknown self. If I had killed the other person, then I would have been guilty under the law of some form of homicide. I imagine—and I hope with all my heart—that I would have been racked with guilt and felt deep remorse. Perhaps Darren Wilson feels these things. The circumstances for feeling remorse or expressing regret are not favorable.

 

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XVI.

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The new administration of President George W. Bush recognized that al Qaeda posed a real terrorist threat to the United States. How much of a threat? So far, al Qaeda had truck-bombed two embassies and boat-bombed a warship, all on the margins of the Indian Ocean. So, ambitious, but with a short-reach. Moreover, al Qaeda operated from Afghanistan, a client regime of Pakistan. So, no simple solution.

In February 2001 President Bush warned President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan that al Qaeda posed “a direct threat to the United States and its interests that must be addressed.” (Quoted, p. 298.) On 7 March 2001 the Deputies Committee took up the al Qaeda issue for the first time. The Deputies seem to have concluded that policy on al Qaeda terrorism would have to depend upon the development of a policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan. They began this process and Rice deferred any reference of the issue to the Principals Committee until they had finished; this deeply frustrated Clarke. (p. 293.)

In March 2001 Rice asked the CIA to come up with new guidance documents for implementation in Afghanistan. (p. 303.) These were ready by the end of the month. On 28 March 2001 Tenet sent Hadley two new draft guidance documents. One authorized the CIA to provide covert aid to opponents of the Taliban. The other authorized the CIA to kill Bin Laden. (pp. 303-304.) In March and April 2001 the CIA began pressing for giving a lot of covert assistance to the opponents of the Taliban. Cofer Black particularly favored aiding the Northern Alliance (a move supported by Clarke). (p. 297.)

From late March through April 2001 the CIA issued warnings of looming terrorist attacks by “Sunni extremists” and/or by Abu Zubaydah. On 30 April 2001 the CIA briefed the Deputies, warning that al Qaeda was the “most dangerous group we face.” (p. 293.) The Deputies discussed reports of planned attacks by Bin Laden as part of this review of policy toward al Qaeda.

Reports predicting terrorist attacks continued to come in during May 2001 and formed part of a backdrop of concern. On 29 May 2001 the weekly meeting between Rice and Tenet was devoted to al Qaeda, with Tenet emphasizing the need to devote expanded resources to counterterrorism. Rice told Clarke to write up a new plan for action against al Qaeda.

The flood of reports about terrorist plans to act in the near future actually increased during June and July 2001. However, they always referred to action overseas, mostly in the Middle East, but also in Europe. (p. 369.) There were a number of key dates or places that might serve as the occasion for terrorist attacks: the Fourth of July, the G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy (which President Bush was to attend). (pp. 370-371.)

Only in June 2001 did American intelligence begin to receive reports hinting at the 9/11 attacks. On 12 June 2001 a CIA report stated that KSM was recruiting people on behalf of OBL to come to the US in order to carry out attacks in partnership with people already in the US. On 22 June 2001 a CIA report warned of a possible suicide attack on an American target in the near future.

On 30 June 2001 the CIA intelligence brief to top officials warned that “Bin Laden [is] Planning High-Profile Attacks.” Ultimately, dealing with Bin Laden would require overthrowing the Taliban. This seemed a very complicated undertaking. During June and July 2001 people in the Administration argued over whether the US should engage in regime change in Afghanistan. (p. 297.)

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XV.

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President George W. Bush’s National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice insisted upon a return to the formal table of organization, in which Clarke’s group reported through the deputies and Clarke ceased to be a de facto “principal.” Clarke saw this as a demotion. (p. 288.)

On 25 January 2001, in response to a request from Rice for suggestions on policy reviews or initiative from her senior staff, Clarke submitted a memo pushing the policy he had advocated in the waning days of the Clinton administration. He also worked to bolster the case for action against al Qaeda in other ways, sending a memo outside the normal chain of communications directly to VP Cheney before a visit to CIA HQ urging the VP to press the CIA about the Cole investigation and sending intelligence about al Qaeda’s role in the Cole attack to Rice as a counter to the CIA’s refusal to claim a definite link between Bin Laden and the bombing. (pp. 290-291.)

On 19 April 2001 Clarke’s Counterterrorism Security Group discussed the reports of predicted attacks by Sunni extremists and by Abu Zubaydah.

On 29 May 2001 Clarke urged Stephen Hadley to press the CIA on what further steps it could take to forestall an attack against American interests. (p. 368.)

About 7 June 2001 Clarke submitted to Rice a memo–essentially his memos of December 2000 and January 2001–outlining a sustained multi-faceted effort. (pp. 295-296.)

On 25 June 2001 Clarke told Rice and Hadley that he had learned of six different intelligence reports that reported al Qaeda people predicting an attack in the near future. (p. 369.)

On 28 June 2001 Clarke warned Rice that the intelligence community had concluded “that a major terrorist attack or series of attacks is likely in July.” (p. 370.)

In late June or early July 2001 Clarke urged Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley to make anti-al Qaeda policy the whole focus of US-Pakistan relations. This went nowhere. (p. 299.)

By early September 2001 Clarke felt a furious urgency to get the government to act on al Qaeda. “After nine years on the NSC staff and more than three years as the president’s national coordinator, he had often failed to persuade these agencies [CIA, Pentagon] to adopt his views, or to persuade his superiors to set an agenda of the sort he wanted or that the whole government could support.” (p. 308.)

So, was Richard Clarke a prophet without honor in his own land or was he an ambitious bureaucrat who had found his leash being pulled-in by the business-like Bush administration?  Perhaps different people in the national security establishment saw him in different lights.

What we learned from the Report of the 911 Commission XIV.

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“Soon after the Cole attack and for the remainder of the Clinton administration, analysts stopped distributing written reports about who was responsible.” (p. 279.) In the 25 November 2000 memo from Clarke and Berger to President Clinton, the National Security Advisor described the presumption of Bin Laden’s role as an “unproven assumption.” (p. 281.) On 21 December 2000 a CIA briefing said that there was strong circumstantial evidence of al Qaeda involvement in the attack, but nothing concrete. (p. 281.) Clinton and Berger have said subsequently that the president could not take the country to war or deliver an ultimatum to the Taliban or risk killing a bunch of civilians on the basis of such foggy judgments. George Tenet has said that he didn’t realize that the White House was waiting on a definite judgment from the CIA. Clarke suspects that the White House “didn’t really want to know” who was responsible because they wanted to concentrate on a last minute push for peace in the Middle East. (p. 282.) NB: The sort of thing that would get Clinton a Nobel Peace Prize and rehabilitate his “legacy” after the Lewinsky scandal. Tenet obviously playing along.

 

The Election of November 2000 didn’t do political comity or policy implementation any good. Of course, I haven’t seen that anyone asked Al Gore what he thought of Richard Clark or his stance on terrorism. I suppose it could have been him reading to a class of schoolchildren.

Between the election of 7 November 2000 and the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling much of the attention of the nation focused on the political and legal struggles attending the disputed presidential election. Moreover, the long struggle cut by half the normal transition period between administrations. (p. 285.)

 

The Bush Administration brought little change to the personnel involved in counterterrorism policy: Tenet remained DCI, Cofer Black remained head of the Counterterrorism Center, Louis Freeh remained Director of the FBI until June 2001, Dale Watson remained FBI Assistant Director for Counterterrorism, Hugh Shelton remained Chairman of the JCS, and Clarke remained National Counterterrorism Coordinator. (p. 289.)

However, gaps existed. Brian Sheridan, the Clinton administration’s assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, departed on 20 January 2001 and was not replaced before 11 September 2001. (p. 300.) John Ashcroft, the new Attorney General, knew little, if anything, about terrorism and was more committed to the traditional law enforcement targets of drugs and organized crime. (pp. 302-303.)

In foreign policy the new Republican administration wanted to concentrate on “China, missile defense, the collapse of the Middle East peace process, and the Persian Gulf.” (p. 288.) In defense policy, the leaders wanted to concentrate on a new military strategy and force structure for the 21st century. (p. 300.)

On 29 December 2000 the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center put out a forward-looking memorandum on dealing with Afghanistan-based terrorism. Clarke adopted some of the CIA’s idea in his own memo early in the new year. The plan recommended a long-term effort (3-5 years) for dealing with al Qaeda; proposed to support both the Northern Alliance and the Uzbeks as a way of eroding Taliban support for al Qaeda; recommended more Predator flights once the weather improved in March 2001; and contemplated military action. (pp. 284-285.)  None of this aimed at scorching snakes right this instant.