Tall tales . . . and prelude

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Richard A. Clarke's book-peddling accusations President Bush ignored the al Qaeda threat before September 11, 2001, attacks dominated the news last week. But at least one Bush critic on this score says Mr. Clarke's election-timed charges may not amount to much.

"It will not have much traction because what he's charging is not that new and not that specific," says Michael O'Hanlon, a national security analyst at the Brookings Institution.

The fierce White House counterattack showed the well-oiled Bush campaign is now running at full throttle -- raising enough questions about Mr. Clarke's ulterior political motives to blunt the potency of his charges. Apparently, the man who served as a counterterrorist expert in both the Clinton and Bush administrations was passed over for the No. 2 Department of Homeland Security post and sought vengeance for his dismissal. Observers allege that, despite his denials, Mr. Clarke (who is close to key Kerry campaign advisers) hopes to secure a major position in a John Kerry administration.

Widely known for his abrasiveness and ego, Mr. Clarke comes close to saying, with all of the information available on al Qaeda's pre-September 11 activities, the attacks might have been prevented. With considerable hubris, he even suggests that if he had access to the FBI's intelligence at the time, he might have been able to connect the dots and foil the plot. "We'll never know," he says.

Mr. O'Hanlon rejects such bombastic claims. "I'm not aware of anything specific that Clark recommended we do before September 11 that really could have stopped this. If one had been a lot more vigilant, there are things we could have done but it's easy to say that in retrospect."

No Bush cheerleader, Mr. O'Hanlon rejects Mr. Clarke's claim the president was naive or fixated on Iraq when the president asked him to look into Saddam Hussein's relationship with al Qaeda. The CIA had long reported that key terrorist leaders were constantly going in and out of Baghdad.

"I can't fault Bush on that one," Mr. O'Hanlon says. "I don't think there was such a link, but who could be against a rigorous attempt to make sure?"

Lost in the media frenzy over Mr. Clarke's exaggerated claims is the fact Mr. Bush's first military response was to go after al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the Taliban regime there that harbored Osama bin Laden and his terrorist armies.

Also lost in the hullabaloo over Mr. Clarke's self-serving allegations was what the bipartisan, independent September 11 commission looking into the attacks had to say about the Clinton administration's risk-averse policies that let the terrorists train, plot and plan their evil deeds during the eight years of his presidency.