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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (127498)	3/27/2004 4:55:47 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

I have no idea what you - or Clarke, as the case may be - mean by "with Bush out of town." He was back in DC within hours of the attacks of 9/11. I've already read Bernstein's book about 9/11 and its aftermath. More detail than that is not interesting to me. Hmm, do you mean Woodward's book rather than Bernstein? On Bush in town on 9-11, you will recall he was in Florida at an elementary school until late in the day. An enormous amount of response coordination had to take place. I've always wondered about that. Well, Clarke has his version. Rice asked him to take charge of organizing the governmental response. Clarke tells a great story, with great detail. If he were misleading, any number of people would have come forward by now to contradict it. There is just too much in the way of specifics. Moreover, Clarke remained as the coordinator once Bush was back in town. Obviously, serious decision making has to take place at the presidential level; but the coordination produces needs for decisions that get pushed up to the presidential level. Clarke was apparently the central guy in that process. No one seems to have disputed that yet. Whether you like Clarke or don't, agree with Clarke or don't, if you are still curious about how the government responded, you will find that first chapter absolutely fascinating. It's the best first chapter of a policy book I've ever read. After that, there is much to quarrel with. And we could all quarrel about it. But I can't argue with you about the book unless you have some acquaintance with it. At the moment, until I learn more, Tek's observations about Clarke make the most sense to me.