In Memoriam
September 11th, 2001
In the intervening years we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars, trampled on peoples rights, created huge new government bureaucracies, and can’t respond as well as the third world to a natural disaster.
It seems like we are constantly being told that every new group that appears anywhere is capable of another 9/11 attack, so what is the point if we are no safer?
Richard Clarke: “Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard. But that doesn’t matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.“
2 comments
I remember hearing Richard Clarke say those words and feeling so very grateful to him. We needed someone to be in charge, to admit the obvious incompetence, to acknowledge they could have done better. He became a hero in my eyes with that statement.
What most people don’t know is that it was the job of the President’s National Security Director to coordinate the activities of the various intelligence agencies, both foreign and domestic. Ms Rice didn’t/couldn’t do her job and now we have another entire bureaucracy serving a Director of National Intelligence to handle this single task.
Richard Clarke was the the terrorism expert and he couldn’t get anyone at the White House to take it seriously.