From what has been said here re: Clarke, I take it that everybody would have been happy had the US started bombing Afghanistan in February 2001, even happier if they had started three months before that - that is what Clarke proposed they do.

Clarke stated that in HIS OPINION, the Clinton administration regarded the international terrorist threat, as posed by Al-Qaeda, as "urgent", while the new administration of George W. Bush regarded it as "important". Can anybody see any reason for that view being taken? After all, the people who were looking after this in detail all remained in place, business proceeded as before - could it possibly be that those senior members of the Bush administration were satisfied that those people continued to have a handle on the problem and were quite satisfied with their efforts.

Clarke proposed the bombing of Afghanistan, providing armed support of the Northern Alliance and putting US Special Forces into Afghanistan ("boots on the ground"). Berger, Clarke's superior in the Clinton administration, clearly stated that none of those were possible, for reasons that are blatantly obvious (at least they are to me). Change of administration, so Clarke once again tries to introduce his proposals, which are turned down for exactly the same reasons as before - Sorry Richard, this just simply cannot be done.

As both Berger and Tenet said during their testimony, 9/11 made it possible to implement Clarke's proposals. What Clarke has said regarding the present administration's attitude to the terrorist threat during the period January 2001 to 11th September 2001, does not amount to statements being made here that the Bush administration put it on the "back burner", at least that is not my reading of the difference between "urgent" and "important". That distinction made by Clarke does ONLY represent his OPINION, it does not constitute fact.