"I don't blame Clinton for not recognising the quantum leap.... for the simple reason that he did recognise the quantum leap."

OK, have it your way. Why the hell didn't Clinton do something effective about it? All the cruise missle strikes did was cause Ben Laden to be more intent on attacking the US. In effect they prompted 9/11.

Of course you can be right too early -- if no one's ready to believe what you say and you have no proof, you might as well not be right at all. Any good cop knows that. Knowing that someone is a bad guy doesn't matter if you can't do anything about it. You can only tail them so long before their lawyer shout harrassment and then you're worse off than ever.

A good example is the alert Clarke had the US go into in July of 2001. By the time the terrorists attacked in September, the edge had been taken off the alert, parts of the system were showing signs of breaking down and they were looking for the wrong thing any way. What good did it do him to be right?