Only because Al Qaeda wasn't as successful with their first attack on the Twin Towers and not for a lack of trying, Bobert. You don't suspose that that 9/11 would have happened if someone had taken effective action against them when they first started all this, do you? The blame game is nothing but politics and demeaning to the dead.

Remember what's really the heart of the issue the Commission says they're trying to address. What should have been done to stop Al Qaeda and when, not who's to blame for what. While Clarke's perception of who might or might not have been more focused was interesting, I'm a lot more convinced by the Washington Post's analysis of the situtation in which they concluded that no one did much to really try to stop Al Qaeda. And of course, Clarke's own admission that nothing he ever recommended would have prevented 9/11, anyway.

I do notice that you don't seem to consider the 300 or so non-Americans killed in the Embassy attacks important. Interesting.