Clarke Part XL
(Is that how Roman's wrote 40 ?)

Way behing Bob Somerby
I complain about the New york Times.
As pointed out by Somerby, in the Review of "Against all Enemis" Michiko Kakutani, equates familiarity with the Phrase "al Qaeda" and familiarity with the name "Osama Bin Laden" writing

"his observation that when he first briefed Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, about Al Qaeda, "her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before" is contradicted by public statements that she made about the terrorist group before joining the Bush White House."

This is false. There is no proof that Rice ever said or wrote "al Qaeda" before joining the Bush White House. She did publicly say "Osama Bin Laden". Clarke explained "al Qaeda " using "Osama bin Laden" shwoing that he assumed that she knew who bin Laden is. It is nowvery difficult to iimagine that anyone, least of all a NSA, could be familiar with "Osama bin Laden" but not "al Qaeda" but the conversation took place long long ago. Kakutani should have been more careful. Actually the Times should print a correction unless it can find a Rice quote.

Also there is something weird about "he is weirdly contradictory on the subject of the C.I.A. and George J. Tenet, its director, complaining that the agency was laggard in its pursuit Al Qaeda "in sharp contrast" to its director's "personal fixation" on the terrorist group." Could it possibly be that Clarke imagined that bureaucracies were not always completely united behind the views of their nominal heads ?

Naaaaaaaah

If he thought that why would he write of Clinton that scandals "limited his power to pursue an aggressive bombing campaign in Afghanistan, fire a "recalcitrant F.B.I. director who had failed to fix the bureau" or "direct the military to engage in antiterrorist commando operations they did not want to conduct.""