corrente

If Richard Clarke is right, and there is every reason to think he is, the US was days, if not hours, away from letting Osama Bin Laden get away with murder.

It seems Rumsfeld wanted to bomb Iraq for 9/11, despite ample evidence Al Qaeda was responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Americans. To a rational person, this would have been a war crime. Bombing the innocent for something we knew they didn't do.

Perle and Wolfwowitz, despite all available evidence, would have let Osama sit in Afghanistan untouched just to get Saddam. The fact that no state would have ever launched a 9/11 attack and not expect a B-2 response was beyond them.

Let's keep this in mind, and it's really simple: the Bush response to 9/11 would have let Osama get away with murder, killing thousands of innocent people. Only the professionals of the CIA and FBI prevented this insanity. When Bush was told that "you'll lose the whole world", was he prevented from attacking Iraq.

Their obsession with Iraq is frightening, just as their incompetence in dealing with Iraq is striking. And of course, the White House is trying to smear Clarke as just another Democrat. Of course, anyone who attacks this White House gets smeared. It's all they can do. They accuse him of making of meetings, being too close to Kerry, all manner of nonsense.

The excuses from this White House sounds like a drunk excusing away his failures. If Clarke is telling the truth, Rumsfeld, who claimed Iraq had "better targets" should resign immediately.

Indeed.

[Steve Gilliard via Atrios]

UPDATE Clarke story butchered by Judith Miller up here.