corrente

Here's the Press the Meat transcript. Let's see if Wussert laid a glove on him. (It's a long post, but the transcript is a lot longer.)

First, Clarke tells the WhiteWash House to bring it on by releasing "all (back)" his testimony, including the emails about it, and the national security directives the hearings were based on, as well as Condi's testimony before the 9/11 commission, because "the families need to know." Advantage: Clarke.

The "perjury" (ha) issue

MR. CLARKE: [I]t's not inconsistent. Let me explain. I was asked by Condi Rice, by the White House press secretary, by the White House chief of staff, to give a press background. Why? Because Time magazine had come out--and this was almost a year after September 11. Time magazine had come out with a cover story, after extensive research, and the cover story was devastating. The cover story of Time magazine was that the White House had been given a plan by me on January 25 and had taken the entire nine months to get around to looking at it, at the principals level, that there had been over 100 meetings of Dr. Rice's committee on subjects involving Iraq, Star Wars, China, but only one on terrorism and that one was on September 4.

Now, the White House naturally wanted someone to say that things had been going on during that summer. I said, "Well, you know, it's true. Things had been going on. But the plan wasn't approved until September 4." And I was told, "But you can say that it was approved by the deputies. You can say that things were approved in principle." I was told to spin it in a positive way.

Now, the question is: Why do you do that? I thought Pat Buchanan, a conservative Republican, former White House aide, put it pretty well last night when he was asked the same question. He said, "When you're in the White House, you may disagree with policy." But when you're asked to defend that policy, you defend it, if you're a special assistant to the president, as Pat Buchanan was and as I was. ... And so there's no inconsistency. I said the things that I was told to say. They're true. We did consider these things but no decisions were taken. And that's the point. It was an important issue for them but not an urgent issue. They had a hundred meetings before they got around to having one on terrorism.

Do what your boss tells you, try to make him look good, and he turns around and threatens to prosecute you. Is The Goon Squad vindictive, or what? Advantage, Clarke.

Russert tries again:

MR. RUSSERT: But if you were willing to go forward, and, as you say, "spin" on behalf of the president, then why shouldn't people now think that this book is also spin? Why should people believe you?

MR. CLARKE: Because I have no obligation anymore to spin. When you're in the White House, you spin.

Advantage, Clarke.

The opportunity cost of Iraq to the WOT
And now to the crucial point, which all the mud thrown by Bush and The Goon Squad is obscuring: Iraq has not made things better in the WOT; it has made things worse (on of the many things about which Howard Dean, God love him, was right). And this is the reason Clarke wrote Against All Enemies:

This is [Bush's] writing. This is the president of the United States' writing. And when they're engaged in character assassination of me, let's just remember that on January 31, 2003: "Dear Dick, you will be missed. You served our nation with distinction and honor. You have left a positive mark on our government." This is not the normal typewritten letter that everybody gets. This is the president's handwriting. He thinks I served with distinction and honor. The rest of his staff is out there trying to destroy my professional life, trying to destroy my reputation, because I had the temerity to suggest that a policy issue should be discussed. What is the role of the war on terror vis-a-vis the war in Iraq? Did the war in Iraq really hurt the war on terror? Because I suggest we should have a debate on that, I am now being the victim of a taxpayer-paid--because all these people work for the government-- character assassination campaign.

And Wusser tries to prevent him....

MR. RUSSERT: We'll get to that particular debate, but let me go back to September 11 and what led up to it.

And finally gets back to it:

MR. RUSSERT: Why do you think the Iraq war has undermined the war on terrorism?

MR. CLARKE: Well, I think it's obvious, but there are three major reasons. Who are we fighting in the war on terrorism? We're fighting Islamic radicals and they are drawing people from the youth of the Islamic world into hating us. Now, after September 11, people in the Islamic world said, "Wait a minute. Maybe we've gone too far here. Maybe this Islamic movement, this radical movement, has to be suppressed," and we had a moment, we had a window of opportunity, where we could change the ideology in the Islamic world. Instead, we've inflamed the ideology. We've played right into the hands of al-Qaeda and others. We've done what Osama bin Laden said we would do. ... We can kill them. But as Don Rumsfeld said in the memo that leaked from the Pentagon, I'm afraid that they're generating more ideological radicals against us than we are arresting them and killing them. They're producing more faster than we are.

We're going to catch bin Laden. I have no doubt about that. In the next few months, he'll be found dead or alive. But it's two years too late because during those two years, al-Qaeda has morphed into a hydra-headed organization, independent cells like the organization that did the attack in Madrid.

And that's the second reason. The attack in Madrid showed the vulnerabilities of the rails in Spain. We have all sorts of vulnerabilities in our country, chemical plants, railroads. We've done a very good job on passenger aircraft now, but there are all these other vulnerabilities that require enormous amount of money to reduce those vulnerabilities, and we're not doing that.

MR. RUSSERT: And three?

MR. CLARKE: And three is that we actually diverted military resources and intelligence resources from Afghanistan and from the hunt for bin Laden to the war in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: But Saddam is gone and that's a good thing?

MR. CLARKE: Saddam is gone is a good thing. If Fidel were gone, it would be a good thing. If Kim Il Sung were gone, it would be a good thing. And let's just make clear, our military performed admirably and they are heroes, but what price are we paying for this war on Iraq?

In other words, the opportunity cost of Iraq is too great. "Opportunity cost" is, I think, the analytical tool to get the discussion of Iraq going in the direction it should.

UPDDATE Opportunity cost is a standard notion in business. Any CEO who actually ran a business would understand the point at once. It's a CEO's fiduciary responsibility to make the best use of the money the company has entrusted to him—not just a good use, the best use. Opportunity cost is the difference between the actual use of money, and a better use of that same money.

To use a baseball example: In 1920, the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth, the best player in baseball, for journeyman pitcher Ray Caldwell, whom they promptly shipped to Cleveland. Was it "good" to get Ray Caldwell? Sure. He was of some use to the Red Sox, even in Cleveland. Was it the best use of the Red Sox's money? Of course not. The opportunity cost, to the Red Sox, could be measured in terms of championships lost, revenues lost, and so on.

And so with Iraq, the key issue that Clarke is raising is being ignored, as the SCLM personalizes the story.

The key issue is not, was the war in Iraq "good." The key issue is, Is Iraq the best use of our blood and treasure? And here the answer is no. What was the opportunity cost of Iraq? Allowing AQ to metastatize and spread, making the WOT much, much worse (see Madrid; see generally Bush fecklessness on loose nukes, if you want a doomsday scenario, back here).