ABSTRACT
One disaster per administration, such as dalliance with an intern, can be considered an anomaly. Five disasters are a matter of concern. Disaster 1. Seven-and-a-half months before the attacks on New York and Wash ington, the counterintelligence chief Richard Clarke wrote a memo to Condoleezza Rice to say, “We urgently need . . . a Principals level review on the al Qida [as spelled] network” (January 25, 2001). Nothing came of it until September 12. We cannot know what would have happened, or not have happened, if the principals had paid attention. On Sep tember 12-that’s a day after September 11, you remember-George W. Bush said to Clarke, “See if Saddam did this.” Clarke rejoined, “But Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this” (see his Against All Enemies). “‘Look into Saddam,’ the president said testily and left us” (pp. 30-32). Four years later we are still wide open to further attack. Such an obvious precaution as securing all the nuclear material in Russia will not be finished until 2022. We haven’t experienced an atomic attack, so we can’t count it as a disaster yet.
