Against All Enemies : Inside America's War on Terror - Softcover

Richard Clarke

3.91

4,844 ratings by Goodreads

9780743268233: Against All Enemies : Inside America's War on Terror

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743268237 ISBN 13: 9780743268233

Publisher: Free Press, 2004

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When Richard Clarke's AGAINST ALL ENEMIES vaulted in to the public arena, an instant Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and media sensation, it changed the debate about the war on terror. his revelations about the Bush administration's inattention to the threat to terrorism pre-9/11, and his stinging critique of the impact on terrorism of the war on Iraq, made front-page headlines. It is no wonder the White House went into full attack mode. Yet as the extraordinary reviews attest, AGAINST ALL ENEMIES is far more than simply a book about a single moment in time. It is both the most authoritative history of America's twenty-year struggle with terrorism, and a timeless memoir revealing how the US government really works. the West's continuing struggle to respond, AGAINST ALL ENEMIES is set to sell for many years to come.

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Review:

Few political memoirs have made such a dramatic entrance as that by Richard A. Clarke. During the week of the initial publication of Against All Enemies, Clarke was featured on 60 Minutes, testified before the 9/11 commission, and touched off a raging controversy over how the presidential administration handled the threat of terrorism and the post-9/11 geopolitical landscape. Clarke, a veteran Washington insider who had advised presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush, dissects each man's approach to terrorism but levels the harshest criticism at the latter Bush and his advisors who, Clarke asserts, failed to take terrorism and Al-Qaeda seriously. Clarke details how, in light of mounting intelligence of the danger Al-Qaeda presented, his urgent requests to move terrorism up the list of priorities in the early days of the administration were met with apathy and procrastination and how, after the attacks took place, Bush and key figures such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney turned their attention almost immediately to Iraq, a nation not involved in the attacks. Against All Enemies takes the reader inside the Beltway beginning with the Reagan administration, who failed to retaliate against the 1982 Beirut bombings, fueling the perception around the world that the United States was vulnerable to such attacks. Terrorism becomes a growing but largely ignored threat under the first President Bush, whom Clarke cites for his failure to eliminate Saddam Hussein, thereby necessitating a continued American presence in Saudi Arabia that further inflamed anti-American sentiment. Clinton, according to Clarke, understood the gravity of the situation and became increasingly obsessed with stopping Al-Qaeda. He had developed workable plans but was hamstrung by political infighting and the sex scandal that led to his impeachment. But Bush and his advisers, Clarke says, didn't get it before 9/11 and they didn't get it after, taking a unilateral approach that seemed destined to lead to more attacks on Americans and American interests around the world. Clarke's inside accounts of what happens in the corridors of power are fascinating and the book, written in a compelling, highly readable style, at times almost seems like a fiction thriller. But the threat of terrorism and the consequences of Bush's approach to it feel very sobering and very real. --John Moe

About the Author:

Richard Clarke was appointed by President Clinton as the first National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism in May 1998 and continued in that position under George W. Bush. Until March 2003 he was a career member of the Senior Executive Service, having begun his federal service in 1973 in the Office of the Secretary of Defence as an analyst on nuclear weapons and European Security issues. In the Reagan administration, Mr Clarke was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence. In the Bush Administration, he was the Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs. In 1992 Mr Clarke joined the National Security Council staff.

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