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John's review

John's review
rating:
recommended for: Political readers, people who'd like to know what they're talking about

One of the best-written (even if it was probably ghost written) memoirs to come out of Washington D.C. in quite some time, Richard Clarke takes us inside the anti-terrorism wards of four presidents - from Reagan to the W. Bush. His best gift is to illustrate the attitude of each regime, and where their interests lay. It's written very sharply, drawing some excellent scenes from real life, including the opening - 9/11 in the White House. It is critical of all administrations, but considerably more educated than most critics, making it well-worth reading. The mixture of information and behind-the-scenes stories drove me to read the entire thing in two days.

Here's one of the more memorable anecdotes from the book, and easily the best ad for CNN I've ever read:

" During the Clinton Presidency, Saddam Hussein plotted to assassinate former president George H.W. Bush. During the intervention and retaliation to destroy the assassin cells, a building was bombed in the middle of the ...more One of the best-written (even if it was probably ghost written) memoirs to come out of Washington D.C. in quite some time, Richard Clarke takes us inside the anti-terrorism wards of four presidents - from Reagan to the W. Bush. His best gift is to illustrate the attitude of each regime, and where their interests lay. It's written very sharply, drawing some excellent scenes from real life, including the opening - 9/11 in the White House. It is critical of all administrations, but considerably more educated than most critics, making it well-worth reading. The mixture of information and behind-the-scenes stories drove me to read the entire thing in two days.

Here's one of the more memorable anecdotes from the book, and easily the best ad for CNN I've ever read:

" During the Clinton Presidency, Saddam Hussein plotted to assassinate former president George H.W. Bush. During the intervention and retaliation to destroy the assassin cells, a building was bombed in the middle of the night. This minimized civilian deaths, but made it very difficult for the U.S. intelligence teams to verify that the missiles had struck the building. Clinton refused to go on television unless he was certain they hit. His team was afraid he wouldn't make an address and worked all day on intel; they were surprised that evening to see him appear on their TV's, via the news stations. Clinton made the address to the nation about bombing terror cells in Iraq – even though his officers had given him no solid evidence that the missiles had hit the bunker. Afterwards, the president paid a visit to their office and explained, "Okay, okay. I needed relative certainty that those missiles had hit, and none of you guys could give it to me. So I called CNN. They didn't have anybody in Baghdad tonight, but their camera man in their Jordan bureau had a cousin, or some relative, who lived near the Intelligence Headquarters, so they called him. The cousin said, 'Yeah, the whole place blew up!' He was certain. So I figured, we had relatively certainty." "...less

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