O testemunho definitivo? Richard A. Clarke, counter-terror "czar"

Against All Enemies, Read it, and weep, Justin Raimundo

This administration, says Clarke, is fighting the wrong war, the wrong way, for the wrong reasons: even the Afghan war was "treated as a regime-change rather than a search-and-destroy against terrorists." The pinpoint strategy – pin down and destroy the Al Qaeda network – favored by Clarke, versus the broad "drain-the-swamp" social engineering scheme envisioned by the neocons, is what the debate engendered by this book is really all about.
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It is shocking to read that, before 9/11, the counter-terrorist chief had never been allowed to brief President George W. Bush on the threat posed by Bin Laden. His proposed presidential directive to "eliminate" Al Qaeda had been stuck in the labyrinthine halls of the national security bureaucracy, disdained by neocons so focused on Iraq that even in the wake of 9/11 they complained, as Paul Wolfowitz put it to Clarke, "I just don't understand why we're beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden."
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To Clarke's incredulous horror, Wolfowitz gave a spiel touting the crackpot theories of Laurie Mylroie. A writer, Ms. Mylroie maintains that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, as well as the Oklahoma City bombing, and – who knows? – maybe even global warming. 9/11 couldn't have occurred without a state sponsor, averred Deputy Defense Secretary with his usual air of smug certitude, and that would have to be Iraq.
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By the morning of 9/12 Wolfowitz was arguing that Iraq, and not Al Qaeda, was the main enemy and the probable perpetrator of the terrorist attacks, while all credible intelligence pointed to Bin Laden.. "By the afternoon on Wednesday, Secretary Rumsfeld was talking about broadening the objectives of our response and 'getting Iraq.'" Shoot, Rummy bawled, "there's no decent targets in Afghanistan!"
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He illustrates the unintended consequences of blocking with Iraq against Iran, tilting toward Israel, and, most fatally of all, creating and supporting the Mujahideen "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan, who would later evolve into Al Qaeda.
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When Bin Laden is expelled from Saudi Arabia and takes up residence in Sudan, the Balkans become the worldwide rallying point of a burgeoning Islamo- terrorist movement: "What we saw unfold in Bosnia," reveals Clarke, "was a guidebook to the Bin Laden network, though we didn't recognize it as such at the time." With the complicity of Bosnia's Muslim government, Iranian arms and Osama bin Laden's legions poured into the Euro-Muslim sanctuary.