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Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.

), a Vietnam War
veteran and an influential member of the For-
eign Relations Committee, wants the United
States to consider reviving the draft as part of
a broader effort to ensure that all Americans
"bear some responsibility" and "pay some
price" in defending the nation's interests.
At a committee hearing Tuesday and in sub-
sequent interviews, Hagel said he is not ad-
vocating reinstatement of the draft, although
he added that he is "not so sure that isn't a bad
idea."
His main interest, he said, is to make sure
that some kind of mandatory national service
is considered so "the privileged, the rich" as
well as the less affluent bear the burden of
fighting wars of the future.
Hagel said he does not expect to see action
on such a bill this year but wanted to spark de-
bate that will "bring some reality to our policy-
making" about future military needs. With
American forces stretched thinner than they

Hagel Seeking have been at any time since Vietnam and with
wartime needs likely to continue indefinitely,
"this is a steam engine coming right down the
Broad Debate track at us," he said.
Appearing with Hagel on NBC's Today"
show, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), ranking
On Draft Issue Democrat on the Foreign Relations Commit-
tee, agreed with Hagel's goal of shared sacri-
fice and did not rule out a draft. But "I don't
By HELEN DEWAB think it's necessary now," Biden said. The
Washington Post Staff Writer "whole notion of a shared burden is something
we should be talking about well beyond the is-
sue of just the draft," he said.
Legislation has been introduced in both
chambers to revive the draft, which was ended
in 1973 as the Vietnam War wound down and
subsequently was replaced by an all-volunteer
army. The bills are sponsored by Sen. Ernest
F. Hottings (D-S.C.) and Rep. Charles B. Ran-
gel (D-N.Y.). No action has been scheduled on
either measure.
Hagel, an independent-minded conserva-
tive with a penchant for provocative com-
ments, supported the war in Iraq but has crit-
icized many aspects of the administration's
postwar operations. Rarely, however, has he
taken on a more controversial subject than the
draft.
"My colleagues are running away from this
as fast as they can," he said. But "there isn't a
one of them who doesn't understand what I'm
doing," he added.
President Bush is right that the country is
engaged in a long-term war, Hagel said, and
the country is "making commitments for fu-
ture years that we cannot fulfill" in fighting
terrorism and trying to rid the world of weap-
ons of mass destruction. Already 40 percent of
the ground troops in Iraq come from the Na-
tional Guard and reserves, and recruitment
and retention will be a problem, he said.
Moreover, he said, all Americans should be
asked to "share the sacrifice" of protecting
their country. "It's unfair to ask only a few peo-
ple to bear the burden of fighting and dying,"
he said.
Also, a mandatory national service require-
ment for civilian as well as military work could
help meet many needs at home at the same
time that it is providing personnel for the
armed forces, Hagel said.
Mike Hurley
From: Warren Bass
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 10:23 AM
To: Chris Kojm; Dan Marcus
Cc: Mike Hurley
Subject: Etzioni op-ed

My favorite hobby horse!


Warren

The 9/11 Panel Looks the Wrong Way

AMITAI ETZIONI
The Los Angeles Times

Fast-forward three years. A bipartisan commission is conducting hearings in Washington to determine why we were asleep
at the wheel when terrorists set off a nuclear device in one of our major cities. The attack killed 300,000. It shook the
nation's confidence so profoundly that the Constitution was "temporarily" suspended; all civil liberties were waived to
prevent future attacks.

The new commission has established that one of the reasons we failed to prevent this tragedy was the impact of an earlier
commission and an earlier set of hearings: the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a.k.a.
the 9/11 commission.

The problem was that the 9/11 investigation spent too much time assigning blame and looking backward. When it came to
recommending safeguards for the future, it encouraged the public, federal agencies and the White House to plan for the
kinds of attacks we had faced in the past rather than foreseeing dangers to come. It unwittingly contributed to a malaise
that military historians have long studied: fighting the last war rather than preparing for the next one.

Could a mere congressional commission really have such a long-reaching effect? Indeed. A similar set of hearings spelled
the end of the McCarthy era. Another drove Richard Nixon out of office and led to campaign finance reform. And the
Church Commission, which found that the FBI improperly spied on domestic dissenters during the 1960s, strengthened
the wall between the FBI and the CIA — the same wall that is now under attack for its role in our 9/11 failures.

Consider the buzz emerging from the 9/11 commission now. In reaction to our intelligence miscues, it's pushing public
opinion toward approving something like an American MIS, a domestic spying agency similar to Britain's. By highlighting
Bush's inattention to terrorism before Sept. 11, it is no doubt abetting an administration desire to recoup politically by
dispatching Osama Bin Laden before the elections. These actions might have merit, but they don't block the gravest of the
foreseeable dangers posed by terrorism — nuclear weapons.

In much the same way, our current anti-terrorist strategies also miss the point. Because airplanes were the previous
weapon of choice, we've earmarked $5.17 billion in 2005 (out of $5.3 billion budgeted for the Transportation Security
Administration) for airports. Now that trains have been attacked in Madrid, we are moving to better protect the rails. But we
seem to ignore that Al Qaeda rarely attacks twice in the same way or in the same place.

We're also spending billions trying to eliminate terrorists — in Afghanistan, in the Philippines and Indonesia, in Colombia
and in Europe — before they can hit us. This could be effective, but it is also exceedingly difficult. Terrorists are mobile,
hidden and often protected by local populations. And there seems to be an unending supply of fresh recruits for every cell
we take out.

As for preventing terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear weapons, it's a strategy that by comparison gets little
attention and few resources. Approximately $1 billion is set aside for the purpose, just one-fifth of what we're spending to
find shoe bombs, box cutters and nail clippers at airports. (Eliminating chemical and biological weapons is also important
but less so, because those agents are much more difficult to weaponize and employ than nuclear material.)

Yet the nuclear threat can be met. The number of nuclear devices floating around on the black market is limited. The
number of sites where they are poorly protected is small and well known. The list of experts who might illicitly develop
nuclear weapons is relatively short.
LL STREET JOURNAL. OPINION TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2004

Global View / By George Melloan

We Already Know Why al Qkeda Succeedet


W hen the USS Cote was at-
tacked in the Yemeni port of
Aden on Oct. 12, 2000, presi-
dent BUI Clinton responded by launching .
an FBI criminal investigation. One might
feat in Vietnam, Congress has tangled up
the executive branch in legalities limiting
its ability to fight a "war in the shadows."
While Mr. Clinton was himself subject to
these limitations, he never offered much
ing of national intelligence, particularly
by electronic eavesdropping against
agents of hostile foreign powers." To con-
duct wiretaps, a powerful tool for counter-
intelligence agents* the executive branch
the
long other things, restricted
of information between the
CIA and e FBI. It may have been a
factor in failure of reports of «!'
Qaeda ivities in the U.S. and abroad
have thought that file near-sinking of a objection, perhaps because his own party was required to ao to a special FISA court being in time to prevent the
billion-dollar American warship wasan act was mainly responsible for them. and establish "probable cause" that the terrorists using airliners as bombs,
of war. But the Clntonites treated it like, An article in the ApriMssue of Commen- target was a foreign agent. FBI in Minnesota and Arizona
say, a 7-Eleven stfckup in Little Rojk.. • tary is must reading for anyone seri- "Previously it would have been had s suspicious activity but their
This is particularly egregious because ously interested in why the Central laughable to suggest that foreign en- reports ren't acted upon. ';'
Osama bin Laden had declared'War on Intelligence Agency and the Federal emy operatives had a righttocon- The tent that the CIA must hay^e
the U.S. in 1996. Murderous bombings of1 Bureau of Investigation failed to act duct their perfidies in privacy," no role domestic investigations stems
U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Bar es on information they already pos- writes Mr. McCarthy. "The from posse comitatus principle that
Salaam in August 1998 had shown that he sessed that might have allowed Fourth Amendment prohibits bars theju.S. military from domestic pb-
meant it and, with his international al them to block the 9/11 hijackers. It only 'unreasonable' searches, lice work. But Mr. McCarthy points out
Qaeda terrorist organization, could carry was written foy Andrew C. McCar- and there is nothing unreason- that if me U.S. were invaded, the U.S.
it out As National Security Adviser Con- thy, chief prosecutor of Sheflc Omar able about searching or recording
Abdel Rahman, who master- people who threaten national secu- army would fight on U.S. soil. So why is
doleezza Rice said in her testimony to it an infringement on posse comitatus tx>
the 9/11 Commission last week, "The ter- minded the Idas truck-bomb attack rity. (The federal courts have often
on the World Trade Center. recognized that the Constitution is allow the CIA to battle foreign agents
rorists were* at war Wfith us, but we were and terrorists on U.S. soil? !
not yetffipr with tfcem,",, The political mindset that tied not a suicide pet.) Now, such opera-
up the CIA and FBI in legal red tives became the beneficiaries of
ings are mainly a political exercise, Ms, tape began with the witch hunt con- precisety sich, protection." resident Bush's creation of th$
Rice was quite generous in saying that ducted against the CIA in 1976 by a FISAw: ; accompanied by mass Homeland Security Department
America's insufficient response to terror- 'Senate committee chaired by liberal firings by JUnmy Carter's CIA direc- i and the passage of the Patriot Act
ism over the last 20 years stretched Democrat Prank Church. He was in- tor, Stansfiel Turner, which further by Cogress have removed some of thfe
; censed that President Richard Nixon shattered agei :y morale. And congres- underbrush that caused the 9/11 failure.
"across, several administrations of bofli had tried to use the agency to block
parties." She chose not to say that the sional DemoqSate, hwrijig seized con- The <pA and FBI can now legally ex-
most serious "insufficiencies" cfearly hap- an FBI investigation of the Water- trol of nation " from its con- ! evidence and information, for one
pened during the eight years of the Clin- gate scandal. Mr. Nixon was by no stitutional owner lit, piled on thing] A new center to receive and assess
ton presidency. It wont take an encyclope- means the first to try to employ a federal more restriction amend- threat information has been set up. The
dia-sized 9/11 Commission report to ex-' •agency lor political purposes, as any close ments to approp j, bills attempted FBI Ijas been directed to focus on terror*-
plain the background of that negligences. inspection of the Lyndon B. Johnson to prevent Presi ijfrom sup- with its regular law enforce,-
record wifl show. It should.be noted that at porting the "con ;,aCastro- menlj activities. !
Mr. Clinton, never a great faa of et, that time the CIA, a key instrument for Soviet attempt to rmcara-
ther the military or the CIA, was psycho- waging the Cold War against the Soviet gua. When cold Reagan lit of course, there are still vocal
logically ill-equipped to admit that the Uniofj was getting a propaganda barrage White House usec smeth- > Oat the somewhat expanded po#-
U.S. was under attack. He preferred to' fromlhe international Left as well. ods to try to cir ers *f federal anti-terrorist agencies are
think that he was dealing merely with an , The upshot of this feverish political authored by Mas t Ed- $ threat to civil rights. Ther0 are still
outbreak of criminality. era was the 191$ congressional passage ward Boland, the scandal congressmen who want to micromana^e
The failure to distinguish between of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance erupted. Oliver North and others would aatfraial security policy. U.S. Vfcters will
crime and war is crucial to understanding Act (FISA). As f|r. McCarthy writes, have been in deeper trouble if anyone ves have to decide whom they
why America ultimately became vulnera- "Here, for the first time. Congress and could have figured out what the Boland fesfr most, Osama bin Laden or their own
ble. Over the 30 years since the U.S. de- courts undertetft t6 regulate the gather- amendments actually proscribed. ent.
The New York Times on the Web Page 1 of 1

April 1

Weighing Stronger Control Over Intelligence Agencies


As director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet runs the C.I.A. and Bush administration is considering centralizing the leadership of nalio
coordinates the work of 15 intelligence departments and agencies. The intelligence as a response to criticism from the Sept. 11 commission.

MILITARY AGENCIES INDEPENDENT AGENCY PJiBTS OF OTHER OIPARTMi«T§

• Defense Intelligence m National Security Agency • Central Intelligence • F.B.I. The National Security • State Dept. The Bure
Agency provides military intercepts, decodes and Agency collects and analyzes Division conducts domestic Intelligence and Resear
intelligence to the armed translates foreign foreign intelligence and counterintelligence and provides analysis on ton
forces and to policymakers. communications. conducts clandestine counterterrorism activities policy matters.
activities. and investigates international
Each armed service has its • National Geospatial- • Energy Dept The Ofl
criminal cases.
own intelligence element: Intelligence Agency Counter-terrorist Center of Intelligence is concer
analyzes aerial and satellite reports directly to the director • Homeland Security Dept. with nuclear weapons,
• Army Intelligence
photographs and prepares of central intelligence. The Directorate of Information nuclear energy and ene
• Navy Intelligence maps. Analysis and Infrastructure related areas.
Terrorist Threat Integration Protection determines
• Air Force Intelligence • National Reconnais- Center is a joint venture of the • Treasury Dept. The C
domestic vulnerabilities to
• Marine Corps Intelligence sance Office builds and C.I.A., F.B.I., Homeland terrorist attack. of Intelligence Support
operates spy satellites. Security and other agencies to studies intelligence rela
analyze and share intelligence • Coast Guard Intelligence to financial matters.
C.i.A on terrorism. is part of Homeland Security.

I Close Window Copyright 2004 The New York T

http://www.nytimes.eom/imagepages/2004/04/l 6/politics/20040416_INTE_GRAPH.html 4/16/2004


——nhe Intelligence Mess: How It Happened, What to Do About It Page 1 of 13

Commentary
April 2004

The Intelligence Mess: How It Happened, What to Do About It


Andrew C. McCarthy

Intelligence-gathering is something of a square peg in the round hole of contemporary political


morality. It is about unearthing that which is willfully concealed, an enterprise that necessarily calls
for invading privacy and inducing betrayal—discomfiting acts in an age that exalts the individual
and his liberties above community and country. It is about assuming and preparing for the worst in
an era that sees "bad" as an outmoded adjective for "different," another dash of enlivening spice in
a rich social stew. Intelligence is gimlet eyes in a world of rose-colored glasses.

Now, however, that foreign pathologies long denied have visited their excesses upon us, many
among the benignly tolerant have turned overnight into the equivalent of ambulance-chasers. In
particular, they have confidently laid at the door of America's intelligence apparatus the success of
America's enemies on September 11,2001. Even as investigators in the CIA and FBI were unable
to "connect the dots," it is said, nineteen al-Qaeda hijackers cavorted for months in this country
before carrying out the atrocities of that day. Nor was this catastrophe—"by definition, the worst
intelligence failure in our country's history," in the words of the Reagan-era intelligence expert
Herbert Meyer—a singular phenomenon. Less than a year earlier, a billion-dollar battle ship, the
U.S.S. Cole, had been bombed and nearly sunk, causing the deaths of seventeen servicemen,
because we unwittingly berthed it in the al-Qaeda-infested port of Aden, Yemen. This, after our
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were turned to rubble in August 1998 by the very same al Qaeda,
which had already attacked numerous times previously, and which no less often had expressly
declared war on the United States.

Nor is that all. Thanks to our failed intelligence services (the indictment continues), the Bush
administration grossly overestimated the stockpiles and production capacity of chemical,
bacteriological, radiological, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. In the
meantime, in North Korea, construction of nuclear weapons seems to have ensued for years right
under our noses. And Pyongyang's mischief marked only a single strand in a web of proliferation
woven by our ally Pakistan, a web that may have spread into as many as seven nations, including
Iran, where the mullahs now harbor the remnants of al Qaeda's leadership.

How did this wide wreckage in our intelligence capacities come about? One incisive answer has
been given by Mark Riebling in his gripping history, Wedge: How the Secret War between the FBI
and CIA Has Endangered National Security (1994, re-issued in 2002 with a new epilogue).
Riebling's thesis is that the problem is longstanding, that it has a single "root cause," and that this
root cause is institutional. In his telling, a full half-century's worth of national disasters—from
Pearl Harbor through the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and
9/11—can be traced directly to intelligence failures, and those failures were proximately caused by
turf-battling between our two great rival agencies.

This has now become conventional wisdom, accepted on all sides. And one can see the apparent
sense in it. A ramified system of multiple agencies having similar missions and chasing the same

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article_print.asp?aid=l 1704013_1 4/15/2004


Page 1 of 1

Mike Hurley

From: Len Hawley


Sent: Monday, April 05, 2004 7:24 AM
To: Warren Bass
Cc: Mike Hurley
Subject: RE: Condi Rice is no Tom Clancy

Just in case you forgot this interesting email.... Len

Original Message
From: Warren Bass
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 4:36 PM
To: Team 3
Subject: Condi Rice is no Tom Clancy

Our Homeland Securitizers Should Read


More
By James Pinkerton
Fellow
Newsday
May 21,2002

So now we know that inklings and incidents pointing to a September 11-type terrorist attack have been
sprinkled throughout the last decade, like black cats crossing a darkened street. Indeed, the emerging story
in the who-knew-what-when blame-game erupting in Washington last week is this: just about everyone
involved in counter-terrorism had some piece of the puzzle. Reacting to questions about the ill-fitting clues
littering the pre-9-11 gameboard, Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nevada), a member of the House Intelligence
Committee, spluttered to the Fox News Channel, "This kind of information could be gleaned from a Tom
Clancy novel!"
Yes, that's true. On page 985 of Debt of Honor, published in 1994, a crazed Japanese pilot crashes a
civilian 747 jetliner into the Capitol, as the president is addressing a joint session of Congress. Here's
Clancy describing the scene: "Nearly three hundred tons of aircraft and fuel struck the east face of the
building at a speed of three hundred knots." The building's walls were "smashed to gravel," but even before
the roof could cave in, one hundred tons of jet fuel sparked off, "and an immense fireball engulfed everything
inside and outside the building."
Is that threat-scenario vivid enough? Indeed, insofar as Clancy is one of the best-selling authors in the
country with a particularly large following among military types, it's a depressing commentary on military
intelligence that Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could say, a month
later, to the American Forces Radio and Television Service, "You hate to admit it, but we hadn't thought
about this."

4/5/2004
.—-*1—Washingtonpost.com: Legislators Seek U.S. Intelligence Director Page 1 of2

washingtonpost.com

Legislators Seek U.S. Intelligence Director


By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 2, 2004; Page A09

The Democratic members of the House Permanent Select Committee on


Intelligence yesterday recommended the establishment of a director of
national intelligence who would have both budgetary and operational control
over the CIA and the much larger collection of Pentagon and other agencies
that collect and analyze intelligence.

In offering what would be a major reorganization, Rep. Jane Harman (D-


Calif.) said: "One of the major deficiencies in our intelligence community is
the fact that there are 15 intelligence agencies ~ operating with different rules,
cultures and databases ~ that do not work as one integrated intelligence
community."

The suggestion that there be a single director of national intelligence, or DNI, Open an Orange
is not a new one, having been proposed last year by the joint committee that Savings Account
investigated 9/11, and before that by Brent Scowcroft in his role as chairman
of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
in under 5 minutes!

The DNI would replace the director of central intelligence (DCI), currently
George J. Tenet, who also serves as CIA director. Although Tenet has the title Rate
and standing as the president's senior intelligence adviser, under current law No
he has total control only over the CIA. He has advisory status when it comes
to operational and budgetary matters involving various Pentagon intelligence No Minimums
agencies that account for 90 percent of the $40 billion spent each year on
intelligence.
INGJftDIRECT
Scowcroft's attempt to give the DCI what would have amounted to control
over Pentagon money and personnel was blocked two years ago by Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and lawmakers, particularly those on the House and Senate armed
services committees who did not want to lose control of their portion of intelligence spending.

Rumsfeld, instead, created the post of undersecretary of defense for intelligence, whose occupant serves
as the titular head of all Pentagon intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, which
intercepts electronic messages worldwide; the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which collects
and analyzes satellite imagery; the National Reconnaissance Office, which develops, builds and operates
intelligence satellites; the Defense Intelligence Agency, which analyzes military intelligence; and the
intelligence arms of the military services.

The Democrats' plan would also establish a deputy director of national intelligence, who would play the
role of the Rumsfeld-established undersecretary for intelligence. The plan proposes deputy directors of
national intelligence for operations and resources who would develop common classification standards
for sensitive information, and would establish uniform rules across the government for gaining access to
intelligence.

http://www. washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43208-2004Aprl ?language=printer 4/2/2004


Assessing the Blame for 9/11 Page 1 of 2

She ;V'rtu J]ork eimcs ?•« M T E R - F R I E N B i Y FQMMAt

March 25, 2004

Assessing the Blame for 9/11

T he seminal moment of this week's hearings on 9/11 surely came yesterday when Richard Clarke,
the former antiterrorism chief in the Bush and Clinton administrations, opened his testimony by
apologizing to the families whose loved ones died in the terror attacks. The government, Mr. Clarke
said, had failed them, "and I failed you." He added, "We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we
failed." It suddenly seemed that after the billions of words uttered about that terrible day, Mr. Clarke
had found the ones that still needed saying.

The two days of hearings by the commission investigating the attacks have been invaluable in helping
the American people better understand the chain of miscommunications, wrong guesses and misplaced
priorities that left the nation so poorly defended against the terrorists. Mr. Clarke, by accepting
responsibility, offered the American people the freedom to hold their leaders accountable for an event
most had come to see as an unstoppable bolt from the blue.

Mr. Clarke is clearly haunted by the thought that if things had gone differently, the attacks might have
been averted. That seems like the longest of long shots. But there are still plenty of questions to be
answered about what happened, particularly about the apparent lack of urgency in the Bush
administration's antiterrorism efforts before 9/11.

The Clinton administration also made mistakes. Although aware of the danger posed by Osama bin
Laden, it was somehow unable to create and carry out an effective strategy to deal with him. Bill
Clinton, distracted by the threat of impeachment, failed to educate the American people adequately
about the nature of the danger, and what it might take to fight it. Senior officials from the Clinton and
Bush administration testified, one after another, that in the pre-9/11 world, they could not have gone
further in trying to run down Mr. bin Laden because, they believed, the country and our allies would not
have supported it.

But there was at least no question about the Clinton administration's commitment to combat terrorism,
and on occasion, like the December 1999 alert that appears to have averted an attack on the Los
Angeles airport, it produced results.

The attitude of the Bush administration seems harder to pin down. Mr. Clarke's conclusion was that
after George Bush became president, neither he nor the terrorism agenda got the same top-level
attention. The Bush administration officials who testified denied that vociferously. Their arguments
suffered from the absence of Condoleezza Rice, the person to whom Mr. Clarke reported. Ms. Rice has
been doing the rounds of talk shows in an attempt to bolster her argument that the administration had
found Mr. Clarke's plans wanting and immediately began a full-bore effort to come up with a new
antiterrorism strategy. What the nation deserved to hear her address publicly before the commission is
why that process took eight months. A new plan was not approved by the White House until the eve of
the terror attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

The real impression gleaned from the hearings is not that the Bush administration was indifferent to the

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/25/opimon/25THU 1 .html?pagewanted=print&position= 3/25/2004


C_ Center for the Study of Intelligence

Center for the Study of Intelligence


Conference Report

Intelligence for a New Era


in American Foreign
Policy
10-11 September 2003
Charlottesville, Virginia

Washington, D.C.
January 2004

Central Intelligence Agency


Mike Hurley
From: GordonLederman1@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 1 2:39 PM
To: Alexis Albion; Mike Hurley
Subject: Re: New York Post on President Clinton's Address to Islamic Summit

FYI:

> NEW YORK POST


>
> CLINTON'S TRIUMPH By RALPH PETERS January 19, 2004 -- I NEVER
> thought I'd give Bill Clinton a standing ovation. But last week in
> Qatar I did just that. Our former president gave the most perfectly
> pitched, precisely targeted speech I've ever heard to a hall filled
> with Muslim intellectuals and officials. And they listened. Clinton's
> lecture closed a worthwhile, if often exasperating, conference on the
> future of the Middle East's relations with America. Sponsored by the
> Emir of Qatar and organized by the Brookings Institution, the event
> brought together a combination of the usual suspects and outside
> ringers for vigorous, open discussions. A few of the sessions did
> manage to move a fragile half -step beyond the "everything that isn't
> Israel's fault is America's fault" mantras that sedate Middle Eastern
> societies. Still, by the closing luncheon, I'd had about enough of
> Muslim "authorities" whose versions of their own history had collapsed
> into easy myths and for whom the Ko ran had become a document to be
> used as selectively as the phone book. Enter Bill Clinton. Now, after
> serving in Washington during the Clinton administration and hearing
> our former president chatter for checks more recently, my expectations
> were that he would do no harm, but little good. I was wrong, e world
> beyond our shores. Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and a
> regular Post contributor.

> http: //www.nypost . com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/16081 .htm

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