A leading expert on counter-terrorism imagines the future history of the war on terror – 10 years after terrorists struck on September 11, 2001. Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism tzar and author of Against All Enemies, paints a frightening picture of a country still at war in 2011.
2001-2004: THE RESPONSE: Having ignored al-Qaeda until September 11, 2001, President George Bush responded to the attack in three ways. First, he ordered an end to the terrorist sanctuary in Afghanistan. For the next five years a token US military force assisted the Kabul government in its attempts to rule the warlords and suppress the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Second, he moved to strengthen US domestic law enforcement with the first Patriot Act (a law that civil libertarians would find benign from today’s perspective) and the Department of Homeland Security, which in those early years of the war on terror was largely ineffectual. Third, Bush ordered the ill-fated invasion and occupation of Iraq, which effectively turned his Administration into an active recruiting office for al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups around the world. Full Story