The Truth Of The Matter

How does a civil servant who has launched a major attack on the Bush presidency protect himself from what he has unleashed? Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush--who saw al-Qaeda expand under his watch, attack U.S. interests abroad and produce the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history--knew he couldn't pin the blame on his bosses if he didn't start by apologizing himself. So he prepared his words carefully. At 3 a.m. on the day of his testimony, "I got up and went down to my study and actually typed the words out so I wouldn't forget," he told TIME. When it came time to deliver them in a hearing room in the Hart Senate Office Building, he addressed not just his interrogators, the 10 members of the bipartisan commission charged with investigating the events of 9/11, but also the victims of Osama bin Laden. "Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you," he said, in language that struck some people as melodramatic. After he spoke, some of the victims' loved ones, seated behind him, put down pictures of their dead to applaud; some hugged him when he was done testifying. Said Stephen Push, whose wife Lisa Raines died aboard American Airlines Flight 77: "I've been waiting for an apology from the government for two and a half years."

Clarke, who quit his job at the National Security Council a year ago, would not have survived Washington's brutal ways in the service of three Presidents if he had not been a good politician. And last week he needed all the political skills he could muster for what he was about to do--direct a missile at the very fortress that so far has protected Bush's presidential advantage in this campaign season: the perception that, for all his faults, Bush has done everything he could to keep the country safe and managed the war on terrorism well. In an early March Gallup poll, the President's approval rating on the issue of terrorism was nearly 30 points higher than that of Democratic challenger John Kerry. Suddenly it looked to some Democrats as if Bush's main argument for re-election--that the world is too dangerous to change horses in midstream--could at least be neutralized.

If Clarke's assault was effective, it was partly because he used the tools of an old warrior, surprise and preparation. First he produced a closely guarded book more than a year in the making, Against All Enemies, whose revelations he unveiled on 60 Minutes three days before his testimony, broadcast live on the cable networks. His case was devastating: the Bush Administration, he claimed, had dillydallied in its approach to terrorism, ignoring warnings and shelving counterstrategies, getting serious only after the tragedy of 9/11 and then bungling its efforts by launching a diversionary war in Iraq. The day after Clarke's testimony, a survey released by the Pew Research Center found that a remarkable 89% of those polled had heard about his charges. Clarke's book shot to No. 1 on Amazon's best-seller list.