Stories of such near misses abound in “The Age of Sacred Terror” (490 pages. Random House), Benjamin and Simon’s gripping account of Al Qaeda’s rise and America’s response. The revelations serve a profoundly serious purpose: to explain how the United States could have been so blind on that terrible morning 14 months ago. By chronicling the many pitfalls of counterterrorism, the authors hope to help avert future attacks.
The book begins far beyond American shores, with a careful history of Islamist terrorism. Benjamin and Simon emphasize that Osama bin Laden and his followers represent a new, far more treacherous form of terror that seeks mass casualties; according to their account, one prominent jihadist has set a goal of 4 million dead Americans. The authors also make clear that Al Qaeda is not merely an American problem. Dysfunctional economies and illegitimate governments render nations such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan vulnerable to the jihadist tide. In Europe, a growing population of alienated and impoverished immigrants has proved a fertile recruiting ground for radical Islamists. Militancy is spreading in Southeast Asia as well, where–in a passage eerily presaging the recent bombings in Bali–Benjamin and Simon warn of explosives and terrorists unaccounted for in Indonesia.
But the core of the book describes how Clinton-administration officials grappled with the inchoate specter of radical Islam. To hear Benjamin and Simon tell it, they were fighting two wars: one against Al Qaeda, and one with the U.S. government to have the threat taken seriously. Despite several attacks during the 1990s–including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing–and rising agitation in the White House, the executive branch did not act with a unified sense of urgency. Miscommunication was rampant. The FBI, owing to its culture of secrecy and Director Louis Freeh’s disdain for Clinton, did not share vital information with the White House–including the fact that Arab students with links to known Islamist radicals were enrolled in U.S. flight schools. And a turf battle between the CIA and the Air Force held up development of the Predator drone, which eventually performed so well in Afghanistan and recently killed a senior Qaeda operative in Yemen. The State Department essentially ignored a White House order to beef up security at U.S. embassies. And Clinton even requested plans for a Special Forces attack on bin Laden, but the Pentagon, distrustful of the draft-dodging president, balked at the mission.
In reciting this litany, Benjamin and Simon attempt to answer critics who allege that the Clinton administration did not take terrorism seriously. While hardly disinterested observers, they do show persuasively that “hitting back” after a terrorist attack is not so simple. Indeed, Clinton’s attempt to do so with cruise-missile strikes after Al Qaeda bombed U.S. embassies in East Africa only brought him controversy. And even the outright invasion of Afghanistan failed to net bin Laden.
But whatever bureaucratic obstacles Clinton faced, he must be judged by how he tackled them. And here the former president’s record is hardly stellar. Benjamin and Simon respond that the poisonous political atmosphere of the 1990s, marked by the carnival of impeachment, made leadership exceedingly difficult. For one thing, Clinton could not fire an FBI director who was investigating him, despite his lack of cooperation on terrorism. But, as the authors acknowledge, Clinton must share in the blame. After all, his own misdeeds contributed to governmental paralysis.
Looking to the future, the danger we face is that as the shock of September 11 recedes, so will vigilance–in America and around the world. Benjamin and Simon offer sensible short- and long-term strategies to tackle Al Qaeda, focusing on revamping U.S. counterterror efforts and nudging the Middle East toward democracy. But perhaps the greatest contribution of this important book will be to imbue the war on terror with a new realism. Al Qaeda will strike America again, the authors predict, fighting back will be complicated and the effort will require sustained national and international cooperation. Perhaps this time their prophecies will not go unheeded.
