"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq, and we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.

"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."

-Richard Clarke

Interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes, March 21, 2004

Richard Clarke stepped squarely into the media spotlight when he began to publicly criticize the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq and its handling of counter-terrorism activities. There was reason for the attention: Clarke had provided national security advice to George W. Bush and three previous U.S. presidents.

Clarke began his thirty year government career in 1973, shortly after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. Under Ronald Regan, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence. Clarke coordinated diplomatic efforts and security arrangements for the first Gulf war for George H.W. Bush. During the Clinton Administration, Clarke headed an interagency committee advising on terrorist threats worldwide. Clarke earned a reputation as a hard-liner. It was his advice that led to the cruise missile attack on a Sudanese plant thought to be producing chemical weapons. That plant later proved to be a pharmaceutical facility.

Clarke was one of the few high-ranking officials from the Clinton Administration retained when George W. Bush took office. From 2001 to 2003, Clarke served as Special Advisor to Bush on terrorism, the so-called counter-terrorism czar. Clarke resigned his position in 2003 and began working on a book.

His criticisms of the administration became public with the publication of Against All Enemies in March 2004. In it, Clarke lambasted what he saw as a total lack of attention from high level officials to the threat posed by al-Qaeda prior to the 9/11 attacks. Gaining most press attention, though, was Clarke’s criticism of the Iraq war. Clarke recounted being shocked when, in meetings immediately after the terrorist attacks, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld began discussing bombing raids on Iraq. Clarke knew that various intelligence analyses had turned up no evidence of any connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. He considered the war an unwarranted diversion of attention and resources from actual terrorist threats.

The book resulting in withering attacks on Clarke from the White House and conservative commentators. But Clarke wasn’t alone in his concerns. His successor as counter-terrorism advisor to the President, Rand Beers, resigned the position after less than a year, going public with his own criticisms of his former bosses.