Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Richard Clarke's dramatic statement to the grieving families during the 9/11 Commission hearings touched a raw nerve across America. Not only had our government failed to prevent the 2001 terrorist attacks, but it has proven itself, time and again, incapable of handling the majority of our most crucial national security issues, from Iraq to Katrina and beyond. This is not just a temporary failure of our current leadership—it is a systemic problem, the result of a pattern of incompetence that must be understood, confronted, and prevented.

Clarke's first book, the number one bestseller Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, explained how the United States had stumbled into a struggle with violent Islamist extremists. Now, in Your Government Failed You, Clarke looks at why these unconscionable failures have continued and how America and the world can succeed against the terrorists. Yet Clarke also goes far beyond terrorism, to examine the inexcusable chain of recurring U.S. government disasters. Despite the lessons of Vietnam, there is Iraq. A trail of intelligence failures litters the Washington landscape. From Katrina to color codes and duct tape, "homeland security" has been an oxymoron. Why does the superpower continue to bobble national security?

Clarke minces no words in his examination of the breadth and depth of the mediocrity, entropy, and collapse endemic in America's national security programs. In order for the United States to stop its string of strategic mistakes, we first need to understand why they happen. Drawing on his thirty years in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, and intelligence community, Clarke gives us a privileged, if horrifying, look into the debacle of government policies, discovering patterns in the failures and offering ways to stop the cycle once and for all.

About the Author

Richard A. Clarke has served in the White House for President Reagan, for both presidents Bush, and for President Clinton, who appointed him as National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism. He teaches at Harvard Kennedy School, consults for ABC News, and is chairman of Good Harbor Consulting.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; 1 edition (May 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061474622
• ISBN-13: 978-0061474620
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #342,536 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lot to Think About!, May 27, 2008

By	Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

America's government spends $1 trillion/year on national security, yet fails to provide security for its citizens. Clarke's latest book reviews several key areas and identifies both problems and potential improvements.

The Iraq War is the first topic reviewed. Clarke believes that the war was a major mistake, is not likely to achieve its purpose, and represents a failure in leadership. Examples of the latter include having insufficient troops, a lack of direction after taking Baghdad, poorly equipped and protected forces, loose control of prisoners, and poor treatment of our wounded after arriving back in the U.S. Clarke believes U.S. generals failed to stand up to poor decision-making by civilians, though also contends that top generals were chose for their compliability and admits that speaking out was a career-limiting move.

The end of the Cold War came as a surprise to American leadership, and is widely viewed as a devastating indictment of U.S. intelligence. Other failures include the CIA telling Truman in 1950 that China would not invade Korea to fight U.S. forces (that assessment was made after advance Chinese units had already entered North Korea), the CIA asserting that Iraq would not invade Kuwait (did so within hours of that forecast), concluding that Iraq did not have significant nuclear weapons development prior to Gulf War I, stating that Russia had not violated the Biological Weapons Convention (later was proved, and they admitted otherwise), mislocating the location of Russian nuclear warheads in East Germany, concluding that Iraq had WMD prior to Gulf War II and was also training al Qaeda, downplaying the likelihood of North Korea invading the South, India's developing nuclear weapons, failing to detect both the Tet Offensive and the fall of the Shah, etc. Hardly the expected performance for sixteen agencies with tens of thousands and $50 billion/year believed employed in intelligence activities.

Clarke is particularly upset at our failure to pursue Khalid al-Midhar (one of the 9/11 crew) in the U.S. even though he had been linked to the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in E. Africa, followed to Malaysia to a terrorist meeting in 1999 (secret photographing of his passport at the time showed he had a visa for U.S. travel, even though he had been identified as al Qaeda both by U.S. and Saudi Arabian sources, and entered the U.S. twice after that and lived in California prior to 9/11. A CIA Inspector General investigation post 9/11 concluded that 60 agents knew of al-Midhar's presence in the U.S., along with an associate.

The Afghanistan campaign is a long way from success, also due to inadequate force commitment, compounded by Frank's failure to send U.S. Rangers to cut off bin Laden's escape into Pakistan and others failing to provide enough economic aid. Clarke recommends we stop the heroin growing in Afghanistan (funds the Taliban) by paying farmers to plant something else.

As for Homeland Security, Clarke states that it presided over the most obvious domestic failure of the national government in generations, and is now laced with political hacks and private contractors. Unresolved problems to-date include fake IDs, failure to screen airplane cargo, little security effort involving trains and ships, illegal immigration, and non-functional software. Meanwhile, we have damaged our credibility and trust through torture, hyping arrests and plots, and wiretaps.

Worse yet are the related problems of oil funding terrorists and adding to global warming. Little has been done, despite the seriousness of both.

"Your Government Failed You" ends the topics examined with cybersecurity. We have problems with outsiders getting inside vital databases, overloading systems to render them inoperative, etc. Progress has been made, but it needs to become a higher priority.

Clarke's overall recommendations include reducing the size of government, and ending the privatization of vital functions, staffing them with political hacks, and rotating individuals in/out of these vital security functions.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clarke again tells you things you ought to know, September 6, 2008

By	W. E. Cook "value-hunter" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Clarke has a reputation for telling things that, while not secret, are things the Bush crowd would rather you didn't know. His 30+ years in government, at a fairly high level, give him credence. Among many other things, he tells you how the Administration bullied Tommy Franks into reducing the long-standing Iraq invasion requirement from 480K to 130K, and how there was no post-invasion plan, previously a requirement of any military operation. He points out that if a Democratic Administration had sent troops into Iraq with canvas doors on their Hummers, there would have been riots in the streets. He points out the shabby treatment that Gov Ridge got and why he finally quit. And of course there is passing comments on Karl Rove, the spin-master from Hell. It made me want to deport him back there on the spot. It short, it's a good read if you want the story told from the inside....

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Advice to Obama, January 6, 2009

By	Donald JG Chiarella "Doctor DBMS" (Hanover, Maryland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

New president Obama needs to read this book. After 31 years in government i finally found someone who tells it like it is. That person is Richard Clarke. He has insights that i have known for years but never been able to confirm about some political appointees and their cronies. He also knows the career civil servant well. Washington is a place full of deceit and executive criminal behavior. Reading this book is excellent perparation for that duty. If you want to know what works in national security policy and what does not then read this book. Mr Clarke's blind spot is that he was never in the military. Other than that i find him on target in every aspect of his comments.