| AGAINST ALL ENEMIES Inside America's War on Terror Richard A. Clarke New York: Free Press, 2004 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-7432-6024-4 | ||||
| ISBN 0-7432-6024-4 | 304pp. | HC | $27.00 | |
| Pages 1-2: | "Bursting in on the Vice President and Condi—Condoleeza Rice, the President's National Security Advisor—alone in Cheney's office, I caught my breath. Cheney was famously implacable, but I thought I saw a reflection of horror on his face." |
| Word choice: S/B "imperturbable" or perhaps the slang term "unflappable", since it's phonetically closer and could be misheard in dictation. (Although Cheney is reputed to be implacable.) |
| Page 4: | " 'Okay', I began. 'Let's start with the facts. FAA, FAA, go.' I fell in to using the style of communications on tactical radio so that those listening in the other studios around town could hear who was being called on over the din in their own rooms." |
| The meaning of this is clear, but it could be improved: S/B "into the style of communications used on tactical radio". |
| Page 4: | " 'Jane, where's Norm?', I asked. They were frantically looking for Norman Mineta, the Secretary of Transportation, and, like me, a rare holdover from the Clinton Administration." |
| Clumsy, distorts meaning: S/B "like me". |
| Page 20: | "In 1993 when the World Trade Center was bombed, President Clinton was called directly by Wall Street firm CEOs who had been prevented from reentering the towers. Unable to close their transaction accounts for the day, billions of dollars were up in the air, unassigned." |
| Dangling participle: S/B "they had left billions of dollars up in the air". |
| Page 50: | "Pakistani military intelligence funded by the U.S. and Saudi governments and 'charitable' organizations, had turned groups of nineteenth-century Afghan tribesmen and several thousand Arab volunteers into a force that had crippled the mighty Red Army. The Stinger had been the final element they had needed." |
| Missing comma: S/B "intelligence, funded". |
| Page 56: | "Although not 108 degrees in our nation's capital, Washington felt like it and most of the leadership had left town." |
| Clumsy: S/B "our nation's capital was not baking at 108 degrees" or something similar. (It's a reference to the view that Saddam Hussein was merely bluffing about invading Kuwait because the temperature there in July 1990 was 108 degrees fondly Fahrenheit.) |
| Page 60: | "Incredulous at the delays, Cheney's implacable facade cracked and he finally erupted, 'Well, pull him out of the meeting. We may be going to war." |
| Second misuse of "implacable". The word means "unable to be appeased" or, more simply, unstoppable. "Imperturbable" comes closer. Also, it's a dangling participle: Cheney's facade was not incredulous; he was. |
| Page 204: | "I believe that those who in CIA who claim the authorizations were insufficient or unclear are throwing up that claim as an excuse to cover the fact that they were pathetically unable to accomplish the mission." |
| Extra word: S/B "in CIA who claim". |
| Page 214: | "I could hardly hear John O'Neill when I called his cell phone; he was at the New York Police Command Post in Time Square." |
| A typo, perhaps caused by hasty dictation: S/B "Times Square". |
| Page 215: | "Nonetheless, most field offices and much of FBI headquarters was focused elsewhere." |
| Error of number: S/B "were focused". |
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