After 9/11, We Thought It Would Be a Generation-Long Struggle; We Were Wrong

• By RICHARD CLARKE

NEWS ANALYSIS — Sep 8, 2016 | http://abcnews.go.com/International/911-thought-generation-long-struggle-wrong/story?id=41926551

Richard Clarke was the national crisis manager for the White House on 9/11. He served as national coordinator for security and counterterrorism in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He has been an ABC News national security consultant since 2004.
In the days after the attacks of 9/11, Americans asked fundamental questions such as “Who did this?” and “Why do they hate us?” As a nation, we were eager for a fight, for revenge, but some had another question: “How long will this war go on?”
In the halls of the White House, President George W. Bush was asking us similar questions, and the administration, which was itself just beginning to understand the phenomenon that al-Qaeda represented, gave some frank answers. In a speech to Congress nine days after the attacks, Bush predicted “a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen,” without a decisive victory when the enemy surrenders. On the fifth anniversary of the attacks, Bush called it “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation.” http://abcnews.go.com/International/911-thought-generation-long-struggle-wrong/story?id=41926551