According to the most recent CNN/Time magazine poll US public approval of Bush handling of Iraq has slipped down to 44 percent with 51 percent opposed to it. Besides Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) of August 6, 2001 entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in the US, dismissed by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on grounds of non-specificity and lacking actionable intelligence, will haunt Bush administration long after November Presidential elections are over. Could the Bush administration prevent nine-eleven terrorist attacks? -- a question which could be scripted into an X-Files movie with "truth is out there" banner -- is looming large. Unsurprisingly President Bush and his key aides persist in their conviction that it could not have been avoided. Detractors argue that the terrorists should not have been expected to display such naiveté as to announce in advance the date, time and place of their next terrorist venture and that the PDB in question should have spurred President Bush to enthuse an otherwise non-communicative and often adversarial intelligence community into taking collective and preventive actions.

In the meantime former NSC official Richard Clarke's revelation in his book 'Against all enemies: Inside America's war on terror' has added an incendiary chapter in the magnum opus of war on terror. Clarke writes of his incredulity at finding that immediately after nine-eleven Defence Department's focus was already beginning to shift from al-Qaida despite CIA's unreserved conclusion that the culprits of the nine-eleven were Al-Qaida operatives. Clarke 'revealed with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq. Since the beginning of this administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war on Iraq'. Clarke further narrates his meeting with President Bush wandering alone around the situation room' who grabbed 'a few of us' to see 'if Saddam did this. See if he is linked in any way' to which an incredulous Clarke replied 'But Mr. President, al-Qaida did it'.

Condoleezza Rice put up a stiff defence in favour of President Bush in her testimony to The National Commission on Terrorist Attack upon the United States. She said that the very first Bush national security policy directive of September 4, 2001 related 'not Russia, not missile defence, not Iraq' but elimination of al-Qaida. Rice revealed that within a month of taking office President Bush sent a strong private message to President Pervez Musharraf urging him to use his influence with the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden and to close down the al-Qaida training camps. While Colin Powell urged the Pakistanis to abandon support for the Taliban, Condy Rice delivered a very tough message (to the visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister in Washington) which was met with rote, expressionless response. American decision to take the Pakistani route was due to the US realisation that al-Qaida was both a client and a patron of the Taliban which in turn was supported by Pakistan providing al-Qaida with a powerful umbrella of protection. She characterised American new approach to Pakistan as a combination of 'carrot and stic' to persuade Pakistan to drop its support for the Taliban.

As is well known Pakistan totally changed her policy towards the Taliban and al-Qaida resulting in Pakistan being recently rewarded with the status of a major non-NATO ally for defence purposes. Condoleezza Rice concluded that there was no silver bullet that could have prevented 9/11 attacks and blamed intelligence failure on structural and legal impediments that prevented the collection and sharing of information of US law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It, however, remains to be seen how far Dr. Rice's spirited defence would help President Bush in getting re-elected as the Gallup poll(of 13.04.04) informs us that 26 percent of the Americans now consider Iraq to be the greatest issue confronting the country outstripping economy on which so far American public attention had been focused.

Besides key officials of the Clinton administration have been or are being summoned by the National Commission for testimony whose members had private discussions with President Clinton and are scheduled to meet President Bush and Vice President Cheney. A lot will depend on the information which will come out of these investigations thus influencing the forthcoming Presidential elections. Appearing before the Commission CIA Director George Tenet readily acknowledged that intelligence agencies could never penetrate 9/11 plot and that it would take another five years of work to have the kind of clandestine service capable of combating the al-Qaida and other terrorist threats.

While the National Commission's report is expected to take some time before it is made public, one is tempted to take note of the Democratic Party's Presidential nominee John Kerry's op-ed in the Washington Post(of 13th April) in which he expressed his opinion that the UN and not the US should be the primary civilian partner working with the Iraqi leaders to put the country back on rails. In the same vein President Clinton's National Security Adviser Samuel Burger ( Foreign Affairs May/June 2004) held Bush administration's high handed style and gratuitous unilateralism responsible for bitterness among 'even those most likely to embrace American values and invited opposition even from those most to gain from American success'. Although the US, he added, had never enjoyed greater power yet it has rarely possessed so little influence as it did at present.

Comparing the strategists of Bush administration with hard-line faction of the Congressional Republicans headed by Robert Taft during Truman and Eisenhower administrations, Burger resoundingly criticised Bush strategists' radical set of conviction that in a chaotic world the US power particularly military power was the only real force capable of advancing US national interests unmindful of whether the US was being feared or admired. These strategists drew inspirations from the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, Wifowitz, Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer and others who pioneered the concept of the New American Century during Clinton administration. Sandy Burger feels that the real clash of civilisations is taking place within Washington between Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfelda battle fought between liberal internationalists in both parties( Republican and Democrat) who believe that US strength is usually greatest when America works in concert with allies in defence of shared values and interests versus those who seem to believe that the US should go it alone or not go it at all.

The blizzard of violence let loose by Bush administration as the regnant authority in Iraq may produce cataclysmic consequences for the world at large. The casual disdain shown by the Bush administration in spurning collective instruments like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention and International Criminal Court is reflective of American determination to use its muscularity for the attainment of its immediate goals. That such indiscriminate use of hard power, contrary to the basic principles of necessity and proportionality which the US as occupying power has to abide by in Iraq is given little attention to.

Time will tell how far the occupying powers particularly the US are following the dictates of international humanitarian law applicable to belligerent occupation which is the case with Iraq. It is also to be remembered that the core idea of international law on belligerent occupation is its transitional nature. This could perhaps explain Bush administration's repeated determination to hand over 'sovereignty' to the Iraqis on 1st of July come hail or high water.

But this truncated sovereign Iraq forced to host a huge foreign army dedicated to usher in 'democratic moment' in Iraq with the hope of causing a tidal wave of domino effect to usher in democracy in the Greater Middle East could lessen the attraction of the Arabs for American 'soft power' cultural and ideological appeal for whom this costly venture was undertaken in the first place. As it is the great digital and prosperity divide between the Western and developing (largely Muslim) world has undeniably brought into sharp focus the fault lines between the two civilisations. Historian Bernard Lewis would have us believe that the clash of civilisations between Islam and Christianity has now lasted for some fourteen centuries because, he wrote, "Islam was never prepared either in theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs and practised other forms of worship". Islamic scholars, on the other hand, would argue that Islam having an intrinsically universal creed and world view clashed with the Euro-Centric idea of a nation-state which confines Islam to defined geographical boundaries thus creating pathological anomalies. The clash of civilisations is further accentuated due to Western efforts to transform the world into proverbial "Global Village" in order to shape the world in the image of a single culture and civilisation.

Whether Iraq invasion regardless of the justifications advanced so far which have failed to convince not only the Muslim world but also a sizeable part of the Christian world (including the Pope and the head of the Anglican Church) is because President Bush sees himself as a true successor of Richard the Lion heart remains to be seen. If , on the other hand, President Bush has decided to play the memorable role created by George Bernard Shaw in Professor Henry Higgins bent upon transforming the street urchin Eliza Doolittle into a sophisticated lady( and thus bring light to an otherwise dark Islamic world) then indeed all of us inhabiting this globe are in big trouble.

The ferocity displayed by the US forces in Falluja and elsewhere (killing six hundred men, women and children to avenge the death of four US marines) in total disregard of international humanitarian law and teachings of all scriptures strengthen the case of a "regime change" in the US itself through the November Presidential elections. If that does not happen then one hopes Europeans, both the old and the new, would prevail upon the elephant in the china shop to reign in its insatiable hunger for death and destruction.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and ambassador.