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http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/22/bush.clarke/index.html

Rice rejects Clarke charges
Says former administration official is 'rewriting history'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday rejected accusations that the Bush administration ignored warnings about terrorism before September 11, 2001.

Rice accused former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke of a "retrospective rewriting of the history."

In his new book, "Against All Enemies," and in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes," Clarke said he sent Rice a memo in January 2001 calling for an "urgent" meeting to discuss a potential al Qaeda threat -- and that she failed to act on it.

"Dick Clarke, in that memo, responded to my request for initiatives that we ought to be undertaking," Rice told CNN's "American Morning."

"After we had all been briefed on the al Qaeda threat and understood what the Clinton administration had been doing, he wanted another meeting. I didn't think another meeting was necessary. The principals knew what the problem was, and what we needed was a strategy."

Rice said Clarke's memo "was a series of ideas, a series of steps, most of which, by the way, we did (undertake) within a matter of months." Those steps included accelerating arming U.S. Predator drones and increasing counter-terrorism funding, she said.

"These were steps that he said would roll back al Qaeda over a three- to five-year period. This was not going to address the quote, 'urgent threat of September 11th,'" she said.

While Clarke called it "outrageous" that Bush is "running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism," Rice said Bush's "aggressive response" after September 11 put the United States "well on the road to winning the war on terrorism."

Rice also denied Clarke's suggestions that she seemed unaware of the al Qaeda threat when he presented it to her.

"I just think it's ridiculous," she said. "You know, I wasn't born yesterday when Clarke briefed me ... This wasn't an issue of who knew about al Qaeda, but what we were going to do about al Qaeda."

"This retrospective rewriting of the history of the first several months of the administration is not helpful," she added.

"To somehow suggest that the attack on 9/11 could have been prevented by a series of meetings -- I have to tell you that during the period of time we were at battle stations."

Threat assessment in 2001
Rice said in June and July of 2001, the "threat spikes" were high, indicating terrorist threats overseas. Bush was hearing from CIA Director George Tenet every day, she said.

She said there were no reports of threats inside the United States, but that she still called on Clarke to "get the domestic agencies together -- because who knows."

Rice said the White House asked Clarke to put together a new strategy.

In her CNN interview, Rice repeatedly pointed out that Clarke served as counterterrorism chief under the Clinton administration. He had also served under Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

Rice pointed out that Clarke was in charge of counterterrorism efforts in 1998 when U.S. embassies in African were bombed and in 2000 when the USS Cole was bombed, as well as during "a period of the '90s when al Qaeda was strengthening and when the plots that ended up in September 11th were being hatched."

Rice said the only time she recalls Clarke asking to brief the president was in June 2001 -- and it was on the issue of cybersecurity.

Asked about Clarke's statements that Bush was wrongly focused on Iraq shortly after the attacks, Rice said, "Iraq, given our history, given the fact they tried to kill a former president, was a likely suspect."

"Iraq was discussed because the question was raised: In a global war on terrorism, should you also take care of the threat from Iraq? But not a single National Security Council principal at that meeting recommended to the president going after Iraq. The president thought about it. The next day he told me Iraq is to the side."

The administration then focused on overthrowing the Taliban and the al Qaeda base in Afghanistan, she said.

Rice declined to speculate on Clarke's intentions or the role it may play in the presidential election. But, she said, "he had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to.

"In fact, when he came to me and asked if I would support him with Tom Ridge to become the deputy secretary of homeland security, a department which he now says should never have been created ... he said he supported the president. So, frankly, I'm flabbergasted."

Rice had praise for Clarke, saying it was his job to develop "a broad comprehensive strategy for dealing with the al Qaeda threat, and he eventually did that. And I think he did a very good job."

But she also said Clarke holds a narrower view of the war on terrorism than Bush does. Clarke's view "has to do with killing bin Laden and dealing with Afghanistan," she said, while Bush believes "you have to take the fight to the terrorists."

Earlier reaction
As news of the Clarke book's assertions came out over the weekend, a White House spokesman said Clarke is motivated by politics. (Full story)

"He has chosen at this critical time, in the middle of a presidential campaign, to inject himself into the political debate," spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "And he has every right to do so. But in so doing, his judgments -- his actions, or the lack thereof -- should also come under scrutiny."

Clarke said he asked for the Cabinet-level meeting in January 2001, shortly after the president took office, which Rice discussed in her interview.

"That urgent memo wasn't acted on," Clarke told CBS. Instead, he said, administration officials were focused on issues such as missile defense and Iraq.

Clarke said Bush "probably" shares some of the blame for the attacks. He is scheduled to testify this week before the independent commission investigating 9/11.

According to a White House statement issued Sunday night, "The president recognized the threat posed by al Qaeda, and immediately after taking office, the White House began work on a comprehensive new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda."

The statement said National Security Council deputies and second-ranking officials met frequently between March and September 2001 to work on that goal.

The national security team worked "aggressively and rapidly" to develop a course of action using all elements of national power: military, intelligence, diplomatic actions and financial pressure, according to the statement.

"The new strategy called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, command-and-control, ground forces and other targets."

Clarke left the government in February 2003 after 30 years of public service.

National Security Council deputy Stephen Hadley said on the CBS program that Bush did hear warnings of threat and was impatient for intelligence chiefs to develop a new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda.

"At one point the president became somewhat impatient with us," Hadley said, "and said, 'I'm tired of swatting flies. Where is my new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda?'"

Clarke said he eventually got to address a Cabinet meeting on terrorism months after his initial request, and only a week before the attacks.

Bartlett said Clarke used the opportunity "to talk about cybersecurity."

Bartlett said Clarke offered five recommendations to battle al Qaeda when the Bush administration took office.

"All of those recommendations were focused on overseas efforts that would have been nothing to prevent the attack on 9/11," he said. "All of those recommendations were being acted upon. It did not have to wait for a meeting that would take place in September."

He dismissed Clarke as a disgruntled former employee who left the government after he was passed over for the No. 2 job in the Department of Homeland Security. He also noted that Clarke has taught a college course with Rand Beers, another former counter-terrorism official now advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

"Despite all of these grievances -- despite all of these fundamental concerns about the actions our country has taken -- it's only now, in the course of this campaign, that Dick Clarke decides to talk in the form of this book," Bartlett said.

Clarke said that, a day after the attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pushed for a retaliatory strike on Iraq, though the evidence pointed to al Qaeda, because "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq." (Full story)

He also said Bush asked him to look for links between al Qaeda and Iraq the day after the attacks.

Bartlett said Bush "was going through a decision-making process," and needed to know "all the information available." He noted that Bush's decision ultimately was to attack Afghanistan, striking at the Taliban regime that allowed al Qaeda to operate from its territory.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.

I hate it when people rewrite history.

'99 Report Warned Of Suicide Hijacking
WASHINGTON, May 17, 2002

Exactly two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal report warned the executive branch that Osama bin Laden's terrorists might hijack an airliner and dive bomb it into the Pentagon or other government building.

"Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House," the September 1999 report said.

The report, entitled the "Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?," described the suicide hijacking as one of several possible retribution attacks al Qaeda might seek for the 1998 U.S. airstrike against bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan.

The report noted that an al Qaeda-linked terrorist first arrested in the Philippines in 1995 and later convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had suggested such a suicide jetliner mission.

"Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the CIA headquarters," author Rex Hudson wrote in a report prepared for the National Intelligence Council and shared with other federal agencies.

The intelligence council is attached to the CIA and is made up of a dozen senior intelligence officers who assist the U.S. intelligence community in analysis of threats and priorities.

The report contrasts with Bush administration officials' assertions that none in government had imagined an attack like Sept. 11 before that time.

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.

The report was written by the Federal Research Division, an arm of the Library of Congress that provides research for various federal agencies under contracts.

The report was based solely on open-source information that the federal researchers gathered about the likely threats of terrorists, according to Robert L. Worden, the division's chief.

"This information was out there, certainly to those who study the in-depth subject of terrorism and al Qaeda," Worden said.

"We knew it was an insightful report," he said. "Then after Sept. 11 we said, 'My gosh, that (suicide hijacking) was in there.'"

Asked about the report at his daily press briefing, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer described it as a psychological, sociological evaluation of terrorism.

"I don't think it's a surprise to anybody that terrorists think in evil ways," he said.

"It is not a piece of intelligence information suggesting that we had information about a specific plan."

Former CIA Deputy Director John Gannon, who was chairman of the National Intelligence Council when the report was written, said U.S. intelligence long has known a suicide hijacker was a possible threat.

"If you ask anybody could terrorists convert a plane into a missile, nobody would have ruled that out," he said. He called the 1999 report part of a broader effort by his council to identify for U.S. intelligence the full range of attack options for terrorists and U.S. enemies.

"It became such a rich threat environment that it was almost too much for Congress and the administration to absorb," he said. "They couldn't prioritize what was the most significant threat."

Gannon, who served both Democratic and Republican presidents, said Americans need to make a distinction between knowing the type of vulnerabilities terrorist could exploit and knowing the attacks were imminent.

He said criticism that President George W. Bush's August briefing should have alerted the administration to the attacks was "egregiously unfair. The president wasn't given actionable intelligence," he said.

It's pretty rich that anyone in the White House would talk about "rewriting history."

Rice said Clarke's memo "was a series of ideas, a series of steps, most of which, by the way, we did (undertake) within a matter of months." Those steps included accelerating arming U.S. Predator drones and increasing counter-terrorism funding, she said.

Oh, really? Then why was counterterror funding cut?

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/artic ... r_sept_11/

Why did Ashcroft make counterterror a low priority? Why was the administration more interested in Star Wars and Iraq? Why was the Clinton plan to move against al Qaeda following the Cole bombing abandoned until September 2001?

Rice said Bush's "aggressive response" after September 11 put the United States "well on the road to winning the war on terrorism."

By attacking the wrong country? By playing into bin Laden's hands? By fracturing US alliances? By increasing terrorism? Interesting approach.

Rice also denied Clarke's suggestions that she seemed unaware of the al Qaeda threat when he presented it to her.

"I just think it's ridiculous," she said. "You know, I wasn't born yesterday when Clarke briefed me ... This wasn't an issue of who knew about al Qaeda, but what we were going to do about al Qaeda."

Rice probably was *aware* of al Qaeda -- the blank stare Clarke writes about was likely indicative that she didn't *care* about al Qaeda. The administration was far more interested in state-sponsored threats than decentralized terror networks. They wanted to fight the Cold War over again -- they needed a *country* as a boogeyman, and when none was available after 9/11 (with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia, which we were far too cozy with), they tried to dress Iraq up in 9/11 clothes. Most people bought it.

Which brings us to:

But she also said Clarke holds a narrower view of the war on terrorism than Bush does. Clarke's view "has to do with killing bin Laden and dealing with Afghanistan," she said, while Bush believes "you have to take the fight to the terrorists."

Um, Condi? Al Qaeda didn't have significant operations in Iraq until *after we moved in.* There was no terrorist threat to the US from Iraq prior to the invasion. In what way was invading Iraq "taking the fight to the terrorists"? Here's a clue, free of charge -- the terrorists are *everywhere.* They're here, they're in Spain, they're in Baghdad, they're in Riyadh, they're in Singapore, they're in Bali, they're in Haiti (where they were apparently on Bush's side). For crying out loud, they're hiding in the bushes outside the abortion doctor with a rifle. They're sniping at people in Washington and Ohio. They're spiking trees, hoping to kill loggers. They're not a bunch of brown people far away.

As far as:

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.

goes, that tells you everything you need to know about the steady stream of garbage that flows from Rice's mouth. It's either a transparent lie or an admission of astounding stupidity. The idea of using a hijacked airliner as a missile was practically a cliche by 2001 -- the Stephen King book "The Running Man," Tom Clancy's "Executive Orders" -- hell, the pilot episode of the "Lone Gunmen" series on Fox, which aired a few months before 9/11, featured a plot to fly a jumbo jet into the World Trade Center! What universe would you have to live in *not* to consider that a feasible scenario?

The fact that 9/11 happened on Bush's watch doesn't rile me up nearly as much as the lies we've been fed about it since coupled with his inability to fight terrorism in any meaningful way.

Ryan

I saw the message below on a "Weblog". Man...the author really does beat up on poor disgruntled Clarke! Well, so much for Clarke's disingenuous attack on Bush. Maybe Clarke will do good sticking with Hanoi John.

"Richard Clarke, Fraud

The press is abuzz with reports that former Clinton staffers are set to testify before the September 11 commission next week that "they repeatedly warned their Bush administration counterparts in late 2000 that Al Qaeda posed the worst security threat facing the nation — and how the new administration was slow to act." The Clinton officials expected to so testify include Sandy Berger, Madeline Albright and Richard Clarke.

Where to begin: the mind boggles at such shamelessness. To state the obvious, in late 2000 the Clinton administration was STILL IN OFFICE. If there were steps that needed to be taken immediately to counter the al Qaeda threat, as they "bluntly" told President Bush's transition team, why didn't they take those steps themselves?

More broadly, of course, the Clinton administration was in power for eight years, while al Qaeda grew, prospered, and repeatedly attacked American interests:

*1993: Shot down US helicopters and killed US servicemen in Somalia
*1994: Plotted to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his visit to Manila
*1995: Plotted to kill President Clinton during a visit to the Philippines
*1995: Plot to to bomb simultaneously, in midair, a dozen US trans-Pacific flights was discovered and thwarted at the last moment
*1998: Conducted the bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed at least 301 individuals and injured more than 5,000 others
*1999: Attempt to carry out terrorist operations against US and Israeli tourists visiting Jordan for millennial celebrations was discovered just in time by Jordanian authorities
*1999: In another millenium plot, bomber was caught en route to Los Angeles International Airport
*2000: Bombed the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 US Navy members, and injuring another 39

So what, when they had the power to act effectively against al Qaeda, did these Clinton administration officials do? Little or nothing. Their most effective action was to bomb what turned out to be an aspirin factory in Sudan. They had the opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden, but decided not to do it because they were not sure their lawyers would approve.

For these people to criticize the Bush administration's efforts to protect Americans against terrorism, long after their own ineptitute had allowed al Qaeda to grow bold and powerful, is contemptible.

Of these Clintonite critics, the most important appears to be Richard Clarke. Clarke has written a book called Against All Enemies which will appear tomorrow--coincidentally, just in time for the 2004 election campaign. Clarke is being interviewed on 60 Minutes as I write this--a cozy corporate tie-in, as Viacom owns both CBS and the publisher of Clarke's book.

Clarke's charges against the Bush administration have already been widely published. Like his former boss Sandy Berger, he decries the Bush administration's failure to heed his "warnings" while Clarke and his fellow Clintonites were still in power. And he claims that Bush ignored terrorism "for months"--unlike his former boss, Bill Clinton, who ignored it for years.

But most of the attention flowing Clarke's way has centered on his claims about what happened when he was working inside the Bush administration after January 2001. Clarke was President Clinton's counter-terrorism coordinator; he was demoted by the Bush administration to director of cybersecurity. But before that demotion, he says that Bush's foreign policy advisers paid too much attention to Iraq. Then, after September 11, Clarke says that President Bush asked him to try to find out whether Iraq had been involved in the attack:

Now he never said, "Make it up." But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said, "Iraq did this.'' He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection," and in a very intimidating way.
Clarke seems to view this request as a manifestation of a weird obsession. But Clarke must know that Iraq was involved in the Islamofascists' 1993 attempt to destroy the World Trade Center. So it was hardly unreasonable for President Bush to want to know whether Saddam was behind the successful effort in 2001 as well.

Assuming, of course, that the conversation ever took place. Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice's deputy, says that: "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."

More generally, Clarke accuses the administration of spoiling for a fight with Iraq and claims that Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, was talking about Iraq immediately after the September 11 attacks. This is exactly the same claim that was made by the rather pathetic Paul O'Neill. The most basic problem with this claim is that while the administration endorsed the act of Congress that made regime change in Iraq the policy of the United States, it didn't attack Iraq for a year and a half after September 11, and then only after Saddam had definitively thumbed his nose at a series of U.N. resolutions.

So, Richard Clarke's criticism of President Bush comes down to this: before September 11, like everyone else in the United States (including Clarke), he did not make al Qaeda terrorism his number one priority. Everything else he says is self-serving nonsense.

But let's pursue a little further the question, who exactly is Richard Clarke? What do we know about him?

First, we know that before September 11, he was professionally committed to the idea that al Qaeda represented a new form of "stateless terrorism" that could never cooperate with a country like Iraq:

Prior to 9/11, the dominant view within the IC was that al Qaida represented a new form of stateless terrorism. That was also the view promoted by the Clinton White House, above all terrorism czar, Richard Clarke. To acknowledge that Iraqi intelligence worked with al Qaida is tantamount to acknowledging that all these people made a tremendous blunder--and they are just not going to do it.
We now know that this dogma was false, and Iraq did in fact support and collaborate with al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups. But there is no one as resistant to new information as a bureaucrat who has staked his career on a theory.

Second, we know that Richard Clarke was very willing to justify pre-emptive attack, on the basis of imperfect intelligence, when the attacker was Bill Clinton:

I would like to speak about a specific case that has been the object of some controversy in the last month -- the U.S. bombing of the chemical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger wrote an article for the op-ed page of today's Washington Times about that bombing, providing the clearest rationale to date for what the United States did. He asks the following questions: What if you were the president of the United States and you were told four facts based on reliable intelligence. The facts were: Usama bin Ladin had attacked the United States and blown up two of its embassies; he was seeking chemical weapons; he had invested in Sudan's military-industrial complex; and Sudan's military-industrial complex was making VX nerve gas at a chemical plant called al-Shifa? Sandy Berger asks: What would you have done? What would Congress and the American people have said to the president if the United States had not blown up the factory, knowing those four facts?
Is it really a crazy idea that terrorists could get chemical or biological weapons?


Well, no, it's anything but a crazy idea. But Clarke seems to have gotten a very different attitude toward that possibility once a Republican became President.

Third, we know that Clarke bought into the now-discredited "law enforcement" approach to counter-terrorism: if people are making war on us, arrest them!

Long before our embassies in Africa were attacked on August 7, 1998, the United States began implementing this presidential directive. Since the embassies were attacked, we have disrupted bin Ladin terrorist groups, or cells. Where possible and appropriate, the United States will bring the terrorists back to this country and put them on trial. That statement is not an empty promise.
No, it wasn't an empty promise. Clinton's promise of due process for terrorists explains why bin Laden is alive today, along with many of his confederates.

So it is not hard to see why Richard Clarke, a discredited and demoted bureaucrat, would be bitter toward President Bush and the members of his administration who have carried out a successful anti-terrorism campaign, far different from the one endorsed by Clarke and the Clinton administration.

But is Clarke only a bitter ex-bureaucrat, or is there more to his attack on President Bush? Let's consider both Clarke's personal history and his current employment. Clarke now teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government; here is his Kennedy School bio, which notes that the capstone of his career in the State Department was his service as Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs.

Another professor at the Kennedy School is Rand Beers, who is evidently an old friend and colleague of Clarke's, as Beers' Kennedy School bio says that "[d]uring most of his career he served in the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs."

So Clarke and Beers, old friends and colleagues, have continued their association at the Kennedy School. Indeed, they even teach a course together. And, by the most astonishing coincidence, their course relates directly to the subject matter of Clarke's attack on the Bush administration: "Post-Cold War Security: Terrorism, Security, and Failed States" is the name of the course. Here is its syllabus:

Between them Rand Beers and Richard Clarke spent over 20 years in the White House on the National Security Council and over 60 years in national security departments and agencies. They helped to shape the transition from Cold War security issues to the challenges of terrorism, international crime, and failed states...Case studies will include Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq, Colombia, and Afghanistan. Challenges of counter-terrorism and homeland security will also be addressed.
Why do we find this particularly significant? Because Rand Beers' bio says:

He resigned [his State Department position] in March 2003 and retired in April. He began work on John Kerry's Presidential campaign in May 2003 as National Security/Homeland Security Issue Coordinator.
There you have it: Richard Clarke is a bitter, discredited bureaucrat who was an integral part of the Clinton administration's failed approach to terrorism, was demoted by President Bush, and is now an adjunct to John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Thanks to the indefatigable Dafydd ab Hugh for noting the connections between Clarke and Beers."

Matt wrote:The press is abuzz with reports that former Clinton staffers are set to testify before the September 11 commission next week that "they repeatedly warned their Bush administration counterparts in late 2000 that Al Qaeda posed the worst security threat facing the nation — and how the new administration was slow to act." The Clinton officials expected to so testify include Sandy Berger, Madeline Albright and Richard Clarke.

OK, let's start there. Labelling Clarke a "Clinton staffer" is accurate but misleading. He also served in the Reagan and Bush I administrations and is a registered Republican.

Where to begin: the mind boggles at such shamelessness. To state the obvious, in late 2000 the Clinton administration was STILL IN OFFICE. If there were steps that needed to be taken immediately to counter the al Qaeda threat, as they "bluntly" told President Bush's transition team, why didn't they take those steps themselves?

Because they didn't want to start a war in December 2000 in the middle of an already contentious transition process. If you'll remember, through much of December we didn't know who was going to be President in January. The Clinton team handed the plans off to the Bush team, trusting that Bush would follow up. Oh, well.

So what, when they had the power to act effectively against al Qaeda, did these Clinton administration officials do? Little or nothing. Their most effective action was to bomb what turned out to be an aspirin factory in Sudan.

Um, and a couple of actual bases in Afghanistan. Which, if I recall correctly, he was attacked bitterly for by the right as they thought he was trying to distract attention away from his blowjob. There was no support in the Republican Congress for greater action at that time.

They had the opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden, but decided not to do it because they were not sure their lawyers would approve.

If this refers to the Sudan deal, they were offered a deal to extradite bin Laden to Saudi Arabia (not kill him), but Sudan was a terrorist state, and at the time bin Laden hadn't been connected to any attacks on the US, so the legality was indeed in doubt.

For these people to criticize the Bush administration's efforts to protect Americans against terrorism, long after their own ineptitute had allowed al Qaeda to grow bold and powerful, is contemptible.

Blah blah blah. The common opinion among the incoming Bush team was that the Clinton team was "obsessed" with terrorism. What does that say about who put forth the greater effort?

Of these Clintonite critics, the most important appears to be Richard Clarke. Clarke has written a book called Against All Enemies which will appear tomorrow--coincidentally, just in time for the 2004 election campaign. Clarke is being interviewed on 60 Minutes as I write this--a cozy corporate tie-in, as Viacom owns both CBS and the publisher of Clarke's book.

Again, painting Clarke as a "Clintonite" is patently absurd. The book would have been published months ago if the White House hadn't held it up, ensuring it would be released at a time when they could call it a political ploy.

But most of the attention flowing Clarke's way has centered on his claims about what happened when he was working inside the Bush administration after January 2001. Clarke was President Clinton's counter-terrorism coordinator; he was demoted by the Bush administration to director of cybersecurity.

And what does the fact that counterterrorism was reduced from a Cabinet-level position to a mere staff position say about Bush's priorities re: terror?

But Clarke must know that Iraq was involved in the Islamofascists' 1993 attempt to destroy the World Trade Center.

In the Wolfowitz/PNAC crowds' dreams. In the real world, no such connection has been shown.

More generally, Clarke accuses the administration of spoiling for a fight with Iraq and claims that Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, was talking about Iraq immediately after the September 11 attacks. This is exactly the same claim that was made by the rather pathetic Paul O'Neill. The most basic problem with this claim is that while the administration endorsed the act of Congress that made regime change in Iraq the policy of the United States, it didn't attack Iraq for a year and a half after September 11, and then only after Saddam had definitively thumbed his nose at a series of U.N. resolutions.

This is hilarious. When was the administration *not* talking about attacking Iraq? The cleanup of Ground Zero hadn't ended before we were marching to war.

Prior to 9/11, the dominant view within the IC was that al Qaida represented a new form of stateless terrorism. That was also the view promoted by the Clinton White House, above all terrorism czar, Richard Clarke. To acknowledge that Iraqi intelligence worked with al Qaida is tantamount to acknowledging that all these people made a tremendous blunder--and they are just not going to do it.

We now know that this dogma was false, and Iraq did in fact support and collaborate with al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups.

We do? Says who? I haven't heard any evidence of this nature. There's a few shadowy possible meetings, but no real "support and collaboration." This author is writing from fantasyland.

No, it wasn't an empty promise. Clinton's promise of due process for terrorists explains why bin Laden is alive today, along with many of his confederates.

So due process is a bad thing? Does that only apply to terrorists, or to murderers and rapists as well? Were the Nuremberg trials a bad thing?

So it is not hard to see why Richard Clarke, a discredited and demoted bureaucrat, would be bitter toward President Bush and the members of his administration who have carried out a successful anti-terrorism campaign, far different from the one endorsed by Clarke and the Clinton administration.

Show me the success.

He resigned [his State Department position] in March 2003 and retired in April. He began work on John Kerry's Presidential campaign in May 2003 as National Security/Homeland Security Issue Coordinator.
There you have it: Richard Clarke is a bitter, discredited bureaucrat who was an integral part of the Clinton administration's failed approach to terrorism, was demoted by President Bush, and is now an adjunct to John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Gasp! He knows someone who's working for Kerry! Give me a break. John McCain authored a campaign-finance bill with Russ Feingold. Does that mean McCain is a liberal?

Ryan

Matt wrote:I saw the message below on a "Weblog".

Citations are nice:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/

Apparently written by this guy:

http://www.claremont.org/about/staff/hinderaker.html

Because they didn't want to start a war in December 2000 in the middle of an already contentious transition process. If you'll remember, through much of December we didn't know who was going to be President in January. The Clinton team handed the plans off to the Bush team, trusting that Bush would follow up. Oh, well

Given the Clinton administrations track record with Bin Laden, I do not believe the above statement for a second. I'd put down money that Time magazine is full of shit on that one.

I know Clarke was appointed by Regan initially. But, he has an axe to grind with Bush. The fact that he is involved with John "I am on every side of the issue" Kerry seems to sum it up.

Patrick M wrote:Citations are nice:

Thanks, Patrick.

http://www.claremont.org/about/staff/hinderaker.html

Ya gotta love a guy whose nickname is "Hindrocket."

Ryan

Given the Clinton administrations track record with Bin Laden, I do not believe the above statement for a second. I'd put down money that Time magazine is full of shit on that one.

What track record is that? The one where Clinton ordered attacks? How's that compared to Bush's track record pre-9/11?

I know Clarke was appointed by Regan initially. But, he has an axe to grind with Bush. The fact that he is involved with John "I am on every side of the issue" Kerry seems to sum it up.

He's involved with Kerry?

As an aside, I'm not sure being on various sides of an issues is necessarily a *bad* thing all of the time.

More broadly, of course, the Clinton administration was in power for eight years, while al Qaeda grew, prospered, and repeatedly attacked American interests:

Defending Bush by attacking Clinton's record on terrorism is what is known as a "straw man" argument (ie, a defense based on attacking something irrelevant). Even if we accept the premise that Clinton did an inadequate job dealing with terrorists, how does that have any bearing on Bush's actions? Is Bush excused from being held to performance expectations on any issue that Clinton did a bad job on? Bush's actions should be judged independently, and this focus on Clinton is just an attempt to distract from the substance of what Clarke says.

More generally, Clarke accuses the administration of spoiling for a fight with Iraq and claims that Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, was talking about Iraq immediately after the September 11 attacks. This is exactly the same claim that was made by the rather pathetic Paul O'Neill. The most basic problem with this claim is that while the administration endorsed the act of Congress that made regime change in Iraq the policy of the United States, it didn't attack Iraq for a year and a half after September 11

The fact that the administration did not attack Iraq until 2003 hardly proves that they were not talking about it and/or planning how to go about doing it in 2001. It's silly to claim that. Two former Bush staffers now have testified about the administration's preoccupation with Iraq at the very beginning of Bush's term. That should be taken seriously. Or are they both liars?

We now know that this dogma was false, and Iraq did in fact support and collaborate with al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups. But there is no one as resistant to new information as a bureaucrat who has staked his career on a theory.

Ironically, that quote ("there is no one as resistant to new information...") applies much more accurately to Bush and his staffers who seem to have doggedly clung to their fantasy of an Iraq/al Qaeda connection in the face of piles of evidence to the contrary. Where is the supposed evidence of Iraq's collaboration with al Qaeda this blogger claims to know about?

Defending Bush by attacking Clinton's record on terrorism is what is known as a "straw man" argument (ie, a defense based on attacking something irrelevant). Even if we accept the premise that Clinton did an inadequate job dealing with terrorists, how does that have any bearing on Bush's actions? Is Bush excused from being held to performance expectations on any issue that Clinton did a bad job on? Bush's actions should be judged independently, and this focus on Clinton is just an attempt to distract from the substance of what Clarke says.

I see what you are saying. The complete history is relevant and an attack singling out Bush doesn't paint a fair and balanced picture. Clarke has been around for a few administrations, why does he dwell on such a short time?

Matt wrote:

I see what you are saying. The complete history is relevant and an attack singling out Bush doesn't paint a fair and balanced picture. Clarke has been around for a few administrations, why does he dwell on such a short time?

Bush's actions are being singled out for examination/criticism because he is still in office, is running for re-election, and is claiming to have done an excellent job in the war on terrorism. Clinton is not running for office and currently has no political power.

In terms of understanding what happened in the past, Clinton and Bush's actions are equally relevant. In terms of potential impact on the future, Clinton is not relevant at all because he has no power to do anything in the future. Bush does, and will continue to if he is re-elected. Bush's actions before 9-11 deserve closer scrutiny because Americans need to consider whether his actions in the past indicate potential for poor decisions in the future. It's not about "fairness", it's about potential impact on the future.

Flash back to this from "Hindrocket" for a second:

Assuming, of course, that the conversation ever took place. Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice's deputy, says that: "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."

Now, read this from yesterday's Scotty Show:

Q Scott, this morning, you said the President didn't recall the conversation in the Situation Room on September 12th that Mr. Clarke said he had, where the President asked Dick Clarke three times to pursue links between 9/11 and Iraq. And you said he doesn't -- I had two questions. So did the President tell you or somebody in the White House over the weekend, he doesn't recall?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I talked to him. He doesn't recall that conversation or meeting.

Q And that was -- he said it this morning, or this weekend? When did he say that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, this weekend and this morning, yes.

Q Okay. And secondly, Clarke now says that he has three eyewitnesses, and he repeated it again this morning, and he named them -- to the conversation.

MR. McCLELLAN: Let's just step backwards -- regardless, regardless, put that aside. There's no record of the President being in the Situation Room on that day that it was alleged to have happened, on the day of September the 12th. When the President is in the Situation Room, we keep track of that.

Uh huh. Does it strike anyone else as odd that they're claiming that Bush chose not to visit the Situation Room on September 12? What the hell was he doing on September 12? Trying on his flight suit?

Along those same lines, "Cardiac" Dick Cheney was on Rush Limbaugh yesterday, claiming Clarke was "out of the loop" on counter-terrorism issues. Er, what? The head guy for counter-terrorism was "out of the loop" on counter-terrorism? Well, then, who the fuck was "in the loop"? Anyone? Sounds to me like that *backs up* Clarke's claim that counter-terror at BushCo was a joke in 2001.

If this is the best defense they can muster, especially having three months advance access to the book, they're *really* hiding something.

Ryan

Rspaight wrote:If this is the best defense they can muster, especially having three months advance access to the book, they're *really* hiding something.

My God. You mean there could possibly be more? That would mean that this recent ineptitude may very well have been choreographed in advance, all in an effort to distract our attention from even bigger messes. So let's see. Right now we're in Washington, in the White House, in the Situation Room . . . so it's got to be somewhere in the opposite direction. Holy cow! Iraq! Home of fantasy democracy, dying soldiers, and coming soon: elections and troop pullouts! Got to hand it to that Bush team . . . a clever bunch of bastards, eh?

OK, OK. Silliness aside, have Clarke's allegations [and the administration's feeble defense] reached ears other than those of the choir? Is the average Joe getting any of this?