posted on March 25, 2004 03:45:45 PM new
Linda, there was a plan but it wasn't passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration)
Is that what you believe? lol THERE WAS NO PLAN....only talk about what COULD possibly be done. Go re-read Albright's testimony...she points out what they CONSIDERED doing...they DID nothing and she gives the reasons why.
The difficulty was in convincing the Bush administration that they should accept the plan that Clinton had in place. That's not true there was no plan...and what the Bush administration did is noted in a previous post I made.
Clarke said that the Bush goal should be to eliminate al Qaeda, "but that Bush officials called that "overly ambitious.
As it appears from Albrights testimony clarke may have also presented that option to the clinton administration....being he was advising both administrations.....and clinton DECLINED to take that action.
edited to add clarke's own words in Aug. 2002.
And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.
And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.
READ - NO PLAN....no decision had been made in TWO years[/i].
So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.
The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies ? and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals.
Over the course of the summer ? last point ? they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance.
And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.
posted on March 25, 2004 04:00:01 PM newlinda, you said to logansdad - I'll go slower for you. CLARKE said from 1998 on clinton HAD NO PLAN to deal with AQ. You can read his own words from my previous post. Do you not believe clarke's statement there?
The truth is that you misread what Clark said and came up with a completely bogus statement.
From your quote in which Clarke said ."Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration."
Read that statement again. It doesn't say that Clinton had no plan. It says that no plan was passed.
OK?
There was a plan but it wasn't passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.
You neglected to add that he then said, "Second point is that the Clinton administration had a *strategy* in place, effectively dating from 1998"
Clark's difficulty was in convincing the Bush administration that they should accept the plan that Clinton had in place ....NOT that he had no plan.
Clarke said that the Bush goal should be to eliminate al Qaeda, "but that Bush officials called that "overly ambitious. It was reworded to say the goal was to "significantly erode" bin Laden's network. After the Sept. 11 attacks the word "eliminate" was added back into the directive, he said.
Also....
Philip Shenon wrote in Saturday's New York Times: "Senior Clinton administration officials called to testify next week before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks say they are prepared to detail how 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."
Clarke wanted to blow up Afghanistan before 9/ll occurred.
And by the way, I'm not "screaming" when I simply state my opinion, linda. You appear to be screaming when you use long c&p articles with scattered bolding throughout. It makes reading difficult and bothersome.
posted on March 25, 2004 04:31:27 PM new
My last post on the subject....because you wouldn't have been happy no matter what he did helen.
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taken from the WSJ today
Clarke Is Worse Than His Bite
So what is one to make over the Dick Clarke kerfuffle? Well, for one thing, even Slate's Fred Kaplan, a defender of Clarke, acknowledges that the "basic charges" in Clarke's new book, are "nothing new."
Clarke's controversial claims seem to amount to these three:
Terrorism was the top priority of the Clinton administration.
Prior to Sept. 11, the Bush administration did not take terrorism seriously enough.
The liberation of Iraq was a "distraction" from the war on al Qaeda.
The second of these points seems obvious, and the third is simply an ideological position, a view it isn't surprising Clarke would take, as Holman Jenkins writes in today's OpinionJournal Political Diary (subscribe here):
What you have is classic bureaucratic myopia. The invasion of Iraq was a presidential decision, made by looking at the totality of the national interest. Mr. Clarke's niche was terrorist organizations narrowly defined. And like all such "stovepipe" occupants in Washington, he spent his life trying to get others to adopt his narrow priorities rather than trying himself to see a bigger picture. Gen. Eisenhower is credited with the dictum: If a problem is insoluble, enlarge it. Mr. Clarke's book is an expression of bureaucratic rage that the Bush administration enlarged the terrorism problem beyond Mr. Clarke's bailiwick.
Clarke's effort to rehabilitate the Clinton administration's antiterror record is somewhat surprising, especially in light of his account, in Richard Miniter's "Losing bin Laden" (we noted it in September), that in October 2001 Clarke stood alone in arguing for a strike against al Qaeda in response to the bombing of the USS Cole.
At various times in the past, Clarke has contradicted all the things he is saying now.
Fox News has made available the transcript of a background briefing Clarke gave reporters in August 2002. At that time, Clarke credited the Bush administration with a more aggressive approach to al Qaeda than the Clinton administration had taken:
There was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. . . .
Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. . . . In January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.
And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent. . . . The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.
In his testimony yesterday before the 9/11 commission, Clarke said he was simply doing the bidding of the administration, which wanted him "put the best face" on its record. But he flatly denied having said anything untrue at the time: "No one in the Bush White House asked me to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have said them."
But Rich Lowry points out that the truths
Clarke told in 2002 do not appear in his book:
In his 2002 briefing, Clarke said that the Bush administration decided in "mid-January" 2001 to continue with existing Clinton policy while deciding whether or not to pursue more aggressive ideas that had been rejected throughout the Clinton administration. Nowhere does this appear in his book.
He said in 2002 that the Bush administration had decided in principle in the spring of 2001 "to increase CIA resources . . . for covert action, five-fold, to go after al Qaeda." Nowhere is this mentioned in his book.
The Associated Press reports Clarke also sent an e-mail to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Sept. 15, 2001, in which he wrote:
"When the era of national unity begins to crack in the near future, it is possible that some will start asking questions like did the White House do a good job of making sure that intelligence about terrorist threats got to the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and other domestic law enforcement authorities."
He attached an earlier memo from before Sept. 11 in which Clarke warned such agencies that "a spectacular al-Qaeda terrorist attack was coming in the near future."
"Thus, the White House did insure that domestic law enforcement . . . knew that (his office) believed that a major al-Qaeda attack was coming and it could be in the U.S.," Clarke's e-mail said.
As for Iraq, Clarke has not always sung from the nothing-to-do-with-terrorism hymnal. This is an excerpt from a 1999 Washington Post report (link requires payment to view article, but the relevant portions are quoted here):
Clarke did provide new information in defense of Clinton's decision to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, in retaliation for bin Laden's role in the Aug. 7 embassy bombings.
While U.S. intelligence officials disclosed shortly after the missile attack that they had obtained a soil sample from the El Shifa site that contained a precursor of VX nerve gas, Clarke said that the U.S. government is "sure" that Iraqi nerve gas experts actually produced a powdered VX-like substance at the plant that, when mixed with bleach and water, would have become fully active VX nerve gas.
Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at El Shifa or what happened to it. But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan.
Democratic partisans obviously hope that Clarke's "revelations" will hurt President Bush in November. We rather doubt they will. The idea that Iraq is a "distraction" has been endlessly debated for the past two years; it's unlikely that Clarke's rehashed arguments are going to change many minds. No one thinks the government took terrorism seriously enough prior to Sept. 11, and Clarke's argument that the Clinton administration did is too far-fetched to be taken seriously. (We certainly don't recall Al Gore making the terrorist threat a major campaign theme.)
A question of interest to historians, however, is this: What does Clarke's propensity for changing his story tell us about the character of the man who led America's antiterror efforts in the years leading up to Sept. 11?
posted on March 26, 2004 06:21:39 AM new
Linda, This is the initial Clinton plan. He tried dimplomatic efforts first, rather than all out war. So how can you say he had no plan. You obviously think Clarke has flip-flopped on his statement so don't believe it if you don't want to.
The commission describes repeated efforts by the Clinton administration to persuade Saudi Arabia to put pressure on the Taliban to expel Bin Laden and shut down the terrorist camps in Afghanistan.
At one point, the Saudis extracted a promise from Taliban leader Mullah Omar that Bin Laden would be handed over. But after a "climactic meeting" between Omar and Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal in September 1998, Omar reneged on his promise, "lost his temper and denounced the Saudi government."
The United States also leaned on two Pakistani regimes to clamp down on the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But as a commission official said, the United States could never find enough "carrots or sticks" to get a regime that had deep ties to the Taliban to turn on the Islamic extremist government.
Meanwhile, Clinton and his senior counterterrorism advisors repeatedly pressed for new military options for catching Bin Laden, rooting out terrorist camps, and, if necessary, toppling the Taliban.
But the plans were beaten back by an array of forces. Policymakers doubted they could win congressional or public support for a military intervention in Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence agencies consistently failed to come up with "actionable intelligence" telling where Bin Laden would be and when. And top military officials saw little chance that inserting U.S. forces could succeed.
Bush still seems to be focused on Iraq and not finding Bin Laden.
Impeach Bush
Marriage is a Human Right not a Heterosexual Privledge.
Bigotry and hate will not be tolerated.
posted on March 26, 2004 09:12:13 AM new
WASHINGTON -- The panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks has yet to uncover a single event that would have prevented them, but after more than a year of work it has found numerous missteps by the Clinton and Bush administrations.
There were miscommunications among agencies, flawed policy-making and bureaucratic breakdowns. Among them:
*A hesitancy to use force against al-Qaida, despite signs the organization could be planning a spectacular attack.
*Missed chances to kill Osama bin Laden due to lack of detailed intelligence.
*Failure to follow up on opportunities to stop hijackers from entering the country or getting on the planes they used in the attacks.
''It's not any one thing,'' said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican and commission chairman. ''It was a systematic failure.''
While commissioners have sought public testimony from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, the White House asked late Thursday that she have a second private session with the panel. Rice met with the commission for four hours on Feb. 7.
A White House letter said a further appearance by Rice would allow her to clear up ''a number of mischaracterizations'' about her statements. In explaining that Rice would not appear in an open session, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales said it was important that presidential aides such as Rice ''not be compelled'' to testify before congressional panels such as the commission.
The commission is scheduled to hold three more public hearings and on July 26 will issue a final report.
The commission has not assigned blame but has pointed out that decisions by both administrations allowed bin Laden and al-Qaida to largely operate with impunity. For example:
*Both administrations chose to rely on Afghan fighters to attempt to take out bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders, though CIA Director George Tenet acknowledged there was little chance of success.
*Tenet believed the CIA could only kill bin Laden while trying to capture him, while National Security Council officials believed President Clinton wanted him dead by any means necessary.
*U.S. authorities failed to stop at least two and as many as eight of the 19 hijackers who entered the country with improper documentation. They also permitted nine of them to pass through airport security after being stopped for suspicious behavior.
At this point in time does it really matter who is to blame. 9/11 happened. The whole point of this inquiry is to avoid another "9/11 style tragedy".
Impeach Bush
Marriage is a Human Right not a Heterosexual Privledge.
Bigotry and hate will not be tolerated.
posted on March 27, 2004 12:13:41 AM new
Friday, March 26, 2004
FoxNews.com
WASHINGTON — Former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke may have lied under oath when he faulted President Bush's handling of the War on Terror, key Republicans in Congress contended Friday.
Republicans sought Friday to declassify two-year-old testimony by Clarke before the House and Senate intelligence committees.
"Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories under oath," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said in a speech on the Senate floor.
He also accused Clarke of "an appalling act of profiteering" by publishing a book that relied on access to insider information relating to the worst terrorist attacks in the nation's history.
The Tennessee Republican said he hopes Clarke's congressional testimony in July 2002 can be declassified. Then, he said, it can be compared with the account the former aide provided in his nationally televised appearance Wednesday before the bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The development marked the latest turn in a Republican counterattack against Clarke, who has leveled his criticism against Bush in a new book as well as in interviews and his sworn testimony before the bipartisan commission.......
In a sharply worded speech, Frist said that Clarke himself was "the only common denominator" across 10 years of terrorist attacks that began with the first attack on the World Trade Center.
Additionally he accused him of making a "theatrical apology" to the families of the terrorist victims at the outset of his appearance on Wednesday, saying it was not "his right, his privilege or his responsibility" to do so. "Mr. Clarke can and will answer for his own conduct but that is all," he said.
The initial request for declassification was made by Rep. Porter Goss, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said in a statement released Friday.
posted on March 27, 2004 12:24:09 AM new
Friday, March 26, 2004
The following is a transcript of a speech made by Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) regarding the testimony of former top counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke before the Sept. 11 commission on March 24, 2004.
Mr. President, there has been much fulminating in the media and by some Senators on the other side about a new book by a former State Department civil servant named Richard Clarke. In this book, released for sale by the parent company of the CBS network, Mr. Clarke makes the outrageous charge that the Bush Administration, in its first seven months in office, failed to adequately address the threat posed by Usama bin Laden.
I am troubled by these charges. I am equally troubled that someone would sell a book, trading on their former service as a government insider with access to our nation's most valuable intelligence, in order to profit from the suffering that this nation endured on September 11, 2001.
I am troubled that Senators on the other side are so quick to accept such claims. I am troubled that Mr. Clarke has a hard time keeping his own story straight.
I do not know Mr. Clarke, although I take it from press accounts that he has been involved in the fight against terrorism for the past decade. As 9-11 demonstrates, that decade was a period of growing peril, and unanswered attack, against the United States.
It is awesomely self-serving for Mr. Clarke to assert that the United States could have stopped terrorism if only the three President's he served had better listened to his advice.
In fact, when Mr. Clarke was reportedly at the height of his influence as terrorism czar in the Clinton Administration, the United States saw the first attack on the World Trade Center, the attack on a U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia, the attack on two U.S. embassies in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole, and the planning and implementation for the 9-11 attack. The only common denominator throughout these 10 years of unanswered attacks was Mr. Clarke himself, a consideration that is clearly driving his effort to point fingers and shift blame.
While the reasons may be open to debate, the previous Administration's response to repeated attacks by al Qaeda was clearly inadequate a few cruise missiles lobbed at questionable targets. Al Qaeda could only have been encouraged by their record of success and the absence of a serious or sustained response from the United States.
After 10 years of policies that failed to decisively confront and eliminate the threat from Al Qaeda, Mr. Clarke now suggests that in its first seven months in office the Bush Administration is to blame. That sounds like finger pointing and blame shifting to me.
But this has not always been Mr. Clarke's view of the events leading up to September 11. This week a transcript was released of a press interview Mr. Clarke gave in August of 2002. I will submit for the record the full transcript, but let me just cite a portion of this interview reviewing in glowing terms the policies of the Bush Administration in fighting terrorism:
RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point.......then he goes on to list them
Mr. President, apparently this is not the only account in which Mr. Clarke changes his story. In lengthy testimony before the Congressional joint inquiry that reviewed the events surrounding the September 11 attacks, Mr. Clarke is equally effusive in his praise for the actions of the Bush Administration. It is my hope that we will be able to get that testimony declassified so all Senators may review it and discuss it as well.
Mr. President, I do not know if Mr. Clarke's motive for these charges is partisan gain, personal profit, self-promotion, or animus because of his failure to win a promotion in the Bush Administration. But the one thing that his motive could not possibly be is to bring clarity to the issue of how we avoid future September 11 attacks.
Mr. President, in sum, there are five points that I find absolutely inexplicable about Mr. Clarke's performance this past week.
First, in an email to the National Security Advisor four days after the September 11 attacks, Mr. Clarke expressed alarm that "when the era of national unity begins to crack", an effort to assign responsibility for the 9-11 attacks will begin. In that email Mr. Clarke proceeds to lay out in detail a defense of his own actions before the attack, and those of the entire Administration. Mr. Clarke was clearly consumed by the desire to dodge any blame for the 9-11 attacks while at that same moment rescuers were still searching the rubble of the World Trade Center for survivors. In my mind this offers perfect insight as to what drove him to write his book.
Second, in the August of 2002 interview I just referred to, Mr. Clarke gave a thorough account of the Bush Administration's active policy against Al Qaeda. Mr. Clarke now explains away that media performance by suggesting that he was simply telling lies in an interview as a loyal Administration official.
A loyal Administration official? Does Mr. Clarke understand the gravity of the issues being reviewed by the 9-11 Commission and the gravity of the charges he has made?
If, in the summer of 2001, he saw the threat from Al Qaeda as grave as he now says it was, and if he found the response of the Administration as inadequate as he now says it was, why did he wait until the Sunday, March 21, 2004 to make his concerns known?
There is not a single public record of Mr. Clarke making any objection whatsoever in the period leading up to or following the 9-11 attacks. No threat to resign. No public protest. No plea to the President, the Congress, or the public, to heed the advice he now says was ignored.
Mr. President, if Mr. Clarke held his tongue because he was "loyal", then shame on him for putting politics above principle. But if he has manufactured these charges for profit and political gain, he is a shame to this government.
I myself have fortunately not had the opportunity to work with such an individual who could write solicitous and self-defending emails to his supervisor, the National Security Advisor, and then by his own admission lie to the press out of a self conceived notion of loyalty-only to reverse himself on all accounts for the sale of a book.
Third, Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories under oath. In July 2002, in front of the Congressional Joint Inquiry on the September 11 attacks, Mr. Clarke testified under oath that the Administration actively sought to address the threat posed by Al Qaeda during its first seven months in office.
Mr. President, it is one thing for Mr. Clarke to dissemble in front of the media. But if he lied under oath to the United States Congress it is a far more serious matter. As I mentioned, the intelligence committee is seeking to have Mr. Clarke's previous testimony declassified so as to permit an examination of Mr. Clarke's two different accounts. Loyalty to any Administration will be no defense if it is found that he has lied before Congress.
Fourth, notwithstanding Mr. Clarke's efforts to use his book first and foremost to shift blame and attention from himself, it is also clear that Mr. Clarke and his publishers adjusted the release date of his book in order to make maximum gain from the publicity around the 9-11 hearings.
Assuming the controversy around this series of events does in fact drive the sales of his book, Mr. Clarke will make quite a bit of money for his efforts. I find this to be an appalling act of profiteering, trading on his insider access to highly classified information and capitalizing upon the tragedy that befell this nation on September 11, 2001. Mr. Clarke must renounce any plan to personally profit from this book.
Finally, It is understandable why some of the families who lost loved ones in the 9-11 attacks find Mr. Clarke's performance appealing. Simple answers to a terrible tragedy; to the very human desire to find an answer why; why on that beautiful fall day two and one half years ago a series of events happened that shattered their lives forever.
In his appearance before the 9-11 Commission, Mr. Clarke's theatrical apology on behalf of the nation was not his right, his privilege or his responsibility. In my view it was not an act of humility, but an act of supreme arrogance and manipulation. Mr. Clarke can and will answer for his own conduct - but that is all.
Regardless of Mr. Clarke's motive or what he says or implies in his new book, the fact remains that this terrible attack was not caused by the United States Government. No Administration was responsible for the attack. Our nation did not invite the attack.
The attack on 9-11 was the evil design of a determined and hate-filled few who slipped through the defenses of a nation that treasures its freedoms; its openness; its convenience. That our defenses failed is cause enough to review the sequence of events leading up to that awful day. We must understand how to do better balancing our determination to protect the Nation with equal resolve to protect our liberties.
Mr. President, the answer to Mr. Clarke's self serving charges is that in fact we all bear that responsibility. Every one of us who served in government before and at the time of the 9-11 attacks also has the responsibility to do our best to avoid any such tragedy in the future. If we are to learn lasting lessons from the examination of the 9-11 attacks, it must be toward this end, not an exercise in finger pointing, blame shifting or political score settling.
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Sounds to me like clarke may soon be seeking the advice of a very good attorney.
posted on March 27, 2004 05:33:08 AM new
FLIP FLOP FLIP FLOP........where do i put the mop....mommy....flip flop
In rush to defend White House, Rice trips over own words
Washington -- This week's testimony and media blitz by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke has returned unwanted attention to his former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The refusal by President Bush's top security aide to testify publicly before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks elicited rebukes by commission members as they held open hearings this week. Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor Bush named to be chairman of the commission, said: "I think this administration shot itself in the foot by not letting her testify in public."
At the same time, some of Rice's rebuttals of Clarke's broadside against Bush, which she delivered in a flurry of media interviews and statements rather than in testimony, contradicted other administration officials and her own previous statements.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage contradicted Rice's claim that the White House had a strategy before Sept. 11 for military operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban. The CIA contradicted Rice's earlier assertion that Bush had requested a CIA briefing in the summer of 2001 because of elevated terrorist threats. And Rice's assertion this week that Bush had told her on Sept. 16, 2001, that "Iraq is to the side" appeared to be contradicted by an order signed by Bush on Sept. 17 directing the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq.
Rice, in turn, has contradicted Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Clarke was "out of the loop" and his intimation that Clarke had been demoted. Rice has also given various conflicting accounts. She criticized Clarke for being the architect of failed Clinton administration policies, but also said she had retained Clarke so the Bush administration could continue to pursue Clinton's terrorism policies.
National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack defended many of Rice's assertions, saying that she had been more consistent than Clarke.
Rice so far has refused to provide testimony under oath to the commission that could possibly resolve the contradictions. Wednesday night, she told reporters, "I would like nothing better in a sense than to be able to go up and do this, but I have a responsibility to maintain what is a long-standing constitutional separation between the executive and the legislative branch."
The White House, reacting to the public relations difficulties caused by the refusal to allow Rice's testimony, asked the commission Thursday to give Rice another opportunity to speak privately with panel members to address "mischaracterizations of Dr. Rice's statements and positions."
Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste disclosed this week that Rice had asked, in her private meetings with the commission, to revise a statement she made publicly that "I don't think anybody could have predicted that those people could have taken an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center ... that they would try to use an airplane as a missile." Rice told the commission that she had misspoken; the commission has received information that prior to Sept. 11, U.S. intelligence agencies, and Clarke, had talked about terrorists using airplanes as missiles.
In an op-ed essay Monday in the Washington Post, Rice wrote that "through the spring and summer of 2001, the national security team developed a strategy to eliminate" al Qaeda that included "sufficient military options to remove the Taliban regime" including the use of ground forces.
But Armitage, testifying this week as the White House representative, said the military part was not in the plan before Sept. 11. "I think that was amended after the horror of 9/11," he said. McCormack said Rice's statement was accurate because the team had discussed including orders for such military plans to be drawn up.
In the same article, Rice belittled Clarke's proposals by writing: "The president wanted more than a laundry list of ideas simply to contain al Qaeda or 'roll back' the threat. Once in office, we quickly began crafting a comprehensive new strategy to 'eliminate' the al Qaeda network." Rice asserted that while Clarke and others provided ideas, "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration." That same day, she said most of Clarke's ideas "had been already tried or rejected in the Clinton administration."
But in her interview with NBC two days later, Rice appeared to take a different view of Clarke's proposals. "He sent us a set of ideas that would perhaps help to roll back al Qaeda over a three- to five-year period; we acted on those ideas very quickly. And what's very interesting is that ... Dick Clarke now says that we ignored his ideas, or we didn't follow them up."
Asked about this apparent discrepancy, McCormack pointed a reporter to a Clarke background briefing in 2002 in which the then-White House aide was defending the president's efforts in fighting terrorism.
The single best refutation of Bush Administration assertions that no one could have known about an al-Qaeda attack by crashed airplane is Bush's attendance at the G8 summitinGenoa in July 2001, where the Italian government installed surface-to-air missiles at strategic locations around the city to protect Bush and the other leaders from just such an al Qaeda attack. This caution was based on information received by American and other intelligence agencies. Weeks later, in early August in Crawford, Bush received a report from George Tenet on the al Qaeda threat. I wonder what it said.
posted on March 27, 2004 11:58:32 AM new
In case you missed it, the Richard Clarke interview with Larry King will be repeated on CNN tonite at 9:00 (Saturday).
posted on March 27, 2004 12:36:10 PM newBLOW FOR BUSH
Public confidence in the president’s handling of homeland security has been damaged by the testimony of former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke to the 9/11 panel this week, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Brian Braiker
Newsweek
Updated: 2:14 p.m. ET March 27, 2004
March 27 - Richard Clarke’s charge that George W. Bush largely ignored the Al Qaeda threat before the September 11 attacks has dealt a sharp blow to the president’s ratings on a crucial issue. According to the latest NEWSWEEK poll, the percentage of voters who say they approve of the way the president has handled terrorism and homeland security has slid to 57 percent, down from a high of 70 percent two months ago. The survey was conducted after Clarke, a former counterterrorism chief in both the Bush and Clinton administrations, testified to the 9/11 commission on Wednesday. Still, the president’s overall approval rating remains steady at 49 percent and Bush remains neck and neck with presumptive Democratic Party nominee Senator John Kerry.
