WASHINGTON - A former top White House terrorism adviser accused President George W. Bush of doing a "terrible job" of defending the country against terrorism, prompting a barrage of testy rebuttals from presidential aides.
Richard Clarke, who worked at the National Security Council for three US administrations, made the charges in his book "Against All Enemies," which goes on sale Monday, and in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" program.
As Bush portrayed himself on the stump as a national security president whose invasion of Iraq has made the nation safer, Clarke said: "I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism."
His book and interview paint a White House almost impervious to terrorism concerns prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and excessively eager to pin the blame on Iraq in their aftermath, regardless of the available evidence.
"He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9-11," said the former adviser, who left his job last year.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Bush took him to a secluded room, locked the door and pressed him for information about alleged links between the al-Qaeda terror network, the chief suspect in the strikes, and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, Clarke recalls.
"See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way," he quotes the president as saying, according to excerpts of the book made public here.
The adviser responded by saying that the consensus among intelligence experts was that al-Qaeda and its leader, Saudi-born multimillionaire Osama bin Laden, and not Iraq, were behind the attacks.
"I know, I know," Bush is said to have replied, "but see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred ... Look into Iraq. Saddam."
Clarke acknowledged that the president had never asked him to make up evidence. But he noted the exchange had made it absolutely clear what the president wanted to hear.
"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," Clarke told "60 Minutes."
He also revealed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted to bomb Iraq just one day after the attacks, insisting that country had a better array of targets than Afghanistan.
The disclosures echo allegations made by former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, who said in a recent book that the administration was obsessed with ousting Saddam Hussein from its first days.
Al-Qaeda terrorism, according to Clarke, was on the back burner prior to September 11, 2001. On January 24, 2001, he said, he wrote a memorandum to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to request an urgent cabinet meeting on the threat.
But his request was not acted upon, said Clarke, who is scheduled to testify this week before a bipartisan commission investigating the attacks. Instead, he got a sub-cabinet meeting in April, during which Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz insisted Washington did not have "to deal with al-Qaeda" and should instead "talk about Iraqi terrorism."
The White House response to Clarke featured television interviews by Rice, her deputy, Steve Hadley, and communications director Dan Bartlett, who argued that fighting terrorism had always been the president's priority.
But in a fact sheet released late Sunday, the White House did not deny the exchange between Bush and Clarke, saying the president needed to analyze all possibilities.
"The president sought to determine who was responsible for the 9-11 attacks," the document said. "Given Iraq's past support of terror, including an attempt by Iraqi intelligence to kill a former president, it would have been irresponsible not to ask if Iraq had any involvement in the attack."
As for Clarke's counterterrorism proposals, the White House said testily that "the administration acted upon the ideas that made sense."
Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn't with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department.
For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz.
Clarke relates, "I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'
"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."
posted on March 22, 2004 09:38:28 AM new
LOL - Oh yes....CBS and it's 'fair/balanced' reporting. What a joke. There's even a website ratherbiased.com where these continued leftwinged 'slant's' are constantly pointed out.
Here's just one case of them filtering what they let the public hear.
CBS Evening News Ignores Own Poll Finding on Bush Leading Kerry
When a CBS News poll found John Kerry leading George W. Bush by 48 to 43 percent amongst registered voters, Dan Rather reported it on the February 16 CBS Evening News, and when another CBS News poll two weeks ago put Kerry up by a mere one point over Bush, by 47 to 46 percent with registered voters, the February 28 CBS Evening News highlighted the finding.
But on Monday, while the CBSNews.com home page, for much of the afternoon and into the evening featured the results of a new CBS News/New York Times poll, with a headline which declared, "Bush Moves Ahead of Kerry," the CBS Evening News didn't utter a word about the new numbers which put Bush up over Kerry by 46 to 43 percent with registered voters.
posted on March 22, 2004 09:52:09 AM new
What a weak defence from Drudge, EAG. This represents a serious problem for the White House as evidenced by Condi's early morning attempt to defend Bush. "Infomercials" don't get this level of media attention.
And all that you have to say linda is an attempt to change the subject??
That's typical.
Now it's time for an article two feet long with selective bolding.
posted on March 22, 2004 10:07:29 AM new
Is that all I have to say? LOL
I read excerpts from his book. Nothing gave me cause for concern about this President's actions.
But you have fun with your latest attempt to discredit this President. All the other false accusations thrown at him have failed, I have no doubt this one will too.
posted on March 22, 2004 10:50:04 AM new
In todays world of multi divested companies almost every news company is owned by someone that oqwnes someone else that publishes or distributes a product that will at some time in its life become news. It's a nice attempt at deflection but that's all it is.
Now - can we get back to the subject at hand?
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on March 22, 2004 11:38:21 AM new
If you're not concerned about the Bush administrations mishandling of terrorism as profiled by this book, you either don't care about our country or you are blindly following Bush.
posted on March 22, 2004 11:41:40 AM new
Reamond, his days are numbered. I know many conservatives including myself voting for kerry. John McCain knows bush is full of it too.
posted on March 22, 2004 02:11:04 PM new
Richard Clarke is the second Bush insider that has come forward to tell of the wacked out job Bush is doing--- remember the former Treasury Secretary wrote a book too.
I don't know who to blame more for our present mess, the Supreme Court or Nader.
posted on March 22, 2004 02:20:02 PM newI don't know who to blame more for our present mess, the Supreme Court or Nader.
You can blame the people that set up the electoral college. If the president was actually chosen based on the majority vote, Bush would be at home on his ranch thinking of how to execute more people in Texas.
Impeach Bush
Marriage is a Human Right not a Heterosexual Privledge.
Bigotry and hate will not be tolerated.
posted on March 23, 2004 01:57:41 PM new
SOUR GRAPES from a disgruntled employee that was FIRED for his incompetence & now hopes to make millions from his book.
------------------------
'We have dispatched Dr. David Kay...to search for the bio-warfare agents we believe hidden in Senator Kerry's forehead. If Senator Kerry has used botox as part of a wrinkle enrichment program, he is in violation of UN Resolution 752. Upon receiving Dr. Kay's report, the weapons of mass destruction that Senator Kerry so adamantly insists do not exist...may well be above his very nose.'" --Dick Cheney when asked whether John Kerry has had Botox treaments
posted on March 23, 2004 05:37:19 PM new
Skylite, (and Kiara & Helen), Richard Clarke will be on Larry King tomorrow night (Wed., Mar. 24th). Should be interesting!
posted on March 23, 2004 06:26:34 PM new
Yea, good idea. And while you're watching it....play very close attention to how he words his statements.
You'll not hear "President Bush told me to this or that" you'll here "I took that to mean"..or .. "I left with the 'feeling' that's what he meant when he said xxxx"
posted on March 24, 2004 07:09:15 AM new
Why has Clark done a complete turnaround?
Former White House adviser Richard Clarke, the author of a new book excoriating President Bush's counterterrorism policies before the September 11, 2001, attacks, wrote a resignation letter in 2003 praising Bush's "courage" and "determination" on 9/11.
"It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months," Clarke said in a letter to Bush, dated January 30, 2003, which was released by the White House on Tuesday. "I thank you again for the opportunity to serve you have provided me and wish you good fortune as you lead our country through the continuing threats."
Clarke, a 30-year career government employee who served on the White House staff under four presidents, headed counterterrorism efforts during the Clinton administration and kept the post when Bush came to office in 2001.
He later became Bush's special adviser on cyberspace security before leaving that job in 2003, when cyber security was transferred to the new Department of Homeland Security.
"I will always remember the courage, determination, calm and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th," Clarke said in his letter to Bush. "I will also have fond memories of our briefings for you on cyber security and the intuitive understanding of its importance that you showed."
The release of the letter, with its positive comments about Bush, is the latest move in a White House counteroffensive against the charges leveled in Clarke's new book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday that the warm tone of the letter "runs counter to what he is now asserting."
"At this time period, when he was leaving, there was no mention of the grave concerns he claims to have had about the direction of the war on terrorism, or what we were doing to confront the threat posed by Iraq," McClellan said.
In the book, Clarke charged that the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented if Bush and other leading figures in the administration had taken a more urgent interest in the al Qaeda threat prior to 9/11. He also said Bush, on the day after the attacks, demanded that Clarke find out if there was a connection between the al Qaeda plotters and the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, even though no evidence of a link existed.
In response, senior administration officials have painted Clarke as a man frustrated by his reduced role in the new administration who left after he was passed over for the No. 2 job in the Homeland Security Department.
They also accused him of political motivations because his close friend, Rand Beers, is a foreign policy adviser to presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry, and they questioned the effectiveness of counterterrorism efforts he oversaw during the Clinton administration, as the threat from al Qaeda festered.
But Tuesday, Clarke accused the White House of going on the offensive against him to "divert attention from the truth" that the administration did "virtually nothing about al Qaeda" prior to 9/11 and was instead fixated on Iraq.
"The White House is papering over facts, such as in the weeks immediately after 9/11, the president signed a national security directive instructing the Pentagon to prepare for the invasion of Iraq, even though they knew at the time -- from me, from the FBI, from the CIA -- that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11," he told CNN's "American Morning." (Full story)
Clarke is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks.
What a weak defense again. Using a typical phrase in a letter of resignation to infer that Clarke has flipflopped and is thus a hypocrite.
Here's the phrase that they're highlighting: "It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months ... I will always remember the courage, determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th."
Is that all there is? A mere boilerplate phrase in a letter of resignation is all that they can find?
posted on March 24, 2004 09:45:39 AM newYou can blame the people that set up the electoral college. If the president was actually chosen based on the majority vote, Bush would be at home on his ranch thinking of how to execute more people in Texas.
There are no words to explain that sentence above. The states are set up so that everyone has an equal opportunity to vote and make their vote count. Say I move to a Republican State. Does this mean I should not vote because my democratic vote won't count? No I would vote because it is my right.
This isn't the only person that has lost an election that received a majority vote but lost because of the electorial college.
1824 Andrew Jackson, 1888 Cleveland. This debate will go on and on.
posted on March 24, 2004 10:19:11 AM newThe states are set up so that everyone has an equal opportunity to vote and make their vote count
Actually it is just the opposite. It is to make the state's majority popular vote count more than any simple majority of the whole electorate.
The reasoning behind the electoral college was to prevent large populations from forming voting blocks that could shut out state electoral hegemony. This evolved from the original manner of electing a president by using the "electors" of each state, that being each state's state legislators voted for the president.
The original intent was to prevent the vulgar mob from using the popular vote to elect a president.
The electoral college has long out lived its usefullness.
posted on March 25, 2004 06:16:04 AM new
Libra - It wasn't ONLY in Clark's resignation letter.....
He wants his book to sell....he's pissed that he didn't get the job he wanted....it's clear for all to see.
Here's a transcript that Fox News posted yesterday with Clark making supportive statements about the Bush administration in Aug. 2002 ...
begin:
Transcript: Clarke Praises Bush Team in '02
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
WASHINGTON — The following transcript documents a background briefing in early August 2002 by President Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke to a handful of reporters, including Fox News' Jim Angle. In the conversation, cleared by the White House on Wednesday for distribution, Clarke describes the handover of intelligence from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration and the latter's decision to revise the U.S. approach to Al Qaeda. Clarke was named special adviser to the president for cyberspace security in October 2001. He resigned from his post in January 2003.
---
RICHARD CLARKE:
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.
Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office ? issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And 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.
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.
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.
QUESTION: When was that presented to the president?
CLARKE: Well, the president was briefed throughout this process.
QUESTION: But when was the final September 4 document? (interrupted) Was that presented to the president?
CLARKE: The document went to the president on September 10, I think.
QUESTION: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002] Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against the ? general animus against the foreign policy?
CLARKE: I think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with terrorism issue. This is the one issue where the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesn't sound like animus against uh the previous team to me.
JIM ANGLE: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?
CLARKE: All of that's correct.
ANGLE: OK.
QUESTION: Are you saying now that there was not only a plan per se, presented by the transition team, but that it was nothing proactive that they had suggested?
CLARKE: Well, what I'm saying is, there are two things presented. One, what the existing strategy had been. And two, a series of issues ? like aiding the Northern Alliance, changing Pakistan policy, changing Uzbek policy ? that they had been unable to come to um, any new conclusions, um, from '98 on.
QUESTION: Was all of that from '98 on or was some of it ...
CLARKE: All of those issues were on the table from '98 on.
ANGLE: When in '98 were those presented?
CLARKE: In October of '98.
QUESTION: In response to the Embassy bombing?
CLARKE: Right, which was in September.
QUESTION: Were all of those issues part of alleged plan that was late December and the Clinton team decided not to pursue because it was too close to ...
The Sept. 11 commission shed its bipartisan spirit and turned a Senate hearing room into a courtroom yesterday for the testimony of Richard A. Clarke, the White House counterterrorism chief-turned-Bush administration whistle-blower.
Democrats, prosecuting President Bush for ignoring terrorism before the 2001 attacks, used the newly famous Clarke as their star witness. Republican commission members -- armed with fresh information on Clarke released by the White House yesterday through Fox News -- played defense lawyers determined to discredit the witness as a closet Democrat.
"You've got a real credibility problem," Republican commissioner John F. Lehman told Clarke, the author of a new book eviscerating Bush's terrorism policies. "And because of my real genuine long-term admiration for you," he continued, "I hope you'll resolve that credibility problem, because I'd hate to see you become totally shoved to one side during a presidential campaign as an active partisan selling a book."
Democratic commissioner Bob Kerrey sought to build the witness's credibility and objected to the Fox News report one Republican commissioner was using to undermine Clarke. "Well, Mr. Clarke, let me say at the beginning that everything that you've said today and done has not damaged my view of your integrity," the former Nebraska senator declared.
There was good reason for the tension. If the critique presented by Clarke, who left the Bush White House after two years, is to be accepted, a key rationale for Bush's reelection has been lost. In Clarke's view, the Bush administration ignored his pleas to make terrorism a high priority before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, reacted inadequately to the attacks and then strengthened terrorists by persistently pursuing war in Iraq. Bush aides are not about to let that version stand.
Shortly before the hearing, the White House violated its long-standing rules by authorizing Fox News to air remarks favorable to Bush that Clarke had made anonymously at an administration briefing in 2002. The White House press secretary read passages from the 2002 remarks at his televised briefing, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who has declined to give public testimony to the commission, called reporters into her office to highlight the discrepancy. "There are two very different stories here," she said. "These stories can't be reconciled."
Back at the hearing, former Illinois governor James R. Thompson, a Republican member of the commission, took up the cause, waving the Fox News transcript with one hand and Clarke's critical book in the other. "Which is true?" Thompson demanded, folding his arms and glowering down at the witness.
Clarke, appearing unfazed by the apparent contradiction between his current criticism and previous praise, spoke to Thompson as if addressing a slow student.
"I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done, and to minimize the negative aspects of what the administration had done," he explained. "I've done it for several presidents."
With each effort by Thompson to highlight Clarke's inconsistency -- "the policy on Uzbekistan, was it changed?" -- Clarke tutored the commissioner about the obligations of a White House aide. Thompson, who had far exceeded his allotted time, frowned contemptuously. "I think a lot of things beyond the tenor and the tone bother me about this," he said. During a second round of questioning, Thompson returned to the subject, questioning Clarke's "standard of candor and morality."
"I don't think it's a question of morality at all; I think it's a question of politics," Clarke snapped.
Thompson had to wait for Sept. 11, 2001, victims' relatives in the gallery to stop applauding before he pleaded ignorance of the ways of Washington. "I'm from the Midwest, so I think I'll leave it there," he said. Moments later, Thompson left the hearing room and did not return.
It was a masterful bit of showmanship by the former bureaucrat who became a household name in the past week with his charges about Bush. Though more prominent personalities testified in the commission's two-day public hearings, the longtime foreign policy bureaucrat stole the show.
With two dozen cameras recording his every twitch, Clarke disarmed the crowd by starting with an apology to those who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001. "Your government failed you," he said. "Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you."
Democrats teed up easy questions for him. Commissioner Timothy J. Roemer got Clarke, who served in four administrations, to say that there was "no higher" priority than terrorism under President Bill Clinton, but the Bush administration "either didn't believe me that there was an urgent problem or was unprepared to act as though there were an urgent problem."
Kerrey did his part to make Clarke a hero. "I feel badly," he told the witness, "because I presume that you are at the moment receiving terrible phone messages and e-mail messages."
Democrat Jamie S. Gorelick continued the praise. After one Clarke pronouncement, she replied: "Well, that's a very sobering statement, particularly from someone whose reputation is as aggressive as your reputation is."
Republican commissioners labored to change that reputation. Fred F. Fielding implied that Clarke may have perjured himself when he spoke to a congressional investigation into the attacks but did not raise complaints about Bush's Iraq policy then. Clarke, though the back of his neck and head were a burning red, replied coolly: "I wasn't asked, sir."
The gallery drew quiet when Lehman questioned Clarke. "I have genuinely been a fan of yours," he began, and then he said how he had hoped Clarke would be "the Rosetta Stone" for the commission. "But now we have the book," Lehman said, suggesting it was a partisan tract.
Clarke was ready for that challenge. "Let me talk about partisanship here, since you raised it," he said, noting that he registered as a Republican in 2000 and served President Ronald Reagan. "The White House has said that my book is an audition for a high-level position in the Kerry campaign," Clarke said. "So let me say here, as I am under oath, that I will not accept any position in the Kerry administration, should there be one."
When Clarke finished his answer, there was a long pause, and the gallery was silent. Lehman smiled slightly and nodded. He had no further questions.
posted on March 25, 2004 06:33:30 AM new
A good leader would not have waited to launch a war on terrorism if it was such an imminent threat. I guess Bush was to busy planning his war on Iraq when he took office.
Impeach Bush
Marriage is a Human Right not a Heterosexual Privledge.
Bigotry and hate will not be tolerated.
