Ex-Aide Says Bush Doing 'Terrible Job'

[Ithaca 37]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040320/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terrorism_adviser_14

WASHINGTON - Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the Bush administration of failing to recognize the al-Qaida threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and then manipulating America into war with Iraq (news - web sites) with dangerous consequences.

He accuses Bush of doing "a terrible job on the war against terrorism."


Clarke, who is expected to testify Tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, writes in a new book going on sale Monday that Bush and his Cabinet were preoccupied during the early months of his presidency with some of the same Cold War issues that had faced his father's administration.


"It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier," Clarke told CBS for an interview Sunday on its "60 Minutes" program.


CBS' corporate parent, Viacom Inc., owns Simon & Schuster, publisher for Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies."


Clarke acknowledges that, "there's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too." He said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) on Jan. 24, 2001, asking "urgently" for a Cabinet-level meeting "to deal with the impending al-Qaida attack." Months later, in April, Clarke met with deputy cabinet secretaries, and the conversation turned to Iraq.


"I'm sure I'll be criticized for lots of things, and I'm sure they'll launch their dogs on me," Clarke said. "But frankly I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something."


The Associated Press first reported in June 2002 that Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions.


The last of those two meetings occurred Sept. 4 as the security council put finishing touches on a proposed national security policy review for the president. That review was finished Sept. 10 and was awaiting Bush's approval when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.


Almost immediately after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Clarke said the president asked him directly to find whether Iraq was involved in the suicide hijackings.


"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,'" said Clarke, who told the president that U.S. intelligence agencies had never found a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida.


"He came back at me and said, 'Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection,' and in a very intimidating way," Clarke said.


CBS said it asked Stephen Hadley, Rice's deputy on the national security council, about the incident, and Hadley said: "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."


CBS responded to Hadley that it found two people it did not identify who recounted the incident independently, and one of them witnessed the conversation.


"I stand on what I said," Hadley told CBS, "but the point I think we're missing in this is, of course the president wanted to know if there was any evidence linking Iraq to 9-11."


Clarke also harshly criticizes Bush over his decision to invade Iraq, saying it helped brew a new wave of anti-American sentiment among supporters of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).


"Bin Laden had been saying for years, 'America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country.' This is part of his propaganda," Clarke said. "So what did we do after 9/11? We invade ... and occupy an oil-rich Arab country, which was doing nothing to threaten us."

Clarke retired early in 2003 after 30 years in government service. He was among the longest-serving White House staffers, transferred in from the State Department in 1992 to deal with threats from terrorism and narcotics.

Clarke previously led the government's secretive Counterterrorism and Security Group, made up of senior officials from the FBI (news - web sites), CIA (news - web sites), Justice Department (news - web sites) and armed services, who met several times each week to discuss foreign threats.

 

[feclnogn]

"to deal with the impending al-Qaida attack

So they (the Clinton administration) knew there was going to be a attack, using aipplanes flown into buildings in New York City? Maybe some other attack? If this is the case is Clinton actually at fault?

"But frankly I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something."

What was Clinton doing during his admin? Were they ignoring it?

"He came back at me and said, 'Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection,' and in a very intimidating way," Clarke said.

Hee hee, sure he did. Sounds like a figment of his imagination. "Intimidating" Makes for good copy in a book though.

I don't think it is unreasonable to look at Iraq as a culprit. I think it would have been irresponible not to look at it. Ultimately we did not invade Irag based on the fact that they flew planes into the WTC, but as part of a larger strategy on the war on terror. Were we right? I dont think we will know that for many years.

Here is a qoute from another article by Clark from frontline:

But didn't you push for military action after the Cole?

Yes, that's one of the exceptions.


How important is that exception?

I believe that, had we destroyed the terrorist camps in Afghanistan earlier, that the conveyor belt that was producing terrorists sending them out around the world would have been destroyed. So many, many trained and indoctrinated Al Qaeda terrorists, which now we have to hunt down country by country, many of them would not be trained and would not be indoctrinated, because there wouldn't have been a safe place to do it if we had destroyed the camps earlier.


So that's a pretty basic mistake that we made?

Well, I'm not prepared to call it a mistake. It was a judgment made by people who had to take into account a lot of other issues. None of these decisions took place in isolation. There was the Middle East peace process going on. There was the war in Yugoslavia going on. People above my rank had to judge what could be done in the counterterrorism world at a time when they were also pursuing other national goals.

Interesting.


And another quote

Because one of the things that surprises a lot of the public, I think, is that immediately after Sept. 11, the administration knew exactly who had done it. Was that why?

No. On the day of Sept. 11, then the day or two following, we had a very open mind . CIA and FBI were asked, "See if it's Hezbollah. See if it's Hamas. Don't assume it's Al Qaeda. Don't just assume it's Al Qaeda." Frankly, there was absolutely not a shred of evidence that it was anybody else. The evidence that it was Al Qaeda began just to be massive within days after the attack.


Somebody's quoted as saying that they walked into your office and almost immediately afterwards, the first words out of your mouth was "Al Qaeda."

Well, I assumed it was Al Qaeda. No one else had the intention of doing that. No one else that I knew of had the capability of doing that. So yes, as soon as it happened, I assumed it was Al Qaeda.

Here he states that they were looking at who could have done it. Hezbollah, Hamas, could this not include Iraq as well.

interview

 

[JoseCuervo]

Hezbollah and Hamas are not countries... Why would Iraq be lumped in with the Terrorist organziations?

"He said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) on Jan. 24, 2001, asking "urgently" for a Cabinet-level meeting "to deal with the impending al-Qaida attack."" Why would Clinton be at fault on a meeting that occurred after the Innaugaration? The transition team should have been able to bridge the topics from one adminstration to the next. How do you imply Clinton dropped the ball? It is obivous that Dubya's dropped the ball, by the lack of action.

Clinton must have been doing something right for 8 years, we had no sky scrapers destroyed, we had grazing on Public Lands being regulated, and we had no deficit on the Budget.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Clarke is all over the place, getting publicity for his book....

You don't win wars against terrorism on the battlefield. As Terrorism expert Richard Clarke writes in Time:

Unfortunately, the CIA and the FBI have found al-Qaeda a hard target to infiltrate. Worse, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld mused in an internal Pentagon memo, radicals who hate America are being turned out faster than we can arrest or kill them. Whatever we do to the original members of al-Qaeda, a new generation of terrorists similar to them is growing. So, in addition to placing more cameras on our subway platforms, maybe we should be asking why the terrorists hate us. If we do not focus on the reasons for terrorism as well as the terrorists, the body searches we accept at airports may be only the beginning of life in the new fortress America.

 

[ELKCHSR]

!!!LMAO!!!!

 

[Nemont]

EG,
Look back and see when the planning for 9/11 began. Look and see when the World Trade Center was bombed the first time. Why would you make such a statement? If there was such a threat why didn't he require any urgency prior to Jan. 24, 2001 Why wait for the election to play out if he believed this threat was so serious?

Bush was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2001 , Condoleezza Rice became the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs on January 22, 2001. The cabinet had not even been formed and here is a guy, who nobody in the White House knew, demanding a cabinet meeting. Suppose anyone in Washington and the White House was busy doing anything else? If it was so urgent why did this guy not call a meeting on the 24th of December, 2000 or 24 Nov. 2000?

I know I can't force ya to see the light but you should a least look at the timeline this guy is stating and ask yourself does that really make sense?

Clinton must have been doing something right for 8 years, we had no sky scrapers destroyed, we had grazing on Public Lands being regulated, and we had no deficit on the Budget.

Let's see what happend On 26th February 1993? WTC bombed the first time

Let's see what happened April 19, 1995? Oklahoma City bombing

Grazing is still regulated. Where do you get that one anyway? Or is just not done exactly how you think it should be done?

I will concede you the budget deficit but will say that the economy, and resulting surpluses, of the 90's had more to do with Bill Gates than it did Bill Clinton.

I have a book for you to read called "Adventure Capitalist". A guy who travels throughout the world for the past 20 years, by motorcyle and car, states that the arrogance of the U.S. Government dring the Clinton years created hatred, throughout the world, of America, it is not something new that GW just created. Should give it a read. He doesn't think much of Bush either BTW nor of public lands grazing for that matter or any government action which distorts the market place. He is a very perceptive and bright guy.


Nemont

[ 03-21-2004, 20:11: Message edited by: Nemont ]

 

[feclnogn]

Hezbollah and Hamas are not countries

Neither is Al Qaeda, but we still atacked Afganistan which is a country. If the WTC attack was done by Hamas or Hezbollah I think it is safe to assume we would have attacked Syria which is also a country.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Nemont,

Under Clinton, Mr. Clarke was a cabinet level member of the administration. Dubya demoted him to a staff member, thinking counter-terrorism wasn't that important.

And as for the Oklahoma bombing, which country should Clinton have invaded to get those terroists????????

 

[ELKCHSR]

Does it really matter, it's all history now and ol'Mr. Klinton can't change what history will bring out...LMAO!!!

 

[JoseCuervo]

Why do you spell Clinton with a "K"? That is pretty bad when you forget to run it thru your spell checker, and you can't even correctly spell Clinton....

For those who can actually read, is a commentary about the issue, from a left leaning bias.... My guess is, by this time tomorrow, every member of the Dubya administration will be on TV discrediting this Clarke, and trying to make him out to be a looney.

"Richard A. Clarke said in a television interview airing Sunday that Bush 'ignored terrorism for months' before the 2001 attacks, then looked to attack Iraq rather than Afghanistan, the nation harboring the terrorist group al-Qaeda, which launched the attacks."

That's from Bloomberg.

It is fair to say that anyone who has seriously reported on this issue, or has read a lot of the good reporting on it, already knows this: namely, that the incoming Bush administration downgraded the attention given to terrorism and al Qaida specifically in the last years of the Clinton administration, and this after being warned by out-going members of the Clinton team that combatting al Qaida should be at the top of their agenda.

In short, they pushed al Qaida and a lot of resources aimed at fighting al Qaida to the backburner until the whole thing blew up in their faces on 9/11.

Their focus, as we've noted before, was on the centrality of states rather than shadowy transnational terrorist groups -- thus their preoccuption with issues like national missile defense.

In any case, as I say, we've basically known this.

But it's another thing to have the person who was there at the center of the action as NSC counter-terrorism czar -- both under Clinton and Bush -- saying on camera that the president ignored terrorism and al Qaida right up until the day of the attacks. Clarke was there. In fact, to the extent that Bush and Rice and Cheney and the rest of the team were ignoring the issue, it would have been Clarke's urgent warnings they were ignoring -- since he was the head of counter-terrorism on the NSC staff.

White House Spokesman Sean McCormick told the New York Times: "The president and his team received briefings on the threat from al-Qaida prior to taking office, and fighting terrorism became a top priority when this administration came into office. We actively pursued the Clinton administration's policies on al-Qaida until we could get into place a more comprehensive policy."

But Clark says that's baloney. And he was the one who headed up Clinton's counter-terrorism policies and Bush's. So who are you going to believe?

Now do you understand why they're stonewalling the 9/11 commission?

And while we're discussing the commission, why do they even really need to stonewall it?

Consider this passage from a piece in today's Times ...

They said the warnings were delivered in urgent post-election intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 for Condoleezza Rice, who became Mr. Bush's national security adviser; Stephen Hadley, now Ms. Rice's deputy; and Philip D. Zelikow, a member of the Bush transition team, among others.
One official scheduled to testify, Richard A. Clarke, who was President Bill Clinton's counterterrorism coordinator, said in an interview that the warning about the Qaeda threat could not have been made more bluntly to the incoming Bush officials in intelligence briefings that he led.

At the time of the briefings, there was extensive evidence tying Al Qaeda to the bombing in Yemen two months earlier of an American warship, the Cole, in which 17 sailors were killed.

"It was very explicit," Mr. Clarke said of the warning given to the Bush administration officials. "Rice was briefed, and Hadley was briefed, and Zelikow sat in." Mr. Clarke served as Mr. Bush's counterterrorism chief in the early months of the administration, but after Sept. 11 was given a more limited portfolio as the president's cyberterrorism adviser.


Now we know about Rice and Hadley, her deputy. But how about Zelikow? He's a former NSC official from the first Bush administration and a close associate of Rice's. The two of them even wrote a book together.

He was in the key meetings where the warnings -- seemingly ignored -- about al Qaida came up. He seems like someone you'd want to talk to to find out what they were warned about and why they didn't take the warnings more seriously.

Well, you don't have to look far to find him. He runs the 9/11 Commission. Zelikow is the Executive Director of the Commission, which means he has operational control of the investigation under the overall management of the two co-chairs Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton.

Now, Zelikow is no hack. He's an accomplished Republican foreign policy hand. But Condi Rice and what happened in the hand-off between the administrations is central to the whole 9/11 investigation enterprise.

Does it make sense to have the guy who's running the investigation be one of her close professional colleagues?

The 9/11 families didn't think so either.

 

[ELKCHSR]

"Why do you spell Clinton with a "K"? That is pretty bad when you forget to run it thru your spell checker, and you can't even correctly spell Clinton...."
You only don't get it because you don't choose to, it has nothing to do with spell checker, same as you running every thing you post "Dubya"....

 

[JoseCuervo]

You are right, I don't get it. Is it supposed to be funny? Is it clever? Where did you come up with the great idea?

 

[Oak]

Very intuitive of you, Elkchsr...

Oak

 

[Nemont]

EG,
Clarke wasn't demoted because Bush didn't think that counter terrorism was important. Bush's doctrine changed the focus of counter terrorism from police enforcement, ie arresting and indicting terrorist, to military engagement. Remember Bin Laden has been indicted already but hasn't stopped.

Note I didn't say any invasion of a country was required, your quote was as follows:

Clinton must have been doing something right for 8 years, we had no sky scrapers destroyed, we had grazing on Public Lands being regulated, and we had no deficit on the Budget

If Clarke was so all knowing why didn't he stop the OK City bombing? Double standard?

All I am asking you is to review the evidence and ask yourself where are the letters to people in the Clinton Administration? If the terrorist were here in 1998, 1999 and 2000 why wasn't Mr. Clarke, a cabinet level officer, clamoring for them to be dealt with then. In Mr. Clarke's book he states that it known that Iraq was not a threat during the 1990's yet Clinton stated they were and bombed them in 1993 and 1998. Where was he during the the last couple of years of the Clinton Administration?

All I am asking is show where this guy,Clarke, who has all the answers in 20/20 hindsight warned anyone during the Clinton administration and he got the president to immediately take care of the threat. I don't see it. Apparently many other people don't see it either

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said Sunday he doesn't believe Clarke's charge that Bush -- who defeated him and former Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 election -- was focused more on Iraq than Al Qaeda during the days after the terror attacks.

"I see no basis for it," Lieberman said on "Fox News Sunday." "I think we've got to be careful to speak facts and not rhetoric."

And Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., told a Sunday morning news show that while he has been critical of Bush policies on Iraq, "I think it's unfair to blame the president for the spread of terror and the diffuseness of it. Even if he had followed the advice of me and many other people, I still think the same thing would have happened."

Source of quote

Nemont

[ 03-22-2004, 10:00: Message edited by: Nemont ]

 

[Ten Bears]

He's just trying to sell a book. I think EG & IT will be the first in line in Boise for a signed copy.

 

[pawclaws]

Bush didn't ignore terrorisim as charged; nor did his advisors. They ignored Clarke!

That's what has him so tight jawed. Why did they ignore Clarke? I wish I knew. They may indeed have been tunnel visioned into going after Iraq. I have seen it happen before. Clarke may have not supported his findings well enough; which I would find unusual. Question is if Clarke was in office for 30 years; why didn't he sell this to Clinton? Looks to me like Clarke was operating on information that was weak, poorly supported, or has been analyzed in hind site. As much as I detest Clinton; I really don't think he would have sat on his hands if Clarke was bringing forward hard evidence of a Bin Ladin plot in the works. This whole thing worries me.

 

[Nemont]

Paws,
That is my point If the Information was so urgent why has he not also said that the previous administration is to blame as much as the Bush administration is.

I think his feelings were hurt that he lost his position.

All I want is for EG to show me where this guy was from 1998 when the flight training began for the terrorist who piloted the hijacked planes on 9/11 to January 2001 when Clinton out of office. It is easy to throw stones.

Nemont

 

[pawclaws]

Nemont; I only know Clarke to be very competent but; things happen. One analyst I workd with, we'll call him Chip cause that's his name, had a stroke and lost all short term memory. Really affected his abilities with report writing, presentations, and similar things. Made life really tough for him. I'm wondering if Clarke hasn't had a similar problem or if maybe as you said; hurt feelings. Could be! In any case it is very sad to see all of this finger pointing and blaming when our nation right this minute needs to stick together and get a resolution to this terrorist crap.

 

[feclnogn]

Under Clinton, Mr. Clarke was a cabinet level member of the administration. Dubya demoted him to a staff member, thinking counter-terrorism wasn't that important.

,

This is from clarkes interview

You tried to convince him, it has been written, to take your job. Can you tell me a little bit about that what happened?


Shortly after the Bush administration came into office, we were asked to think about how we organized the White House for a number of issues, including cybersecurity, computer security, homeland security, and counterterrorism. I was asked for my advice, and I proposed that the counterterrorism responsibility be broken off be a separate job, and that the cybersecurity job be broken off as a separate job. I said I had done counterterrorism for about a decade, and I wanted to start working on cybersecurity, which I think is terribly important. That was later approved by the president.
So the question came, "Well, who would you recommend to do the terrorism job?" I came up with four or five names. The first name that came to mind was John O'Neill, because he had the right combination of talents. He had an incredible drive. He never took his eye off the ball. He was never satisfied with halfway measures when it meant saving American lives. He would never let people think about this as just another job. He knew the bureaucracy, and he knew how to make things happen. He was incredibly intelligent. I thought he had all the right sets of skills to do the job at the White House.

But he was not terribly excited about that. I think he either wanted to come to work in headquarters of the FBI again, or he wanted to get out and start making a decent living. He chose to do the latter, I guess, and I respect that. Government servants frequently don't get paid what they get paid on the outside. You can only ask them to sacrifice for so long, because they're not just sacrificing for themselves, they're sacrificing for their families.

Sounds to me like he wanted a change.

I will give you the link again if you care to read it.

Link For Elk Gunner

 

[cjcj]

Maybee GW didn`t trust Clarke? [demotion]