Richard Clarke's Legacy of Miscalculation Feb 17 2003
- Thread starter feclnogn
- Start date
JoseCuervo
New member
Calif. Hunter
Active member
Gee, Clarke was demoted by Bush - I'm sure that has nothing to do with his statements or the change in his position.
MarlandS
New member
Or the reported three versions he's told recently
Ithaca 37
New member
"The Wrong Target
Published: March 26, 2004
It cannot have escaped anyone's attention that the Bush administration has spent the better part of the week in full counterattack mode against Richard Clarke, the former White House antiterrorism czar who says the president and his senior officials greatly underrated the threat from Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the months leading up to 9/11. Nearly everyone of consequence in President Bush's inner circle appears to have been requisitioned to challenge Mr. Clarke's integrity and motives, accusing him of everything from trying to drum up sales for his new book to auditioning for a job in a John Kerry administration. The field of critics is so crowded that they're tripping over each other, as when Condoleezza Rice felt obliged to correct Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Mr. Clarke had never been "in the loop."
Though this is not a terribly productive strategy — indeed, it makes the administration look worse, not better — it is perfectly O.K. for the White House to keep an instant-response team at the ready. It has a right to respond quickly and forcefully to accusations it regards as unfair. Some of Mr. Bush's predecessors were certainly no slouches in that regard. When cornered, the Clintons and their spinners could retaliate with the best of them.
The problem here, though, is that Mr. Bush's team is so preoccupied with defending his image as a can-do commander in chief that it has no energy left to engage the legitimate questions that have been raised by Mr. Clarke and by others who have appeared before the independent 9/11 commission. These questions are not, as the Bush people seem to assume, aimed solely at the current administration. As an analysis yesterday in The Times pointed out, two presidents in a row were unable to stop Al Qaeda and capture its leader. The trail of fumbles and stumbles — the intelligence lapses, bureaucratic foul-ups, policy miscalculations and all the rest — began well before Mr. Bush's inauguration.
The White House is so thin-skinned and defensive, however, that it simply cannot bring itself to join what ought to be a grown-up national conversation of how best to deal with terrorism. Its schoolyard name-calling does no one any good, least of all Mr. Bush, who is made to appear far more interested in undermining Mr. Clarke's credibility than in addressing the heart of his critique."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/26/opinion/26FRI2.html
Published: March 26, 2004
It cannot have escaped anyone's attention that the Bush administration has spent the better part of the week in full counterattack mode against Richard Clarke, the former White House antiterrorism czar who says the president and his senior officials greatly underrated the threat from Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the months leading up to 9/11. Nearly everyone of consequence in President Bush's inner circle appears to have been requisitioned to challenge Mr. Clarke's integrity and motives, accusing him of everything from trying to drum up sales for his new book to auditioning for a job in a John Kerry administration. The field of critics is so crowded that they're tripping over each other, as when Condoleezza Rice felt obliged to correct Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Mr. Clarke had never been "in the loop."
Though this is not a terribly productive strategy — indeed, it makes the administration look worse, not better — it is perfectly O.K. for the White House to keep an instant-response team at the ready. It has a right to respond quickly and forcefully to accusations it regards as unfair. Some of Mr. Bush's predecessors were certainly no slouches in that regard. When cornered, the Clintons and their spinners could retaliate with the best of them.
The problem here, though, is that Mr. Bush's team is so preoccupied with defending his image as a can-do commander in chief that it has no energy left to engage the legitimate questions that have been raised by Mr. Clarke and by others who have appeared before the independent 9/11 commission. These questions are not, as the Bush people seem to assume, aimed solely at the current administration. As an analysis yesterday in The Times pointed out, two presidents in a row were unable to stop Al Qaeda and capture its leader. The trail of fumbles and stumbles — the intelligence lapses, bureaucratic foul-ups, policy miscalculations and all the rest — began well before Mr. Bush's inauguration.
The White House is so thin-skinned and defensive, however, that it simply cannot bring itself to join what ought to be a grown-up national conversation of how best to deal with terrorism. Its schoolyard name-calling does no one any good, least of all Mr. Bush, who is made to appear far more interested in undermining Mr. Clarke's credibility than in addressing the heart of his critique."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/26/opinion/26FRI2.html
Calif. Hunter
Active member
Since we are all so concerned about "coulda-shoulda-woulda," and are all so great at hindsight, the administration has no choice but to respond defensively in an election year. The same folks who would have tried to prevent or would have protested any action at the time (not in hindsight) are the ones who are now trying to say "you" should have done something. C'mon - what could anyone have done? All of "us" spoiled Americans would have been screaming our heads off if the security neccessary prevent it would have been implemented before 9-11. How would the thousands of travelers have responded to having their nail files, cuticle scissors or other "potential weapons" confiscated before 9-11 occurred? 
The delays and lines would have been intolerable. And this is assuming there was enough info to guess about the plan's details.
Does this surprise anyone? Everyone is an armchair expert, and can see the clues among hundreds of thousands of pieces of information afterwards.
The delays and lines would have been intolerable. And this is assuming there was enough info to guess about the plan's details.Does this surprise anyone? Everyone is an armchair expert, and can see the clues among hundreds of thousands of pieces of information afterwards.
Ithaca 37
New member
Cal., Maybe you should be as open minded as Nemont and read this post:
http://www.huntandlodge.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=31;t=002274
http://www.huntandlodge.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=31;t=002274
Calif. Hunter
Active member
What was close-minded about my post?
Ithaca 37
New member
Did you read the NY Times article?
Calif. Hunter
Active member
No. I do not wish to register with the New York Times, or the LA Times or the local newspaper online. I get enough spam and I have enough bookmarks. Does that make me close-minded? Do I have to read every link you post in order to be open-minded?
What did I say the first time that was close-minded?
What did I say the first time that was close-minded?
Ithaca 37
New member
Cal. I didn't say anything you posted was closed minded. Here's what I said: "Maybe you should be as open minded as Nemont and read this post" Registering to read the NY Times doesn't mean you'll get any spam. I never have. You don't have to bookmark anything, either. All that happens is you can open Times articles when there's a link to them. The links show up frequently when you click on Yahoo news articles like this:
In The News
• Jordanian suspected behind Madrid attacks
• Rice discusses terror, but not under oath
• Kerry reveals plan to keep jobs in U.S.
• Gas price hits record 4th day in row
• Amish find refuge in rural Wisconsin
• Madonna's record label sues Warner Music
I'm sorry I ruffled your feathers, though.
In The News
• Jordanian suspected behind Madrid attacks
• Rice discusses terror, but not under oath
• Kerry reveals plan to keep jobs in U.S.
• Gas price hits record 4th day in row
• Amish find refuge in rural Wisconsin
• Madonna's record label sues Warner Music
I'm sorry I ruffled your feathers, though.
Ithaca 37
New member
The more I read about Clarke, the more I like him!
"Clarke Known As Abrasive but Efficient
1 hour, 21 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Richard Clarke, the man who threw elbows and banged heads together to get things done under four American presidents, is the last person friends and colleagues expected to go public.
AP Photo
For decades he was the ultimate inside operator, the person who knew how to tackle the toughest national security problems and overcome bureaucratic inertia with behind-the-scenes guts, arrogance, smarts and hard work.
But writing a book and testifying to an official commission with scathing tales of miscalculations, failures and infighting at the highest levels of government? No way.
"This really isn't Dick," said Steven Simon, who worked with Clarke both at the White House and at the State Department. "It strikes me as a pretty clear indicator of the magnitude of his outrage."
Clarke, who left the Bush administration in early 2003, has become in the past week one of the most talked-about figures in America. In a string of public appearances and a new book that was an instant publishing phenomenon, he has forcefully criticized the Bush administration as a failure in the fight against terrorism that went on a tangent to attack Iraq (news - web sites) when it should have been focused on al-Qaida............."
http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=us&cat=terrorism
"Clarke Known As Abrasive but Efficient
1 hour, 21 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Richard Clarke, the man who threw elbows and banged heads together to get things done under four American presidents, is the last person friends and colleagues expected to go public.
AP Photo
For decades he was the ultimate inside operator, the person who knew how to tackle the toughest national security problems and overcome bureaucratic inertia with behind-the-scenes guts, arrogance, smarts and hard work.
But writing a book and testifying to an official commission with scathing tales of miscalculations, failures and infighting at the highest levels of government? No way.
"This really isn't Dick," said Steven Simon, who worked with Clarke both at the White House and at the State Department. "It strikes me as a pretty clear indicator of the magnitude of his outrage."
Clarke, who left the Bush administration in early 2003, has become in the past week one of the most talked-about figures in America. In a string of public appearances and a new book that was an instant publishing phenomenon, he has forcefully criticized the Bush administration as a failure in the fight against terrorism that went on a tangent to attack Iraq (news - web sites) when it should have been focused on al-Qaida............."
http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=us&cat=terrorism
Ithaca 37
New member
This is from Time Magazine:
The Chief Accuser
How credible is Richard Clarke?
By AMANDA RIPLEY
Posted Sunday, March 28, 2004
When Richard Clarke appeared before the 9/11 commission last week, Republican panelist James Thompson abruptly challenged him to reconcile his damning book with a contradictory pro-Bush Administration statement. "We have your book, and we have your press briefing ... Which is true?" Is Clarke, terrorism czar for the past two Administrations, a truth teller or a lying opportunist?
Clarke's timing is indeed convenient. Against All Enemies came out the week he testified before the commission. If he receives a typical royalty rate, he would make at least $1.8 million from sales. But Clarke is not easily caricatured. He just ended a 30-year stint for the Federal Government in which work, not money, was his life. He never married. He lives, according to his book, in an "old Sears-catalog house." He has served three Presidents. Until he retired last year, he spent holidays holed up in command centers, worrying about Americans' safety. Every footprint Clarke has left leads back to his obsession with terrorism—not money.
Nor does the claim that Clarke is partisan satisfy. He voted for Republican Senator John McCain in the 2000 presidential primary, he told Salon. He promised the 9/11 commission he would not take a job with a John Kerry administration, if there is one. "He is very smart. He is abrasively aggressive, and he is wholly self-centered," says a senior Republican who has worked with Clarke. But, he adds, "he is not partisan."
The charge that sticks is that Clarke has been hypocritical. Back in August 2002, when he still worked for Bush, Clarke said on the record in a TIME story that the Bush Administration's al-Qaeda policy review had moved "as fast as could be expected." He then gave the much publicized briefing to reporters on background, insisting the White House had "vigorously" pursued the Clinton Administration's policy on al-Qaeda. He said no new "plan" or "strategy" to take action against al-Qaeda had been developed under Clinton. In his book, Clarke says the opposite. He describes this plan in detail and castigates the Bush Administration for letting it languish. "My view was that this Administration, while it listened to me, didn't either believe me that there was an urgent problem, or was unprepared to act as though there were an urgent problem," he told the commission. Before Sept. 11, the Bush White House made terrorism "an important issue but not an urgent issue."
Clarke's dual personality makes no sense—unless you work in Washington. Aides passionately defend their boss one day, and after they resign, recall a very different story. Bob Kerrey, a 9/11 panel member and former Democratic Senator, says with a dose of sarcasm, "He's got everybody in positions of power trying to undermine him—by saying what? That when he was sent by his boss to say nice things about him, he did? Yeah, God, there's a crime. That's unusual in Washington." Clarke told the commission that when the White House asked him to do the briefing, he had three choices: resign, lie or "put the best face" he could on the facts. Clarke said he chose the last option. "I don't think it's a question of morality," he added. "I think it's a question of politics."
But even by Washington standards, the degree of Clarke's "spin" was aggressive. He is not just a career bureaucrat. He is also a political player—just as political as his critics. And he is cocky. His resignation—and book—came after he was passed over for a high-level position at the new Department of Homeland Security. "Dick's flaw is that his ego is boundless," says Winston Wiley, a recently retired senior CIA official who worked closely with Clarke from 1992 to '97. "I believe he's fundamentally honest. But he acts as if the world revolves around him, and it doesn't." Clarke seemed to have only one ominous note, and he played it again and again. Back in February 1999, Clarke said this about cyberterrorism, the New York Times reported: "You black out a city, people die. Black out lots of cities, lots of people die. It's as bad as being attacked by bombs."
In smaller ways too, Clarke has sounded rather enchanted with his role. Two years ago, in a cyberterrorism speech at Portland (Ore.) State University, he compared his foresight to Winston Churchill's. In his book, he describes sitting on his stoop, contemplating his unappreciated talents with a "bottle of Pinot Noir from a small winery I had found along the Russian River." It's clear Clarke has long viewed himself as the resident Cassandra.
But here's the point: Clarke was right. A week before 9/11, according to a report released last week by the commission, he sent National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice a note imploring policymakers "to imagine a day after a terrorist attack, with hundreds of Americans dead at home and abroad, and ask themselves what they could have done better." It was classic Clarke: plaintive and melodramatic. Just the kind of message Administration officials had become numb to, just the kind of grating dissent powerful organizations most need to hear.
—Reported by Timothy J. Burger, Massimo Calabresi and John F. Dickerson/Washington and Nathan Thornburgh/Portland
The Chief Accuser
How credible is Richard Clarke?
By AMANDA RIPLEY
Posted Sunday, March 28, 2004
When Richard Clarke appeared before the 9/11 commission last week, Republican panelist James Thompson abruptly challenged him to reconcile his damning book with a contradictory pro-Bush Administration statement. "We have your book, and we have your press briefing ... Which is true?" Is Clarke, terrorism czar for the past two Administrations, a truth teller or a lying opportunist?
Clarke's timing is indeed convenient. Against All Enemies came out the week he testified before the commission. If he receives a typical royalty rate, he would make at least $1.8 million from sales. But Clarke is not easily caricatured. He just ended a 30-year stint for the Federal Government in which work, not money, was his life. He never married. He lives, according to his book, in an "old Sears-catalog house." He has served three Presidents. Until he retired last year, he spent holidays holed up in command centers, worrying about Americans' safety. Every footprint Clarke has left leads back to his obsession with terrorism—not money.
Nor does the claim that Clarke is partisan satisfy. He voted for Republican Senator John McCain in the 2000 presidential primary, he told Salon. He promised the 9/11 commission he would not take a job with a John Kerry administration, if there is one. "He is very smart. He is abrasively aggressive, and he is wholly self-centered," says a senior Republican who has worked with Clarke. But, he adds, "he is not partisan."
The charge that sticks is that Clarke has been hypocritical. Back in August 2002, when he still worked for Bush, Clarke said on the record in a TIME story that the Bush Administration's al-Qaeda policy review had moved "as fast as could be expected." He then gave the much publicized briefing to reporters on background, insisting the White House had "vigorously" pursued the Clinton Administration's policy on al-Qaeda. He said no new "plan" or "strategy" to take action against al-Qaeda had been developed under Clinton. In his book, Clarke says the opposite. He describes this plan in detail and castigates the Bush Administration for letting it languish. "My view was that this Administration, while it listened to me, didn't either believe me that there was an urgent problem, or was unprepared to act as though there were an urgent problem," he told the commission. Before Sept. 11, the Bush White House made terrorism "an important issue but not an urgent issue."
Clarke's dual personality makes no sense—unless you work in Washington. Aides passionately defend their boss one day, and after they resign, recall a very different story. Bob Kerrey, a 9/11 panel member and former Democratic Senator, says with a dose of sarcasm, "He's got everybody in positions of power trying to undermine him—by saying what? That when he was sent by his boss to say nice things about him, he did? Yeah, God, there's a crime. That's unusual in Washington." Clarke told the commission that when the White House asked him to do the briefing, he had three choices: resign, lie or "put the best face" he could on the facts. Clarke said he chose the last option. "I don't think it's a question of morality," he added. "I think it's a question of politics."
But even by Washington standards, the degree of Clarke's "spin" was aggressive. He is not just a career bureaucrat. He is also a political player—just as political as his critics. And he is cocky. His resignation—and book—came after he was passed over for a high-level position at the new Department of Homeland Security. "Dick's flaw is that his ego is boundless," says Winston Wiley, a recently retired senior CIA official who worked closely with Clarke from 1992 to '97. "I believe he's fundamentally honest. But he acts as if the world revolves around him, and it doesn't." Clarke seemed to have only one ominous note, and he played it again and again. Back in February 1999, Clarke said this about cyberterrorism, the New York Times reported: "You black out a city, people die. Black out lots of cities, lots of people die. It's as bad as being attacked by bombs."
In smaller ways too, Clarke has sounded rather enchanted with his role. Two years ago, in a cyberterrorism speech at Portland (Ore.) State University, he compared his foresight to Winston Churchill's. In his book, he describes sitting on his stoop, contemplating his unappreciated talents with a "bottle of Pinot Noir from a small winery I had found along the Russian River." It's clear Clarke has long viewed himself as the resident Cassandra.
But here's the point: Clarke was right. A week before 9/11, according to a report released last week by the commission, he sent National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice a note imploring policymakers "to imagine a day after a terrorist attack, with hundreds of Americans dead at home and abroad, and ask themselves what they could have done better." It was classic Clarke: plaintive and melodramatic. Just the kind of message Administration officials had become numb to, just the kind of grating dissent powerful organizations most need to hear.
—Reported by Timothy J. Burger, Massimo Calabresi and John F. Dickerson/Washington and Nathan Thornburgh/Portland
