From today's Conference... _____________________ Q Scott, a question about the Richard Clarke book. Why shouldn't his account of the war on terror in this administration and past administration's be believed? MR. McCLELLAN: David, I think one, if you -- you can only look to some of the Senate Democratic leaders who were on some of the Sunday shows yesterday -- Senator Lieberman, Senator Biden -- and they certainly discounted some of his comments about Iraq. They said that -- and Senator Lieberman, I believe, said something to the effect that there was no basis in fact for that. I think that his assertions that there was something -- or his assertion that there was something we could have done to prevent the September 11th attacks from happening is deeply irresponsible, it's offensive, and it's flat-out false. This administration made going after al Qaeda a top priority from very early on. It was something that was discussed during the transition. And very early on in this administration, Dr. Rice asked for -- requested from Dick Clarke that some of his ideas be presented. And I would remind you that the very first major policy directive of this administration was to develop a comprehensive strategy to eliminate al Qaeda -- not role it back, as some had previously called for, but to eliminate al Qaeda. Q What would motivate him to engage in, as you say, offensive behavior -- what you call offensive, his charges here? MR. McCLELLAN: It appears from what I've seen that he's been more focused on the process than the substance. It appears to be more about Dick Clarke than about the substance. For the President, it's more about the actions that we are taking to protect the American people. Mr. Clarke has been out there talking about what title he had; he's been out there talking about whether or not he was participating in certain meetings. So it appears to be more about the process than the actual actions we have taken. Q That seems a little simple, doesn't it, Scott? I mean, the process matters when you work in the White House and have to get the attention of superiors who ultimately have the President's ear to make a decision. So isn't that a little disingenuous to dismiss it as a process complaint? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, wait a second here. This is a gentleman that left the administration one-and-a-half years ago. Certainly let's go to the facts. These threats did not happen overnight. These threats have been building for quite some time. Go back to the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Go back to the 1998 attacks on United States embassies. Go back to the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. These threats had been building for quite some time. Dick Clarke was here for some eight years. This administration was here for some 230 days before the attacks of September 11th. Q Condi Rice made a similar point. Should we take from that that the President's view is that Dick Clarke was part of the problem, not part of the solution, since all of these things happened on his watch, when his primary job was counterterrorism? MR. McCLELLAN: Actually, I think Dr. Rice pointed out earlier today that she requested that some of his ideas be presented to the administration. He presented some of the ideas. There were some that we took into account that were useful, and then there were others that we didn't find as useful. But this was talking about -- Q That doesn't answer my question. MR. McCLELLAN: This was talking about rolling back al Qaeda. We were focused on eliminating al Qaeda. Q Scott, you didn't answer my question, which is, by listing all those things that he was here for, is it the President's view that, in fact, he was part of the problem, not part of the solution? MR. McCLELLAN: No, he was this administration's counterterrorism expert up until -- well, the time that the job was separated into a cyber security position and counterterrorism position, which was something that he had suggested happen. Q But you still didn't answer the question, it doesn't seem to me, does it? MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry? Q Does that answer the question? MR. McCLELLAN: I think it does. He was part of our efforts to go after al Qaeda. He was a member of this team for some two years, and we appreciate the service that he provided. But -- Q Why do you think he's doing this? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he's raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book. Certainly let's look at the politics of it. His best buddy is Rand Beers, who is the principal foreign policy advisor to Senator Kerry's campaign. The Kerry campaign went out and immediately put these comments up on their website that Mr. Clarke made. Q Of course, he says he did raise those concerns -- MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Mike. Go ahead, Mike. Q He says he raised those concerns -- MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Mike. Q -- in the administration. MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Mike. Q Scott, the whole point of his book is he says that he did raise these concerns and he was not listened to by his superiors. MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and that's just flat-out wrong. Go back and look at what we said. It was very early on when Dr. Rice -- the first week of the administration, Dr. Rice asked for the ideas that Dick Clarke had in mind, or the previous policies of the previous administration. But we wanted to go beyond that. We didn't feel it was sufficient to simply roll back al Qaeda; we pursued a policy to eliminate al Qaeda. And that's what the NSC worked on from very early in this administration. We took the threats posed by al Qaeda very seriously. And we acted on those threats. Certainly, during that spring and summertime, there was a spike in the terrorist threat, and -- go ahead. Q Some Democratic senators are asking today if, based on the revelations of this book, based on the proactive response you guys have had over the weekend, if Dr. Rice will reexamine her position on testifying before the 9/11 Commission. MR. McCLELLAN: I think she's stated her position. Again, it's not something that's a matter of personal preference. It' a matter of separation of powers. It's a matter of principle. There are some issues involved here about White House staffers testifying before Congress, and they relate to separation of powers issues. However, she was more than happy to sit down with the 9/11 Commission and visit with them for more than four hours and answer all the questions that they had. Q And what the Democrats say is that because this is an independent commission, that there are not separation of powers issues. MR. McCLELLAN: This is a legislatively created commission. It is a legislative commission. Go ahead. Q Scott, this morning, you said the President didn't recall the conversation in the Situation Room on September 12th that Mr. Clarke said he had, where the President asked Dick Clarke three times to pursue links between 9/11 and Iraq. And you said he doesn't -- I had two questions. So did the President tell you or somebody in the White House over the weekend, he doesn't recall? MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I talked to him. He doesn't recall that conversation or meeting. Q And that was -- he said it this morning, or this weekend? When did he say that? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, this weekend and this morning, yes. Q Okay. And secondly, Clarke now says that he has three eyewitnesses, and he repeated it again this morning, and he named them -- to the conversation. MR. McCLELLAN: Let's just step backwards -- regardless, regardless, put that aside. There's no record of the President being in the Situation Room on that day that it was alleged to have happened, on the day of September the 12th. When the President is in the Situation Room, we keep track of that. But put all that aside, let's go to the heart of the matter. This was supposedly the day after the September 11th attacks. And, of course, you want to look at all possibilities of who might be responsible. It would be irresponsible not to consider all responsibilities. And, in fact, I would point out that Mr. Clarke himself said in a "Frontline" interview, he emphasized the importance of officials having a very open mind. On the -- quote: "On the day of September 11th, then the day or two following, we had a very open mind." Those are words from Dick Clarke. He went on to say: "The 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." So I think that -- Q Well, so are you saying that while the President doesn't recall that conversation, are you leaving open the possibility that there's these three eyewitnesses that Clarke says, therefore it may have happened? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, but let's go even beyond that. One, in the immediate aftermath of an attack like that, you want to explore all possibilities. And that's what this administration did. Of course, you want to do that. But just days later, the President met with his National Security Council; the Director of Central Intelligence informed him that there was no link between the September 11th attacks and Iraq. And at the National Security Council meeting, what happened? There was a map that was unrolled on the table, and it was a map of Afghanistan. And what did the President do? The President directed that we go into Afghanistan, and we go after al Qaeda, and we go after and remove the Taliban from power so that al Qaeda would no longer have a safe harbor from which to plan and plot their attacks on the American people. Q Okay, Clarke is now saying that the -- your response this morning was an example of how the Bush administration just goes after -- just uses ad hominem attacks and tries to suppress the truth. MR. McCLELLAN: Well, when someone uses such charged rhetoric that is just not matched by the facts, it's important that we set the record straight. And that's what we're doing. If you look back at his past comments and his past actions, they contradict his current rhetoric. I talked to you all a little bit about that earlier today. Go back and look at exactly what he has said in the past and compare that with what he is saying today. And ask yourself why, one-and-a-half years later, after he left the administration, he's, all of a sudden, coming forward with these grave concerns? If he had had such grave concerns, why didn't he come out with them sooner? Q Scott, two questions. So you're saying, because the President doesn't recall the conversation -- you're not saying he denies that that conversation happened? MR. McCLELLAN: I'm saying let's look at the heart of the matter, regardless of whether or not that took place. The President doesn't recollect it. But let's look at the heart of the matter. And that is, in the aftermath of an attack like that, the immediate aftermath, is it responsible to explore all possibilities? Of course, it is. And Dick Clarke said so, himself. Q He's not denying that that conversation could have taken place? MR. McCLELLAN: He doesn't have any recollection of it, and, again, it purportedly took place in the Situation Room. There's no record to indicate that happened. Q And second, why do you feel it's a fair criticism to say that this is partisan politics that he's trying to promote a book? This is man who served 30 years in the government under Reagan; under Bush, Senior; Clinton; as well as this President. He was a registered Republican in 2000. Why do you believe that that is a fair way to judge him, that it's simply politics? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let's look at the facts. Let's look at the timing. It's important to look at all those aspects. Let's look at his history there. This was someone who is now saying he was against the Department of Homeland Security, but we know that he actually sought to be the number two person at the Department of Homeland Security. He wanted to be the deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department after it was created. The fact of the matter is just a few months after that, he left the administration. He did not get that position, someone else was appointed to it. And now, all of a sudden, he's saying he's against the Department of Homeland Security. And if someone is going to make these kind of serious allegations, it's important to look back at his past comments and his past actions, and compare that with what his current rhetoric is. It's also important to keep in mind -- I think Newsweek pointed this out this week -- who his best friend is. His best friend is Rand Beers, who is the principal advisor to the Kerry campaign. It's also important to keep in context -- we're in the heat of a presidential campaign right now and, all of a sudden, he comes out with a book that he is seeking to promote. He is actively going out there and putting himself on prime-time news shows and morning shows to promote this book. And he is making charges that simply did not happen. Look back at the facts. To suggest that Iraq was the immediate priority in the aftermath of September 11th, that's just not the case. This President was focused on reassuring the American people; on making sure that there wasn't a follow-on attack that was coming; on making sure that we got our airlines back up and running in a secure fashion. There were a lot of immediate focuses -- focus that this administration had in the aftermath of September 11th. The President also was focused on going in and taking the fight to the terrorists, going on the offensive, because September 11th taught us a lot of important lessons. And this President learned those lessons by the actions that we took, by implementing the Patriot Act to provide law enforcement with new tools to combat terrorism at home; by working on all fronts to go after the terrorists -- the military front, the diplomatic front, the financial front, the law enforcement and the intelligence fronts. Q But, Scott, Dr. Rice said this morning the reason he was kept on was because he was so valuable in his counterterrorism expertise. Why is it that this administration and previous Republican administrations would keep him on if he didn't have any credibility, if he was just a partisan player? MR. McCLELLAN: I think Dr. Rice said earlier that, obviously, he had been around for quite some time. Like I said, he had been around for some eight years before the September 11th attacks. This administration had been in place for some 230 days. Again, these threats did not develop overnight. They had been building for quite some time. And I think that's important to keep in perspective when we're having this discussion. But certainly al Qaeda was a top priority. We made that determination during the transition and immediately began acting on that priority when we came into office. And it was important to continue some of those policies until we were able to develop a new, comprehensive strategy to eliminate al Qaeda -- not roll it back, like was the previous policy. Q You're really suggesting he's looking for a scapegoat now. MR. McCLELLAN: Let me keep going. I'll come back to you. Go ahead, Jim. Q But you're suggesting that he's a scapegoat and that he missed it for eight years, right? MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Jim. Q Would you go over the facts in this? I mean, he's clearly suggesting that he could not get the administration -- the President and his top national security aides -- to pay sufficient attention to the threat from al Qaeda. You just said that the determination was made during the transition that al Qaeda was the top threat. What set of facts would you point to from the transition on that would -- MR. McCLELLAN: Well, we were briefed on it during the transition. And then the very first week Dr. Rice requested information from some of the ideas that Mr. Clarke had, and requested that those be presented to her. And we began, very early on in this administration, to develop a new, comprehensive strategy to go after and eliminate al Qaeda, so that we could get rid of this threat. Q When -- MR. McCLELLAN: Well, it was actually presented to the President -- or, actually, it was completed on September 4th, this new comprehensive strategy. That was the timing of it. Certainly there were -- there was a terrorist spike during the summer, as well. And all the focus was on threats overseas. And it's important to point out that Mr. Clarke is the one who made some assertions about the millennium plot on Los Angeles. And the question that should be asked of him is, what was done after that? Well, there wasn't any effort really to focus on the sleeper cells in the United States. The attention was still focused overseas. Q Let me just clarify one thing. When did the administration begin its work on the comprehensive strategy to eliminate al Qaeda? MR. McCLELLAN: We began very early on. I think it was actually the NSC deputies had met -- they met frequently between March and September of 2001 to decide and talk about many of the complex issues that were involved in the development of that strategy. And contrary to his assertion that he wasn't able to brief senior officials until late April, the first deputy level's meeting on al Qaeda was held on March 7th. And that's -- and Dick Clarke was the one who conducted the briefing. And the deputies agreed that the national security policy directive should be prepared at that point. And it was just less than six months later when the strategy was ready to go, on September 4th. Q Scott, you, earlier, said that Clarke had refused orders to attend a certain number of meetings. You said that in the gaggle this morning. Can you tell me, what do you mean by that? Were there meetings he was supposed to attend that he didn't attend? Did he have to be ordered -- MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, Dr. Rice -- Q -- and the timetable for -- MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Dr. Rice, early on in the administration, started holding daily briefings with the senior directors of the National Security Council, of which he was one. But he refused to attend those meetings, and he was later asked to attend those meetings and he continued to refuse to attend those meetings. You would have to ask -- Q Why? MR. McCLELLAN: You'd have to ask him why. But those, obviously, are important meetings, and meetings that are held on a daily basis by the National Security Advisor. Q Didn't someone confront him and say, you work for the government, you have orders, and you're refusing to obey them? MR. McCLELLAN: I just said that he was asked to attend those meetings, but he continued to refuse to do so. Q Scott, I wanted to follow on on your answer just a little bit ago about the threat being presumed to be abroad rather than domestic. Dr. Rice said this morning in the CNN interview that, in fact, it was she that asked for a meeting with Mr. Clarke, because she believed that in June or July there could have been a domestic threat. MR. McCLELLAN: That's right. Q She specifically said in the interview that she asked for the meeting to talk with aviation and FBI. And I wanted to ask you, because I remember the discussion she had with us here in the briefing room sometime after 9/11, in which she said that there was no way that this White House could have known or suspected airline attack in the United States. And I was wondering if there's an inconsistency, and if she was more specific in describing those meetings to the 9/11 Commission? MR. McCLELLAN: I think she's talked about what we knew and what was what we were briefed on during that time period. But during that summer -- spring and summer period, there was a spike in the terrorist threat. And it was Dr. Rice who went to Dick Clarke and specifically asked Dick Clarke and the counterterrorism strategy group to meet to consider possible threats that could happen to the homeland, and to coordinate responses by domestic agencies. So that was something Dr. Rice did do. Even though all the chatter was pointing to something overseas, she wanted to go back and make sure that we were looking at the homeland, as well, so that we could increase security and surveillance here at home. Q Has she described to the 9/11 Commission already that this White House had sufficient information, or she had sufficient concerns that she asked for a specific meeting to talk about aviation threats domestically? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, obviously, the 9/11 Commission is continuing their work. I'll let you direct specific questions to them about information that they are learning in their process. We are working very closely and cooperatively with them to help them. Q Is this White House willing to share her responses that she's already given to the 9/11 Commission? MR. McCLELLAN: I think she's been out there taking your questions in the media. So she's been very pleased to do that. Q Can we get a transcript? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again, she met with them for more than four hours. And this goes to the issue of public testimony -- Q She's been so forthcoming -- MR. McCLELLAN: -- from White House staffers. And again, it's not a personal preference. This goes to a matter of principle. This goes to the issue of separation of powers between the executive and the legislative branch. And when you start crossing those two, it could have a chilling effect on the President receiving the kind of advice that he needs. Q If she's already been candid and helpful, could we get access to -- MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again, if you have specific questions like that, you need to direct those questions to the 9/11 Commission. She was pleased to meet with them and answer all their questions that they had for more than four hours. Q It they want to release it, that would be okay with you? MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not saying that. I'm saying that, again, there are separation of powers issues, there are principles involved. And that's where it stands. Q I thought the separation of powers had to do with testimony, not -- MR. McCLELLAN: Alexis, I think I've answered this, and now you're trying to get into public testimony versus private meetings with the commission, and I'm saying there's a difference here that we need to keep in mind. Q Presidents have been known to waive executive privilege. Why doesn't the President do so in this case, so that Condoleezza Rice can testify publicly before the 9/11 Commission, just like she's done on all these talk shows? And is she also -- second question, is she going to be acting as a campaign surrogate? MR. McCLELLAN: Again, we've been through this question a number of times. And in terms of her personal schedule, I'm sure that her office can keep you posted on that. Q Why doesn't he waive executive privilege in this case, so that she can testify publicly before the 9/11 Commission? MR. McCLELLAN: I think we've been through this question many times, and she's answered it and I've answered it, and that's where it stands. Q Just for the record, could you please explain the different reaction by the White House to this book, in contrast to the book in which Paul O'Neill played such a central role? Is it because Dick Clarke has more, on these issues, he has more credibility? Why the difference in reaction? MR. McCLELLAN: There have been some assertions made that just are not backed up by the facts. And it's important to set the record straight. And that's -- Q O'Neill's assertions weren't backed up by the facts? MR. McCLELLAN: -- and that's exactly -- that's exactly what we're going -- that we are doing right now.
My guess is he's compulsively retaking the attraction test over at match.com, leaving him with substantially less discretionary online time.
By the way, Clarke just noted on Newshour that there was a 3 month delay in the publishing of the book because it took that long for the White House to "clear" it.
Then the White House has had ample time to prepare this firestorm of attacks on Mr. Clarke and his credibility... and anything else they can attack him on. I found it facinating that McClellan kept referring to Clarke's "being here for eight years", ignoring that he's a Republican civil servant who served President Reagan and every other President after him. The RNC, Rove and company are clearly going to do their damnedest to try and tie Clarke to the Clinton Administration. More classic dirty politics from Bush's team. It's only beginning.
On NBC, the man who was second in command to Clarke during the period in question just confirmed Clarke's version of the meetings, saying he well remembers Clarke being taken aside immediately after 9-11 and told to find a connection with Iraq, and that objections to any connection from experts ere 'stemrolled' by the administration. His name began with a P, but I can't remember it exactly. Now works for NBC. I guess he's lying too.
Another hard-hitting column... Lifting the Shroud By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: March 23, 2004 From the day it took office, U.S. News & World Report wrote a few months ago, the Bush administration "dropped a shroud of secrecy" over the federal government. After 9/11, the administration's secretiveness knew no limits — Americans, Ari Fleischer ominously warned, "need to watch what they say, watch what they do." Patriotic citizens were supposed to accept the administration's version of events, not ask awkward questions. But something remarkable has been happening lately: more and more insiders are finding the courage to reveal the truth on issues ranging from mercury pollution — yes, Virginia, polluters do write the regulations these days, and never mind the science — to the war on terror. It's important, when you read the inevitable attempts to impugn the character of the latest whistle-blower, to realize just how risky it is to reveal awkward truths about the Bush administration. When Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress that postwar Iraq would require a large occupation force, that was the end of his military career. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV revealed that the 2003 State of the Union speech contained information known to be false, someone in the White House destroyed his wife's career by revealing that she was a C.I.A. operative. And we now know that Richard Foster, the Medicare system's chief actuary, was threatened with dismissal if he revealed to Congress the likely cost of the administration's prescription drug plan. The latest insider to come forth, of course, is Richard Clarke, George Bush's former counterterrorism czar and the author of the just-published "Against All Enemies." On "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Mr. Clarke said the previously unsayable: that Mr. Bush, the self-proclaimed "war president," had "done a terrible job on the war against terrorism." After a few hours of shocked silence, the character assassination began. He "may have had a grudge to bear since he probably wanted a more prominent position," declared Dick Cheney, who also says that Mr. Clarke was "out of the loop." (What loop? Before 9/11, Mr. Clarke was the administration's top official on counterterrorism.) It's "more about politics and a book promotion than about policy," Scott McClellan said. Of course, Bush officials have to attack Mr. Clarke's character because there is plenty of independent evidence confirming the thrust of his charges. Did the Bush administration ignore terrorism warnings before 9/11? Justice Department documents obtained by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, show that it did. Not only did John Ashcroft completely drop terrorism as a priority — it wasn't even mentioned in his list of seven "strategic goals" — just one day before 9/11 he proposed a reduction in counterterrorism funds. Did the administration neglect counterterrorism even after 9/11? After 9/11 the F.B.I. requested $1.5 billion for counterterrorism operations, but the White House slashed this by two-thirds. (Meanwhile, the Bush campaign has been attacking John Kerry because he once voted for a small cut in intelligence funds.) Oh, and the next time terrorists launch an attack on American soil, they will find their task made much easier by the administration's strange reluctance, even after 9/11, to protect potential targets. In November 2001 a bipartisan delegation urged the president to spend about $10 billion on top-security priorities like ports and nuclear sites. But Mr. Bush flatly refused. Finally, did some top officials really want to respond to 9/11 not by going after Al Qaeda, but by attacking Iraq? Of course they did. "From the very first moments after Sept. 11," Kenneth Pollack told "Frontline," "there was a group of people, both inside and outside the administration, who believed that the war on terrorism . . . should target Iraq first." Mr. Clarke simply adds more detail. Still, the administration would like you to think that Mr. Clarke had base motives in writing his book. But given the hawks' dominance of the best-seller lists until last fall, it's unlikely that he wrote it for the money. Given the assumption by most political pundits, until very recently, that Mr. Bush was guaranteed re-election, it's unlikely that he wrote it in the hopes of getting a political job. And given the Bush administration's penchant for punishing its critics, he must have known that he was taking a huge personal risk. So why did he write it? How about this: Maybe he just wanted the public to know the truth. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/opinion/23KRUG.html?hp
That is only because it took them 18 months to massage the "intelligence" to drum up support for the action in Iraq. There are now SEVERAL accounts of Bush being gung-ho to invade Iraq, the first occasion being immediately after being sworn in and now it appears that he was all fired up for Iraq after 9/11, despite being told repeatedly by different agencies that Saddam had nothing to do with it.
Ex-Bush Aide, Finding Fault, Sets Off Debate By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JUDITH MILLER ASHINGTON, March 22 — As the White House opened an aggressive personal attack against its former counterterrorism chief, Richard A. Clarke, a furious debate broke out on Monday about the credibility of his assertion that President Bush pushed him the day after the Sept. 11 attacks to see if there was a link with Saddam Hussein. The White House dismissed the accusations, described in a new book by Mr. Clarke, by casting him as a disgruntled, politically motivated job seeker and a "best buddy" of a top adviser to Senator John Kerry. But Mr. Clarke defended his account, and several allies rallied to his defense. One ally, Mr. Clarke's former deputy, Roger Cressey, backed the thrust of one of the most incendiary accusations in the book, about a conversation that Mr. Clarke said he had with Mr. Bush in the White House Situation Room on the night of Sept. 12, 2001. Mr. Clarke said Mr. Bush pressed him three times to find evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The accusation is explosive because no such link has ever been proved. "I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything," Mr. Clarke writes that Mr. Bush told him. "See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way." When Mr. Clarke protested that the culprit was Al Qaeda, not Iraq, Mr. Bush testily ordered him, he writes, to "look into Iraq, Saddam," and then left the room. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, responded at a White House briefing on Monday that Mr. Bush did not remember having the conversation, and that there were no records that placed the president in the Situation Room at the time. Mr. Clarke countered in a telephone interview on Monday that he had four witnesses, including Mr. Cressey, who is a partner with Mr. Clarke in a consulting company that advises on cybersecurity issues. In an interview, Mr. Cressey said the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, also witnessed the exchange. Administration officials said Ms. Rice had no recollection of it. Mr. Cressey cast Mr. Bush's instructions to Mr. Clarke less as an order to come up with a link between Mr. Hussein and Sept. 11, and more as a request to "take a look at all options, including Iraq." He backed off Mr. Clarke's suggestion that the president's tone was intimidating. "I'm not going to get into that," Mr. Cressey said. "That is Dick's characterization." Mr. Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," also asserts that the administration did not heed warnings about the Sept. 11 attacks, and then neglected the threat of Al Qaeda as it turned its attention to Saddam Hussein. Another ally of Mr. Clarke, Thomas R. Maertens, confirmed the outlines of Mr. Clarke's critique of the White House. Mr. Maertens, who served as National Security Council director for nuclear nonproliferation on both the Clinton and Bush White House staffs, said that Mr. Clarke had repeatedly tried to warn senior officials in the Bush administration about the growing threat of Al Qaeda. "He was the guy pushing hardest, saying again and again that something big was going to happen, including possibly here in the U.S.," Mr. Maertens said Monday from his home in Minnesota. But Mr. Maertens said that the Bush White House was reluctant to believe a holdover from the previous administration. "They really believed their campaign rhetoric about the Clinton administration," Mr. Maertens said. "So anything they did was bad, and the Bushies were not going to repeat it. And it's disgusting to see the administration now putting a full-court smear on Clarke — for being right." Mr. Clarke also charges in his book that Mr. Bush waged "an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq" that strengthened Islamic terrorist movements around the world, and has left the nation more vulnerable to future attacks. His book is the first by a former administration member to challenge the president directly on what Mr. Bush considers his greatest electoral strength, national security. It is arriving in book stores not only during a presidential campaign, but in the same week that Mr. Clarke and Clinton and Bush administration officials are to publicly testify before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Clarke said last week that he was prepared to testify that Clinton administration officials repeatedly warned members of the incoming Bush administration in late 2000 about the threat posed by Al Qaeda. In the hearings, which begin on Wednesday, the panel will call as witnesses four high-ranking officials from the Bush and Clinton administrations: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; his predecessor, Madeleine K. Albright; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; and his predecessor, William S. Cohen. The angry White House response to Mr. Clarke, which was authorized by Mr. Bush, reflects the administration's fears over the book's potential political damage. In a daylong assault on Monday, administration officials portrayed Mr. Clarke, a secretive, combative terrorism expert who spent more than three decades working in the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administrations, as a bitter former employee who had been denied the No. 2 position in the Department of Homeland Security and who was now trying to help the Kerry campaign. Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, noted that Mr. Clarke was in charge of counterterrorism at the time of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 2000 attack on the American destroyer Cole, and "I didn't notice that they had any great success dealing with the terrorist threat." Mr. McClellan told reporters: "He conveniently writes a book and releases it in the heat of a presidential campaign. We know that his best buddy is Senator Kerry's principal foreign policy adviser." Mr. McClellan was referring to Rand Beers, Mr. Kerry's chief foreign policy adviser. Clearly, Mr. McClellan said, "this is more about politics and a book promotion than it is about policy." Mr. Clarke fired back that the White House attacks were an effort to divert attention from the substantive information in his book, including his impression that Ms. Rice, as the new national security adviser in early 2001, had not heard of Al Qaeda. (Administration officials disputed the claim about Ms. Rice.) "This is the way the Bush administration deals with people, with ad hominem attacks, and trying to suppress the truth," Mr. Clarke said by telephone from New York. He added that he had been friends for 25 years with Mr. Beers, "and I'm not going to run away from him just because he's John Kerry's national security adviser." Administration officials said Mr. Clarke, who was on Ms. Rice's staff, was kept on after the Clinton administration because she wanted to maintain continuity in counterterrorism policy. Mr. Clarke, they said, proved to be almost obsessive — a description he applies to himself in the book — about attacking Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and impatient that many of his ideas, like forging a closer alliance with the Northern Alliance, the Taliban resistance in Afghanistan, were not adopted. But administration officials said that throughout his tenure in the Bush administration, Mr. Clarke appeared to be generally supportive of the president's policies, and never brought to Ms. Rice a broad critique of either the administration's approach to terrorism or its plan for invading Iraq. Sean McCormack, Ms. Rice's spokesman, said that Mr. Clarke ate lunch with Ms. Rice in her West Wing office after he had left the administration, a month or two before the attack on Iraq, and gave none of the warnings he gave in the book. In addition to Mr. Cressey, at least two other former officials with knowledge of what occurred in the Situation Room that day also backed up the thrust of Mr. Clarke's account, though one of the two challenged Mr. Clarke's assertion that Mr. Bush's demeanor and that of other senior White House officials was intimidating. Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington for this article and Judith Miller from New York. Richard W. Stevenson contributed reporting from Washington. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/politics/23CLAR.html
Bush, Clarke and A Shred of Doubt By Richard Cohen Tuesday, March 23, 2004; Page A19 Pity poor George Bush. For some reason, he has been beset by delusional aides who, once they leave the White House, write books containing lies and exaggerations and -- this is the lowest blow of all -- do not take into account the president's genius and all-around wisdom. The latest White House aide to betray the president is Richard Clarke, who was in charge of counterterrorism before and after the attacks of Sept. 11. He says Bush "failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from al Qaeda." As with former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, another fool who had somehow risen to become chairman of Alcoa, Clarke's account of his more than two years in the Bush White House was immediately denounced by a host of administration aides, some of whom -- and this is just the sheerest of coincidences -- had once assured us that Iraq was armed to the teeth with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Among them, of course, was Condoleezza Rice, who on Monday insisted in a Post op-ed column that Bush not only did everything just right, but so, really, did Bill Clinton. Both administrations "worked hard," she wrote. This is not what Clarke says in his new book and in interviews conducted in tandem with its publication. On the contrary, he says the Bush administration not only belittled the terrorist threat -- China and missile defense were its initial preoccupations -- but it took its own sweet time coming to grips with al Qaeda. From the start, he says, certain White House aides were fixated on Iraq -- and after Sept. 11, apparently so was Bush. He said he encountered the president the next night in the Situation Room. "See if Saddam did it," the president ordered. "But Mr. President, al Qaeda did this," Clarke says he replied. The president persevered: "I know, I know, but . . . see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred." Rice's real gift is situational rhetoric. Now, with Bush under criticism from a respected terrorism expert -- and a Republican, to boot -- she makes common cause with the Clinton administration. But that was not always the case. Last October, she faulted previous administrations for doing little about the terrorist threat. In a New York speech, she said of the terrorists: "They became emboldened, and the result was more terror and more victims." A similar point was made back in 2002 by Vice President Cheney's chief aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. He, too, virtually blamed the Clinton administration for Sept. 11. In a New Yorker interview, he listed terrorist attacks on U.S. or allied interests going back to 1993 and concluded that America had shown only weakness in response. "The Americans don't have the stomach to defend themselves," he quoted an imaginary Osama bin Laden as saying. "They won't take casualties to defend their interests. They are morally weak." Libby has a point. The United States did do precious little. But it took a while to stir the United States and pinpoint bin Laden. That juncture was reached during the Clinton administration when, among other things, an attempt was made to kill bin Laden with missiles. If the Clinton administration had indeed acted slowly, what can then be said about the Bush administration, which had been warned by Clinton aides about al Qaeda? Clarke says the Bush team refused to come to grips with bin Laden. Among other things, he asked for a Cabinet-level meeting or access to the president to discuss the al Qaeda threat. For eight months, he got neither. Instead, he says, the administration was obsessed with Saddam Hussein. As did O'Neill, Clarke says that the Sept. 11 attacks were viewed by some high administration officials as an opportunity (pretext?) for going after Hussein. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz wondered out loud why so much attention was being paid to bin Laden -- "this one man" -- when Iraq was the clear danger. Other observers said similar things, and so have European defense and intelligence officials who met with their American counterparts right after Sept. 11. Iraq was on the table by Sept. 12. The White House has opened its guns on Clarke. He is being contradicted and soon, as with poor O'Neill, his sanity and probity will be questioned. It's getting to be downright amazing how former White House aides tell the same tale -- a case, the White House wants us to believe, of hysteria or unaccountable betrayal. I'd like to believe my president, but as Clarke quotes him in a different context, "I'm looking for any shred." As with Saddam Hussein, it doesn't exist.
It's funny that more and more people who worked for Bush are all coming out and saying the same thing about the administration, and the whitehouse keeps trying to attack these folks personally, and trash them. Of course they've been very unsuccessful, but it makes a person wonder. If 100 folks came out and said that the Bush folk didn't take terrorism seriously, and were predetermined to go into Iraq, would they find 100 reasons why nobody_should take these people seriously, and should in fact resent the whistleblowers for even talking. The funniest episode of this was when the Bush Whitehouse tried to slam O'Neil, and he published countless pages of documents proving what he said. That one really backfired. Now of course they are trying the same thing against Clarke, but he has witnesses who back him up. At least this time in their effort to make somebody pay for dissenting, they haven't committed any felonies... At least that we know about.
The Volokh Conspiracy highlights a few key myths concerning clarke's charges, and also makes the point that pushing the 9/11 commission's report into the political season makes every charge against this administration, or indeed the previous one, seem politically motivated, making it that much more difficult to find the truth, and remedy what faults exist. -- Myth: After the 9/11 attacks, the President ignored the evidence and tried to pin responsibility for 9/11 on Iraq. The Facts: The President sought to determine who was responsible for the 9-11 attacks. 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. When the President and his senior advisers met at Camp David on September 15-16, 2001, to plan a response to September 11, the DCI told the President that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attack. The President then advised his NSC Principals on September 17 that Iraq was not on the agenda, and that the initial US response to 9/11 would be to target al-Qa'ida and Taliban in Afghanistan. Dick Clarke did prepare a memo for the President regarding links between Iraq and 9/11. He sent this memo to Dr. Rice on September 18, after the President, based on the advice of his DCI that that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attack, had decided that Iraq would not be a target in our military response for 9/11. Because the President had already made this decision, Steve Hadley returned the memo to Dick Clarke on September 25 asking Clarke to "please update and resubmit," to add any new information that might have appeared. Clarke indicated there was none. So when Clarke sent the memo forward again on September 25, Dr. Rice returned it, not because she did not want the President to read the answer set out in the memo, but because the President had already been provided the answer and had already acted based on it. Notice that this alleged connection of Saddam to terrorism is not offered in this response as a justification for the Iraq war. I also found this of interest: Myth: The Administration did not treat the intelligence chatter about an imminent attack during the spring and summer of 2001 with sufficient urgency; Principals did not "go to battle stations." The Facts: The President and senior Administration officials were very concerned about the threat spike during the spring and summer of 2001 The President and his NSC Principals received intelligence reports about the intelligence "chatter" during this period, but none of the intelligence was specific as to time, place, or manner, and was focused overseas. The Government's interagency counterterrorism crisis management forum (the Counterterrorism Security Group, or "CSG"), chaired by Dick Clarke, met regularly, often daily, during the high threat period. The CSG was at "battle stations." If Dick Clarke or other members of this group needed anything, they had immediate and daily access to their superiors. Dick Clarke never suggested that the President or the Principals needed to intervene to take any immediate action on these threats. Dick did not ask to brief the President on the al-Qa'ida threat during this period — or at any other time. Instead, in the middle of the al-Qa'ida threat period, Clarke asked to brief the President, but on cybersecurity, not al-Qaida. He did so. Formal, in-person meetings among Principals were not required; unlike President Clinton, President Bush met every morning with his Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet for an intelligence briefing. Secretary Card, Dr. Rice, and the Vice President sat in on the briefings. The threat posed by al-Qa'ida and the need for a response was discussed regularly at these high-level meetings, as well as in frequent, regular discussions between Dr. Rice and Tenet. Dr. Rice and Secretaries Powell and Rumsfeld also have a 7:15 am phone call every morning and talk frequently during the day, and in this period they discussed actions to respond to the threat during these calls. Although the threats were focused overseas, in July, Dr. Rice specifically directed Dick Clarke and his CSG to meet to consider possible threats to the homeland and to coordinate actions by domestic agencies, including the FAA, FBI, Secret Service, Customs, Coast Guard, and Immigration, to increase security and surveillance. During the Summer of 2001, FAA and FBI issued numerous terrorist threat warnings, including a warning about "the potential for a terrorist operation, such as an airline hijacking to free terrorists incarcerated in the United States." Security at federal buildings also were reviewed for vulnerabilities. Overseas, we also disrupted terrorist cells worldwide, significantly increased security at our embassies, and directed US Naval vessels to leave high-risk ports in the Middle East and heighten security at military facilities. . . . During the Clinton Administration, Dick Clarke regularly briefed President Clinton because President Clinton did not meet regularly with his DCI. Since the beginning of his Administration, President Bush has met daily with his DCI for his intelligence briefing. President Bush believes he should get his intelligence principally not from White House staff, but from those directly responsible for US intelligence. I am sure there is much to contest in the administration's defense, and that whatever it is will be contested. But an unfortunate byproduct of pushing the assessment of the self-evidently miserable failure of the government to prevent 9/11 into this political season is that all such criticisms must now be viewed with heightened skepticism given the rabidity of hostility to President Bush. Because valid criticisms will now be hard for the public to distinguish from unfounded politically-motivated assertions, the pervasiveness of rejectionism by Bush haters is likely to r****d rather than enhance our understanding of the failures that led to 9/11.
Uh huh So because it's the campaign season we're supposed to assume that all criticisms of the administration are politically motivated?
Clarke says he submitted his book to the White House three months ago and they sat on it until now. Big mistake on their part. The rabidity of the hostility to the President is in direct relationship to the incompetence, dishonesty, and hubris of his administration. Serious people of good will, both Republican and Democrat, are appalled at the damage that has been done to our country and are seriously frightened of the consequences if Bush wins the election. The revelations coming from inside the Administration and the Republican party are (I think) unprecedented in modern history. A partial list of natural allies who have denounced the Bush Administration- Paul O'Neill (Bush Economic Adviser) Anthony Zinni (Former Marine General and Bush Middle East Envoy) James Webb (Former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan). These are people who do not speak out against a sitting Republican president unless something is seriously wrong.
So the claim is that Bush was serious about it, because he met with Tenet daily and Clinton didn't? They don't point the increased spending under Clinton, and not under Bush pre 9/11. They don't point out that Bush was so worried about Terrorism, that he started pushing mone into the 'star wars' system, but not into fighting terrorism. This talks a lot about what the FBI and other intel agencies did, but says almost nothing about new proposals or ideas from_Bush and his admin. This lacked much substance.
