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Claim vs. Fact: Administration Officials Respond to Richard Clarke Interview

March 22, 2004
Download: DOC, RTF, PDF

Bob Boorstin's Column: The Canary in the Coalmine

In the wake of Richard Clarke's well-supported assertions that the Bush Administration neglected counterterrorism in the face of repeated terror warnings before 9/11, the Bush Administration has launched a frantic misinformation campaign – often contradicting itself in the process.

CLAIM #1: "Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to."
– National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: Clarke sent a memo to Rice principals on 1/24/01 marked "urgent" asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending Al Qaeda attack. The White House acknowledges this, but says "principals did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat." No meeting occurred until one week before 9/11.
– White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #2: "The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11."
– National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: If this is true, then why did the President and Vice President repeatedly claim Saddam Hussein was directly connected to 9/11? President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against "nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11." Similarly, Vice President Cheney said on 9/14/03 that "It is not surprising that people make that connection" between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, and said "we don't know" if there is a connection.

CLAIM #3: "[Clarke] was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cybersecurity side of things."
– Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04

FACT: "Dick Clarke continued, in the Bush Administration, to be the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and the President's principle counterterrorism expert. He was expected to organize and attend all meetings of Principals and Deputies on terrorism. And he did."
– White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #4: "In June and July when the threat spikes were so high…we were at battle stations…The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11."
– National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: "Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's 'Strategic Plan' from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism 'the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.'"
– Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #5: "The president launched an aggressive response after 9/11."
– National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: "In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks."
– Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #6: "Well, [Clarke] wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff…"
– Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/22/04

FACT: "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."
– White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #7: "[Bush] wanted a far more effective policy for trying to deal with [terrorism], and that process was in motion throughout the spring."
– Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04

FACT: "Bush said [in May of 2001] that Cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and 'I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.' Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place." By comparison, Cheney in 2001 formally convened his Energy Task Force at least 10 separate times, meeting at least 6 times with Enron energy executives.
– Washington Post, 1/20/02 , GAO Report, 8/22/03, AP, 1/8/02

CLAIM #8: All the chatter [before 9/11] was of an attack, a potential al Qaeda attack overseas.
– Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, 3/22/04

FACT: Page 204 of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 noted that "In May 2001, the intelligence community obtained a report that Bin Laden supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States" to "carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives." The report "was included in an intelligence report for senior government officials in August [2001]." In the same month, the Pentagon "acquired and shared with other elements of the Intelligence Community information suggesting that seven persons associated with Bin Laden had departed various locations for Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States."
[Joint Congressional Report, 12/02]

http://www.americanprogress.org/sit...JRJ8OVF&b=39828

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quote:

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CLAIM #1: "Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to."
– National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: Clarke sent a memo to Rice principals on 1/24/01 marked "urgent" asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending Al Qaeda attack. The White House acknowledges this, but says "principals did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat." No meeting occurred until one week before 9/11.
– White House Press Release, 3/21/04

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Clarke Praises Bush in Resignation Letter
Tue Mar 23, 5:35 PM ET Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!


By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The White House, seeking to cool criticism from a former top anti-terror adviser, said Tuesday that Richard Clarke's resignation letter praised President Bush (news - web sites)'s "courage, determination, calm and leadership" on Sept. 11
It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months," said the Jan. 20, 2003, letter from Clarke to Bush. "I will always remember the courage, determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th."


The letter was stamped "the president has seen" the next day.


Clarke, who left the Bush administration in March 2003 after 30 years in government service and 11 years at the White House, has written a book in which he criticizes the president and his administration for ignoring repeated warnings about al-Qaida before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and acting ineffectively afterward, primarily because of a preoccupation with Iraq (news - web sites).


On Monday, the day Clarke's "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror" hit stores and the day after he promoted it in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes," the White House went to great lengths to dismiss Clarke's accusations. Administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), appeared on television and radio to argue that Clarke was inaccurate, politically motivated, disgruntled over bureaucratic changes that reduced his influence, merely trying to sell books — or all four at once.


That White House campaign continued Tuesday with the release of Clarke's letter announcing his intention to step down.


White House spokesman Scott McClellan suggested Clarke's praise belies his later criticism of Bush's handling of the crisis.


"At this time period, when he was leaving, there was no mention of the grave concerns he claims to have had about the direction of the war on terrorism, or what we were doing to confront the threat posed by Iraq, by the former regime," McClellan said.


But the letter contains no praise of Bush's anti-terror actions before or after the attacks — only on the day of. Clarke does commend Bush for his "intuitive understanding" of the importance of cybersecurity.


Clarke's job as the White House's counterterrorism chief was split in two early in the Bush White House, with Clarke put in charge of cybersecurity and others brought in for the anti-terror role.


"You had prescience in creating the position of Special Adviser to the President for Cyberspace Security and I urge you to maintain that role in the White House," Clarke wrote.


Also, even though the White House argued that Clarke's memoir was released to do the maximum political damage to Bush in a presidential election year, McClellan would not say when the required national security review of the book was completed, allowing its publication to proceed. Publications by administration officials are routinely vetted to make sure that nothing is released that compromises classified information or national security.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...ser_3&printer=1

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praised President Bush (news - web sites)'s "courage, determination, calm and leadership" on Sept. 11

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Since we're all just posting our own stuff and ignoring the rest, a great article from Slate:

http://slate.msn.com//?id=2097685&, for the hyperlinks:

Dick Clarke Is Telling the Truth
Why he's right about Bush's negligence on terrorism.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Tuesday, March 23, 2004, at 3:22 PM PT

I have no doubt that Richard Clarke, the former National Security Council official who has launched a broadside against President Bush's counterterrorism policies, is telling the truth about every single charge. There are three reasons for this confidence.

First, his basic accusations are consistent with tales told by other officials, including some who had no significant dealings with Clarke.

Second, the White House's attempts at rebuttal have been extremely weak and contradictory. If Clarke were wrong, one would expect the comebacks—especially from Bush's aides, who excel at the counterstrike—to be stronger and more substantive.

Third, I went to graduate school with Clarke in the late 1970s, at MIT's political science department, and called him as an occasional source in the mid-'80s when he was in the State Department and I was a newspaper reporter. There were good things and dubious things about Clarke, traits that inspired both admiration and leeriness. The former: He was very smart, a highly skilled (and utterly nonpartisan) analyst, and he knew how to get things done in a calcified bureaucracy. The latter: He was arrogant, made no effort to disguise his contempt for those who disagreed with him, and blatantly maneuvered around all obstacles to make sure his views got through.

The key thing, though, is this: Both sets of traits tell me he's too shrewd to write or say anything in public that might be decisively refuted. As Daniel Benjamin, another terrorism specialist who worked alongside Clarke in the Clinton White House, put it in a phone conversation today, "Dick did not survive and flourish in the bureaucracy all those years by leaving himself open to attack."

Clarke did suffer one setback in his 30-year career in high office, though he doesn't mention it in his book. James Baker, the first President Bush's secretary of state, fired Clarke from his position as director of the department's politico-military bureau. (Bush's NSC director, Brent Scowcroft, hired him almost instantly.) I doubt we'll be hearing from Baker on this episode: He fired Clarke for being too close to Israel—not a point the Bush family's political savior is likely to make in an election season. (For details on this unwritten chapter and on why Clarke hasn't talked to me for over 15 years, click here.)

But on to the substance. Clarke's main argument—made in his new book, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, in lengthy interviews on CBS's 60 Minutes and PBS's Charlie Rose Show, and presumably in his testimony scheduled for tomorrow before the 9/11 Commission—is that Bush has done (as Clarke put it on CBS) "a terrible job" at fighting terrorism. Specifically: In the summer of 2001, Bush did almost nothing to deal with mounting evidence of an impending al-Qaida attack. Then, after 9/11, his main response was to attack Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. This move not only distracted us from the real war on terrorism, it fed into Osama Bin Laden's propaganda—that the United States would invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab country—and thus served as the rallying cry for new terrorist recruits.

Clarke's charges have raised a furor because of who he is. In every administration starting with Ronald Reagan's, Clarke was a high-ranking official in the State Department or the NSC, dealing mainly with countering weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. Under Clinton and the first year of George W. Bush, he worked in the White House as the national coordinator for terrorism, a Cabinet-level post created specifically for his talents. When the terrorists struck on Sept. 11, Condi Rice, Bush's national security adviser, designated Clarke as the "crisis manager;" he ran the interagency meetings from the Situation Room, coordinating—in some cases, directing—the response.

Clarke backs up his chronicle with meticulous detail, but the basic charges themselves should not be so controversial; certainly, they're nothing new. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill wrote in his book, The Price of Loyalty, that Bush's top officials talked about invading Iraq from the very start of the administration. Jim Mann's new book about Bush's war Cabinet, Rise of the Vulcans, reveals the historic depths of this obsession.

Most pertinent, Rand Beers, the official who succeeded Clarke after he left the White House in February 2003, resigned in protest just one month later—five days before the Iraqi war started—for precisely the same reason that Clarke quit. In June, he told the Washington Post, "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terror. They're making us less secure, not more." And: "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged, and generally underfunded." (For more about Beers, including his association with Clarke and whether there's anything pertinent about his current position as a volunteer national security adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign, click here.)

Clarke's distinction, of course, is that he was the ultimate insider—as highly and deeply inside, on this issue, as anyone could imagine. And so his charges are more credible, potent, and dangerous. So, how has Team Bush gone after Clarke? Badly.

To an unusual degree, the Bush people can't get their story straight. On the one hand, Condi Rice has said that Bush did almost everything that Clarke recommended he do. On the other hand, Vice President Dick Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's show, acted as if Clarke were a lowly, eccentric clerk: "He wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff." This is laughably absurd. Clarke wasn't just in the loop, he was the loop.

Cheney's elaboration of his dismissal is blatantly misleading. "He was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cybersecurity side of things ... attacks on computer systems and, you know, sophisticated information technology," Cheney scoffed. Limbaugh replied, "Well, now, that explains a lot, that answer right there."

It explains nothing. First, he wasn't "moved out"; he transferred, at his own request, out of frustration with being cut out of the action on broad terrorism policy, to a new NSC office dealing with cyberterrorism. Second, he did so after 9/11. (He left government altogether in February 2003.)

In a further effort to minimize Clarke's importance, a talking-points paper put out by the White House press office states that, contrary to his claims, "Dick Clarke never had Cabinet rank." At the same time, the paper denies—again, contrary to the book—that he was demoted: He "continued to be the National Coordinator on Counter-terrorism."

Both arguments are deceptive. Clarke wasn't a Cabinet secretary, but as Clinton's NCC, he ran the "Principals Committee" meetings on counterterrorism, which were attended by Cabinet secretaries. Two NSC senior directors reported to Clarke directly, and he had reviewing power over relevant sections of the federal budget.

Clarke writes (and nobody has disputed) that when Condi Rice took over the NSC, she kept him onboard and preserved his title but demoted the position. He would no longer participate in, much less run, Principals' meetings. He would report to deputy secretaries. He would have no staff and would attend no more meetings with budget officials.

Clarke probably resented the slight, took it personally. But he also saw it as a downgrading of the issue, a sign that al-Qaida was no longer taken as the urgent threat that the Clinton White House had come to interpret it. (One less-noted aspect of Clarke's book is its detailed description of the major steps that Clinton took to combat terrorism.)

The White House talking-points paper is filled with these sorts of distortions. For instance, it notes that Bush didn't need to meet with Clarke because, unlike Clinton, he met every day with CIA Director George Tenet, who talked frequently about al-Qaida.

But here's how Clarke describes those meetings:

[Tenet] and I regularly commiserated that al Qaeda was not being addressed more seriously by the new administration. ... We agreed that Tenet would insure that the president's daily briefings would continue to be replete with threat information on al Qaeda.

The problem is: Nothing happened. (It is significant, by the way, that Tenet has not been recruited—not successfully, anyway—to rebut Clarke's charges. Clarke told Charlie Rose that he was "very close" to Tenet. The two come off as frustrated allies in Clarke's book.)

The White House document insists Bush did take the threat seriously, telling Rice at one point "that he was 'tired of swatting flies' and wanted to go on the offense against al-Qaeda."

Here's how Clarke describes that exchange:

President Bush, reading the intelligence every day and noticing that there was a lot about al Qaeda, asked Condi Rice why it was that we couldn't stop "swatting flies" and eliminate al Qaeda. Rice told me about the conversation and asked how the plan to get al Qaeda was coming in the Deputies' Committee. "It can be presented to the Principals in two days, whenever we can get a meeting," I pressed. Rice promised to get to it soon. Time passed.

The Principals meeting, which Clarke urgently requested during Bush's first week in office, did not take place until one week before 9/11. In his 60 Minutes interview, Clarke spelled out the significance of this delay. He contrasted July 2001 with December 1999, when the Clinton White House got word of an impending al-Qaida attack on Los Angeles International Airport and Principals meetings were called instantly and repeatedly:

In December '99, every day or every other day, the head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, the Attorney General had to go to the White House and sit in a meeting and report on all the things that they personally had done to stop the al Qaeda attack, so they were going back every night to their departments and shaking the trees personally and finding out all the information. If that had happened in July of 2001, we might have found out in the White House, the Attorney General might have found out that there were al Qaeda operatives in the United States. FBI, at lower levels, knew [but] never told me, never told the highest levels in the FBI. ... We could have caught those guys and then we might have been able to pull that thread and get more of the conspiracy. I'm not saying we could have stopped 9/11, but we could have at least had a chance.

That's what Clarke says is the tragedy of Bush's inaction, and nobody in the White House has dealt with the charge at all.

Last edited by Paint CHiPs on 03-24-2004 at 05:13 AM

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Holy shit, that was good, PC. Do you mind if I quote that on my blog?

From the Slate article, I thought this was interesting:

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Most pertinent, Rand Beers, the official who succeeded Clarke after he left the White House in February 2003, resigned in protest just one month later—five days before the Iraqi war started—for precisely the same reason that Clarke quit. In June, he told the Washington Post, "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terror. They're making us less secure, not more." And: "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged, and generally underfunded."

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Originally posted by euphorbia
Clarke Praises Bush in Resignation Letter
Tue Mar 23, 5:35 PM ET Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!


By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The White House, seeking to cool criticism from a former top anti-terror adviser, said Tuesday that Richard Clarke's resignation letter praised President Bush (news - web sites)'s "courage, determination, calm and leadership" on Sept. 11
It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months," said the Jan. 20, 2003, letter from Clarke to Bush. "I will always remember the courage, determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th."

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WASHINGTON — The following transcript documents a background briefing in early August 2002 by President Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke to a handful of reporters, including Fox News' Jim Angle. In the conversation, cleared by the White House on Wednesday for distribution, Clarke describes the handover of intelligence from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration and the latter's decision to revise the U.S. approach to Al Qaeda. Clarke was named special adviser to the president for cyberspace security in October 2001. He resigned from his post in January 2003.

RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.

Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office — issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, mid-January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.

The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies — and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals.

Over the course of the summer — last point — they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance.

And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course [of] five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.

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Is he likely to have said 'I've been continually frustrated by the Bush administration and their lack of interest in really pursuing terror'? In effect, he is either lying now or he was lying then because of his position requiring that he toe the party line.

What is the general opinion about this? Is he lying (out of bitterness, because he is secretly a democrat, or whatever)? He is now saying that he was asked to 'highlight the positive aspect of what the administration has done and minimise the negative aspects of what the administration had done' in conversation with the press, which was normal, he says, and he had done that for several presidents.

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Originally posted by Smug Git
Is he likely to have said 'I've been continually frustrated by the Bush administration and their lack of interest in really pursuing terror'? In effect, he is either lying now or he was lying then because of his position requiring that he toe the party line.

What is the general opinion about this? Is he lying (out of bitterness, because he is secretly a democrat, or whatever)? He is now saying that he was asked to 'highlight the positive aspect of what the administration has done and minimise the negative aspects of what the administration had done', which was normal, he says, and he had done that for several presidents.

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There was a little more questioning on that subject, and he said again that you are expected to stress the positive and minimise the negative. Like Colin Powell does, I guess, even though he sometimes looks like he is eating a shit sandwich.

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Is it unusual for the Whitehouse to clear and distribute background briefings given to journalists by officials (which are presumably 'off the record' in the first instance)?

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Originally posted by Smug Git
Is it unusual for the Whitehouse to clear and distribute background briefings given to journalists by officials (which are presumably 'off the record' in the first instance)?

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Would make other officials a bit more uncomfortable about giving those briefings, I'd have thought.

Clarke just said, stressing that he was under oath, that he would not take a position in a Kerry government (this in reply to an accusation from the Whitehouse that he is auditioning for such) and also rebuffed other accusations of partisanship.

He is a pretty tough and smart guy, this Clarke, as one might expect.

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I saw him, Im watching too.

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Heh.

http://www.americanprogress.org/sit...iJRJ8OVF&b=6228

CONTEST
Beat the Progress Report

Yesterday, on Hannity and Colmes, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said "the assertion that somehow the Bush administration wasn't paying attention when we came into office is just false." But, despite Rice's comments, we were unable to find a single instance where Rice, Vice President Cheney or President Bush said "al Qaeda" or "bin Laden" in public between Bush Inauguration and 9/11. (The closest thing we could dig up – despite extensive searches on Nexis and the White House website – was a routine written extension of an executive order dealing with the Taliban.) During the same period, however, we were able to identify roughly 400 times that Rice, Cheney and Bush publicly mentioned "tax relief" or "tax cut." Prove you're better than the Progress Report! Send any instance of Rice, Cheney or Bush uttering the words "al Qaeda" or "bin Laden" in public between 1/20/01 and 9/10/01 to pr@americanprogress.org. The first person to submit a successful entry (which we can verify) will receive a free copy of "Deliver Us From Evil" by Fox News Anchor Sean Hannity signed by the members of the Progress Report team.

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Transcript: Rice Responds to Clarke

Thursday, March 25, 2004

WASHINGTON — Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, spoke to reporters at the White House on Wednesday to discuss charges made by Richard A. Clarke, a former counterterrorism official, that the Bush administration did not take the threat of terrorism seriously enough. Rice also talked about why she has not publicly testified before the bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Following are excerpts of the interview.



Q: So have you changed your mind about testifying?

DR. RICE: No, it's not my mind. It's — (Laughter.) I would like to be very clear that this is not a matter of preference. I would like nothing better in a sense than to be able to go up and do this. But I have a responsibility to maintain what is a longstanding separation — constitutional separation between the executive and the legislative branch.

This body is — the commission is a body under Article II of the legislature, and so I have to maintain that separation. I also have a responsibility to make sure that the commission knows everything that I know, and that's why I spent four hours with them, and I'm prepared to spend longer with them anywhere they want, any time they want, answer as many questions as they have. And I hope we'll have an opportunity to do that. But I just have to maintain the separation.

...

Q: One thing that Clarke is saying today is that you considered terrorism an important issue, but not an urgent issue. Is that true?

DR. RICE: I don't know what it means. I thought we weren't interested in it at all. According to the "60 Minutes" interview, I thought we ignored it. So now it was important, but not urgent. I really don't know what to make of this, what is a kind of shifting story.

I will say that what we did suggests that we thought it both important and urgent. We kept in place an experienced team of counterterrorism experts from the Clinton administration, whose responsibility it was to keep the Clinton administration strategy going.

We did everything during that period of time that we could. The intelligence agencies had the authorities that had been there in the Clinton administration. Nothing unraveled those authorities so they were still acting on those authorities.

George was still out disrupting and trying to break up cells in various parts of the world. The President wrote to Musharraf on February 16th. Colin and I had met with the Pakistanis. We'd met with the Uzbeks to — we had approved additional counterterrorism support for the Uzbeks.

We were doing everything that we could.

Now, was it the only priority? Of course not. There were other things that had to be done, as well, including the crisis with China around the EP-3 shoot-down; trying to build a relationship with Russia, China. Good thing we built the relationship, by the way with Russia, because when the war comes, we are able to get into Central Asia without friction with the Russians. So that turned out to be an important thing.

But at the same time that we were pursuing what the Clinton administration had been doing, we were developing a more robust strategy to try and eliminate al Qaeda. And by Dick's calculation, as well as that of George Tenet, this was still going to be multi-year. You couldn't do it overnight. I was impressed with some of the testimony by several people who said, it would have been difficult to just invade Afghanistan. I happen to agree with that view.

But we were developing a more robust strategy. That was a strategy that drew on some of the ideas that Dick Clarke had given us in that January 25th memo. He said in the August 2002 interview that they were, in fact, ideas that had been around since 1998. That was my understanding, as well.

And we pursued those ideas toward a more robust strategy. So I don't know what else you do to demonstrate that you think it's urgent and important. The President was being briefed by George Tenet at least 40 some — 40 plus of his briefings dealt, in one way or another al Qaeda, or the al Qaeda threat.

During the threat period it got really urgent. That's when I was on the phone with Colin and Don, and Don was moving the Fifth Fleet out of port, and when Colin was buttoning down embassies abroad. And when we actually did have Dick Clarke come in and — Andy Card and I did — and on July 5th convene the domestic agencies to say, even though all the threat reporting is about some threat abroad — because it was the Persian Gulf, the G8, possibly something in Israel — bring the domestic agencies together, let's make sure that they're buttoning down. The FAA issues alerts. The FBI issues warnings. So it's pretty urgent and important.

Q Do you think the fact that the staff of the commission was equally critical of both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration for not being more active militarily, and the fact that Secretary Cohen and Secretary Albright pretty much agreed with your people that it would have been hard to invade Afghanistan, do you think that makes your case a little bit easier to make?

DR. RICE: Well, I think it just says that September 11th was a life-changing event for the United States. It was life-changing for Americans. It was life-changing for the country, for the strategic direction of the country. We did think that there were other ways to deal with the threat than just using cruise missile strikes against — against al Qaeda.

We really thought that using again, for instance, in response to the Cole, using cruise missile strikes again against training camps that probably would have already been abandoned would have sent exactly the wrong message. And so one of the things that the new strategy looked at was actually to have the Defense Department do contingency plans that would allow us to go after the Taliban, not just after al Qaeda training camps.

And that was written into the new strategy because we were worried that you didn't want to be in the position of just all-out invasion of Afghanistan, or cruise missile strikes, there had to be something in between. And what was in between was to, first, put more pressure on the Taliban, for a short time diplomatically; then put pressure on them by arming not just the Northern Alliance, but southern tribes, as well, so that you put real pressure on them. If you couldn't them that way, think about using military force against their targets. But I found consistency in the views of the two that an all-out invasion of Afghanistan would probably have been

...

Q: Okay, and then the September 4th memo that Mr. Clarke sent to you. The commissioners seemed to suggest that it was full of warnings, that you're going to have explain —

DR. RICE: It wasn't warning — it said, you're about to have a meeting on the new NSPD — I'm paraphrasing now — you're about to have a meeting. It was a road map, as we call it, a guide for me to direct the meeting, to conduct the meeting.

It says, you're about to have this meeting on this NSPD. It's a good NSPD. It's got a lot of good stuff in it. But let me give you a history of how bureaucracies have defeated these things before. And one day, we're going to be really sorry because there's going to be an attack on the United States — I'm sorry, an attack with thousands of Americans dead, or something like that, and then how will we feel that the Agency couldn't do this, or that — that's not a warning.

Q So you understood it as a theoretical warning, as opposed to a specific warning?

DR. RICE: Absolutely. One day we're going to be sorry? No. This was — the notion that he would — anyone would say that this was a warning. Of course, we all knew that one day a catastrophic attack was possible. But this was about, you really need not to let the bureaucracies defeat this new NSPD. That's what this was about.

Q: Dr. Rice, I think — I think there's only one passage where Mr. Clarke talked about you specifically.

DR. RICE: I think so. Ask those guys. We're trying to get something, to make sure it's not classified.

MR. McCORMACK: Yes, this is all unclassified.

DR. RICE: It's all unclassified, okay, fine.

Q Just so you don't have to listen to me, would you mind just looking at that paragraph? Could you just give us your version of that call? I think it's the only time that he said that you specifically did something. I sense you don't have the same recollection about it, which is why I'm asking.

DR. RICE: I have no idea what he's talking about. He says, when Condi Rice came back from that meeting, called me and related what the President requested, and I said, well, you know we've had this strategy ready since before you were inaugurated.

I just want to, again, refer you to the August 2002 interview in which he says, no, we didn't give them a plan. Either he gave us a plan, or he didn't give us a plan. But he doesn't have it both ways. In the August 2002 interview, he didn't give us a plan. In the book, apparently, he did give us a plan.

Today, in the testimony, I'm told he says, well, the plan was from 1998 — the Dilenda (ph) Plan, which was there, but that was from 1998. I thought this plan was supposedly developed in 2000. This story has so many twists and turns now that I think he needs to get this story straight.

Okay, thanks.

Q: And may I ask you something more general, the Vice President said he was out of the loop. You said he wasn't in most of the meetings.

But he hadn't been replaced. He still was the counterterrorism official. And I wonder if the counterterrorism official is out of the loop on terrorism issues, if that's not a problem.

DR. RICE: I would not use the word out of the loop. He was in every meeting about terrorism. He was not in the President's daily briefing with George Tenet. What the President did was to reestablish his principal conduit for intelligence information on everything, including terrorism, to be his DCI. But he was not — he was in every meeting that was held on terrorism, all the deputies' meetings, the principals' meeting that was held, and so forth — the early meetings after September 11th. When the President went to Camp David, he went with his closest advisors on September 15th. It was a time when he wanted people in the room with whom he had a particular relationship —

Q: Dr. Rice — and that speaks to my last question. It was clear that he'd been demoted. And so can you see why people outside the process would look like — that might look like terrorism was less of a priority since you demoted the terrorism guy.

DR. RICE: He wasn't demoted. We had a different organizational structure. Dick was still the national coordinator. He was still doing all of the things he had been doing. He had the CSG. He had — by the way, he had daily access to me through a staff meeting that I hold every day, that is — by the way — quite operational. It's not to sit down and debate the fine points of American security policy. It's for the person to say — who does Africa to say, the President really needs to call the President of Sudan today because the peace treaty is going off track. Or Condi you need to call Secretary Powell, there's a mix-up here. We're not sure what's going on. Or can you get the — the President needs to have a meeting on this. It's very operational.

That's how I do business. I don't use e-mail for business. I think it's intemperate, and I don't communicate by e-mail. So the staff meeting was, to me, the central thing. I did have to send Dick two e-mails telling him, come to my staff meetings, because he kept being too busy. I finally told him that it was important that he not be too busy. So he was not demoted. When people met, he was there. But, yes, we had a somewhat different structure. We were a new team. It is usually the case that when you transition into a new team, you sort of adjust to that structure.

...

Q: Dr. Rice, just on Dick Clarke, you're his boss, you're calling meetings that he's supposed to be at, I think if most of us were called to a meeting that our boss wanted us to be and we didn't show up, we'd be either disciplined, or fired. Was there any action taken against Dick Clarke on that regard?

DR. RICE: I sent him one e-mail. He didn't come. I sent him another e-mail, and I told him that I thought he really better start coming, he came.

Q: So there was no discussion of something that — pardon me, I'm sorry.

DR. RICE: That's all right.

Q: That — any disciplinary action against him, and there's no conflict over that?

DR. RICE: No. Look, I know how to manage people, and I asked him to come once. We continued to have a problem. I asked him to come twice. We didn't have a problem after that.

Q: Why wasn't he coming?

Q: In his resignation letter —

DR. RICE: He said he was busy. And on a couple of occasions he people had come and said he was busy doing —

Q: Busy doing what?

DR. RICE: Giving speeches or doing other things. But it was not acceptable.

Q: In his resignation letter, he praised the President's courage and determination, did he leave in a huff?

DR. RICE: No. What's really puzzling is that there are two very different stories here. There's the book and the "60 Minutes" interview. There is the August 2002 interview, where I assume he said things that he believed to be truthful, that we didn't give him — he didn't give us a plan; that the strategy was to eliminate al Qaeda, not to roll it back; that we had acted on the steps that he gave to us on January 25th. I assume he was saying things that he believed to be true.

There is also during the whole time that he's here — relations are very cordial. He comes to me and asks me to support him with Tom Ridge to become deputy homeland secretary, said he was supportive of the President. He'd like to continue to serve. He'd like to be deputy homeland secretary.

We had lunch. I invited him to lunch after he left to kind of thank him for his long service. And he sat at the table. We had an extensive discussion. It's three weeks before Iraq. Not a word about concerns that Iraq was going to somehow take us off the path of the war on terrorism. It would have been easy to do — kick the others out, close the door, say, I just want you to know I think you're making a mistake. Didn't do it.

So there are two very different pictures here. And the fact of the matter is, these stories can't be reconciled. Either he gave us the plan, as he says in his book; or he didn't, as he says in his discussion — his press interview in August. Either we were ignoring the threat, or now it's changed to it was important but not urgent; or we were actually responding to the things that he suggested, which is what he said in the August 2002 interview. Either the President was not interested in this problem, which is what he said in his "60 Minutes" interview; or it was the President who in March changed the strategic direction of the NSPD, which is what he said in his August 2002 interview. So these are not reconcilable. And I assume he spoke the truth on August 2002, so the question is, what happened here?

Q: I have one question —

MR. McCORMACK: This is the last question —

Q: I don't know what kind of an answer I'll get, but how damaging

is this to the Bush presidency?

DR. RICE: I think, Elisabeth, the American people do not believe that the President of the United States is pursuing a folly in the war on terrorism. He's pursuing a coherent, aggressive strategy that takes the fight to the terrorists. It's the first such strategy in American history against terrorism after a long period of time in which the terrorists — really going back to '80s — thought they'd gained the upper hand, in which they'd thought their victory was inevitable. We've killed or captured two-thirds of the al Qaeda leadership. We've got a worldwide coalition fighting this terrorism. We've liberated 50 million people. We have a good ally in Afghanistan. We're building a good ally in Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are fighting in the war on terrorism like they never have before. I think that the American people understand that.

And, frankly, when Dick Clarke is asked which of his stories is he going to stand by, I think it will be very obvious to the American people that there's a real problem in saying the things that he's said about the President of the United States on "60 Minutes," when he's got a record of having said something very different just a little while ago.

Oh, yes, I just — there's one other thing here, which is that, after the attacks, this is on September 15th. As I mentioned to you, Andy Card and I on July 5th during the high spike period asked Dick to come in and asked him to convene the domestic agencies — not because there was any threat reporting about the United States — there wasn't, but just in case, just convene them. And here's the note that Dick wrote to me on September 15th: "When the era of national unity begins to crack in the near future, it is possible that some will start asking questions like, did the White House do a good job of making sure that intelligence about terrorist threats got to the FAA and other domestic law enforcement authorities, as the attached paper, which was sent to you in July, and the e-mail, also July, note, in late June the Interagency Counterterrorism Security Group,which I chair, warned of an upcoming, spectacular al Qaeda attack that would be qualitatively different. We convened on 5 July a special meeting of domestic federal law enforcement agencies because we could not rule out the possibility that the attack would be in the U.S." In fact, that was the meeting that we asked him to convene.

"At the special meeting on July 5 were the FBI, Secret Service, FAA, Customs, Coast Guard, and Immigration. We told them that we thought a spectacular al Qaeda terrorist attack was coming in the near future." That had been had been George Tenet's language. "We asked that they take special measures to increase security and surveillance. Thus, the White House did ensure that domestic law enforcement including the FAA knew that the CSG believed that a major al Qaeda attack was coming, and it could be in the U.S., and did ask that special measures be taken."

That was, of course, his job — but that was his assessment on September 15th.

MR. McCORMACK: Thank you very much everybody.

DR. RICE: All right, thank you.

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Difficult to judge how damaging to Clarke that is. The references to the 2002 interview are weak, I think (particularly the Whitehouse spokesman who said that this 'shattered his arguments') as are reference to his resignation letter, but her stuff about Clarke not turning up to meetings might be damaging, if Clarke can't adequately respond to it. They can't go to town too much on his credibility in terms of his job performance, though, because otherwise they will have to explain why they kept him on if he was so bad. They can make it look as if he was bitter on a personal level, rather than bitter because the President is talking the talk of a walk that he didn't and doesn't walk; the latter case is effectively what Clarke is claiming and the former what Rice and others are claiming.

Who did Rice give the interview too? If that is the full transcript, it looks like a chance to give Rice a say, more than an attempt by the journalist to get to the bottom of it (easy questions). But then again, I didn't see the 60 minutes interview, that may have been the same, but in Clarke's favour. For whatever reason, she also isn't to be questioned in open session by the 9/11 committee, so it would be interesting to see her facing some more hostile questioning. She is a very clever woman, though, of course.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Smug Git
Difficult to judge how damaging to Clarke that is.

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I haven't read his book. My point is that it is 'he said, she said' on the priority issue. The thing that Rice might win on is the meetings (and perhaps other derelictions of duty) because it might be possible to put pressure on Clarke with actual evidence. The Whitehouse would appear to have an advantage here, too, because they can declassify things that serve their argument, wheras he is bound by the original classifications, it seems.

All the stuff that is basically 'when he was working for us, he was nice about us' is hardly damning. That is a fact of life for many employess (as a teacher I was in the same situation quite often when confronted over poor school policy). And in this case, as Clarke said in his testimony, 'that's politics' (part of my objection to politics, as I have said before). To show a genuine problem with his honesty, they need to show some ulterior motive, either book sales, personal dislike of person(s) in the administration, that he wasn't doing his job, whatever. Fact is, he testified under oath and Rice just gave an interview. His testimony under oath was solid. Using an interview that he gave as a government official on government policy is almost laughable. If they can show that he was failing to do his job, that is good for them, although they can't bash him too much or else they look bad for not firing him.

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That Rice rebuff was from Fox, I think, wasn't it?

The GOP are after Clarke's closed testimony from another committee being declassified. If they can use it to show that he lied, that pretty much ends his participation and puts him in jail, I guess.

However, that would mean declassification pretty much purely for political purposes, unless they can make a strong case that all they really want is to serve justice by putting Clarke in jail.

Also, if he makes the case that he was basically expected to lie to Congress in the earlier committee, that might rebound a bit on the government, I'd have thought.

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Just reading from the comic that is the FoxNews website and I'd agree that if they can get this declassified and find that he lied to Congress, he is in the shit, but even that might hurt the government. It seems to me that if it seems 'yeah, he lied or dissembled (which probably isn't illegal) in front of Congress back then' that would make the current allegations seem more true; they need to show that he was telling the truth back then when he was on the payroll and is lying now. Either way, Clarke gets hurt, but it seems to me that unless someone can link this to the Democrats, they can't lose; at worst, it distracts Bush, at best some voters leave Bush, and unless the administraton can paint Bush as a Democrat, they can't really be hurt by it.

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And if they can rupture Clarke over this, it is still a distraction from which Bush has nothing to gain and only things to lose, it seems to me.

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So if the evidence from the earlier committee is declassified and it is factually inconsistent (rather than different in tone in the way that you would expect when a guy is talking about his boss), people will have to decide whether he was lying first time, lying second time, or lying both times. It hurts Clarke, but presumably it isn't good for Bush even if he has only wasted time.

If they can find some evidence that Clarke is somehow linked to Kerry, and particularly if they can show that his book and testimony are linked to Kerry, then that has to hurt Kerry. Otherwise, whatever happens seems to suit Kerry fine.

I should say again that what I am interested in is not whether or not Bush was weaker on terror than he should have been prior to 11/9, my issue is about pressuring for evidence that Iraq was involved with the whole thing and that he had a separate agenda for attacking Iraq and tried to dress it as the 'War on Terror' and smear 9/11 all over it. That isn't stuff that the 9/11 committee have been looking at, though.

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Heh. Bill Frist has attacked Clarke for apologizing.

quote:

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He also accused him of making a 'theatrical apology' to the families of the terrorist victims at the outset of his appearance on Wednesday, saying it was not 'his right, his privilege or his responsibility' to do so.

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Yeah, when I heard him apologise at the beginning of his testimony I thought that it would be hard to counter. I read what Frist had said and it didn't seem too smart. Best just to let it go and hope that no one asks the President whether he fells that he ought to apologise too.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Paint CHiPs
Heh. Bill Frist has attacked Clarke for apologizing.



From here.

Yeah, that'll be an effective talking point. Idjit.

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In which case, better to leave it alone and let it die. It was a smart idea, I thought, because it is hard to rebuff without looking like a cunt.

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quote:

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Originally posted by euphorbia
it was pretty transparent and the acting was poor.

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quote:

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Originally posted by euphorbia
Transcript: Rice Responds to Clarke (snip)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Smug Git
Just reading from the comic that is the FoxNews website and I'd agree that if they can get this declassified and find that he lied to Congress, he is in the shit, but even that might hurt the government. It seems to me that if it seems 'yeah, he lied or dissembled (which probably isn't illegal) in front of Congress back then' that would make the current allegations seem more true; they need to show that he was telling the truth back then when he was on the payroll and is lying now.

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Jesus Christ.

I've been looking into the notion that Clarke lied under oath in 2002. Here are Frist's verbatim comments, on the floor of the Senate yesterday.

quote:

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Third, Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories under oath. In July 2002, in front of the Congressional Joint Inquiry on the September 11 attacks, Mr. Clarke testified under oath that the Administration actively sought to address the threat posed by al Qaeda during its first seven months in office.

Mr. President, it is one thing for Mr. Clarke to dissemble in front of the media. But if he lied under oath to the United States Congress it is a far more serious matter. As I mentioned, the intelligence committee is seeking to have Mr. Clarke’s previous testimony declassified so as to permit an examination of Mr. Clarke's two different accounts. Loyalty to any Administration will be no defense if it is found that he has lied before Congress.

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Last edited by Paint CHiPs on 03-27-2004 at 06:44 AM

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quote:

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Originally posted by Paint CHiPs
Because Richard Clarke is such a transparent cunt that was just "making up" the apology for political gains?

I don't think there's anything particularly ignoble about being the chief terrorism consultant and apologizing for a terrorist act that you, in part, failed to prevent. Boy, some people might even call that laudable.

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oh yeah,
and I pledge allegiance to the clarke and the united clarke of america, and for the martyrdom for which he stands one clarke under oppression un listened to would have saved us from the death and destruction of sept 11.

*takes her hand from her heart and shakes her fists at the sky*

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was that supposed to be funny?

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clarke is about to get his ass handed to him with his own words

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if you mean he's goin to get his ass handed to him because the whitehouse is going to see to it that only incriminating portions of his previous testimony are declassified, then that's very likely.

i dont think it'd be so crystal if they declassify the whole thing.

and he's not having his ass handed to him unless they find something in that classified report.

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Clarke, making the rounds today, and, in response to Frist calling for his former testimony to be declassified, AGREED. He said that it should all be declassified, and he welcomes it, and urges that everything regarding how the administration handled 9-11, including Rice's private testimony, also be declassified.

Bluff.....called.

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I think that Clarke is going to get mauled unless his personal life (remember Scott Ritter and what happened to him) and professional life (Rice has already made accusations regarding that) have been completely unblemished, but he does seem to be a pretty smart and tough guy, so far at least.

Unless the administration have some really killer blow so good that it actually makes Bush look better or Kerry look worse (ie, it comes out that Clarke is a liar on the Kerry payroll), it still looks to me like a potentially dangerous distraction for the Bush campaign, where the likely best result is that he is back where he was before Clarke's accusations came out, but at the expense of time wasted fighting it.

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Just saw Clarke on 'Meet the Press'. He was pretty solid, I'd say, although the questioning allowed him to make his points without too much pressure being brought to bear on him (which is, I guess, basically the same situation that his accusers are in).

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I saw him on "Meet the Press" as well. I thought the give and take between Russert and Clarke was very good. But the thing that has most impressed me about Mr. Clarke is his voice and his way of speaking. He's really good at parrying any thrust that comes his way, and his voice is very resonant and commanding.

I liked how he said (not verbatim) "Okay, you wanna make my statements public, then let them make their statements public as well", knowing full well that that wasn't going to happen.

He's a slick character and his vindictativeness against President Bush is very obvious.

For "fence-sitters", he could make a big difference in whom they will cast their votes.

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it really says something that at the same time the whitehouse is moving to declassify clarke's previous testimony, condi's only talking to the 911 panel in closed sessions.

anyway, if clarke is only doing this to sell a book, he's succeeded. picked up a copy for 16 bucks today at barnes and noble.for 40% off.

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I understand that clarke is taking "the lords work" to the daily show on comedy central. god bless'im

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what day?

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Tomorrow.

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while i don't think it's a big deal, hindsight and all that, clarke seems to have his shit together. i don't think any of the opposition to him so far has been shown to have any merit, and he deflected the commission's attacks pretty easily.
also, i wish the rest of the media had the ideals of the daily show (minus the convenient editing). they make really good points quite often, i think.

i think i have sufficiently cancelled out any point i may have made. thank you.

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I've not treally followed this story, but from what I heard there have been a lot attacks on Clarke's character etc as a rebuttal to his claims. I don't really know what he said in detail, nor do I much care either, but its a general truth in politics that if someone is smeared in reaction to something they have said, then what they have said is probably true. Not to mention that one should believe nothing until it is official denied.

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Yeah. He's been getting hit pretty hard. Which makes it understandable that he'd want to take every opportunity he could to speak out, including the Daily Show. Unlike the administration, he doesn't have an army of people to blanket every outlet with their talking points. I'd be standing on a street corner with the naked cowboy, going on cable access shows, if I were in his shoes.

Bob Woodward's book is out in 23 days, btw, in which, it seems, he talks some about Powell's disagreements with the administration on terrorism policy, including off the record interviews where Powell is critical of Bush, is the rumor.

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How can Woodward include off-the-record interviews and anyone ever talk to him again?

I remember thinking about Powell when the 9/11 committee were accusing Clarke of changing face, and Clarke replied that he was working for Bush back then and he was expected not to diss the boss in public. Powell is widely rumoured to have some big disagreements with Bush and Rumsfeld and yet he is publically supportive of the administration and that seems natural enough to me. For that matter, when Rumsfeld had control over Iraq taken off of him, he carried on smiling and said that it didn't bother him when apparently it did, he was presenting the best face possible to the public. None of that seems too weird to me; why is it weird when Clarke does it? Have the administration come up with anything better 'but when you worked for us, you were nice about us'? I thought that Rice might be going there with comments about his competance, but that is a risky strategy (and perhaps a weaker one now that he has unveiled the president's handwritten 'thanks, Dick, for being good at your job' card).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Smug Git
....Powell is widely rumoured to have some big disagreements with Bush and Rumsfeld and yet he is publically supportive of the administration and that seems natural enough to me...

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