New book by Richard Clarke exposes inner

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2003
New book by Richard Clarke exposes inner
73
Fri, 03-19-2004 - 9:46pm
workings of Bush administration after 9/11.

In his book The Right Man, David Frum, a former speechwriter in the Bush White House, tells about a meeting in February 2001 at which the president spoke about "his determination to dig Saddam Hussein out of power in Iraq." In Bush at War, Bob Woodward describes a White House meeting on September 12, 2001, at which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "raised the question of Iraq. Why shouldn't we go against Iraq, not just Al Qaeda?" Woodward writes, "Before the attacks, the Pentagon had been working for months on developing a military option for Iraq."

Now comes a new book, "Against All Enemies" by Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism advisor, about how the Bush administration was obsessed by Iraq from the start. Wonder how long it will take the Bush propaganda machine to try to convince us that Clarke is an embittered disgruntled crazy old man who never should have held the position he did like they did Sam O'neill.

From Drudge:

"FORMER WHITE HOUSE TERRORISM ADVISOR: BUSH ADMIN WAS DISCUSSING BOMBING IRAQ FOR 9/11 DESPITE KNOWING AL QAEDA WAS TO BLAME

Fri Mar 19 2004 17:49:30 ET

Former White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tells Lesley Stahl that on September 11, 2001 and the day after - when it was clear Al Qaeda had carried out the terrorist attacks - the Bush administration was considering bombing Iraq in retaliation. Clarke's exclusive interview will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday March 21 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Clarke was surprised that the attention of administration officials was turning toward Iraq when he expected the focus to be on Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. "They were talking about Iraq on 9/11. They were talking about it on 9/12," says Clarke.

The top counter-terrorism advisor, Clarke was briefing the highest government officials, including President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the aftermath of 9/11. "Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq....We all said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan," recounts Clarke, "and Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq.' I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with ,'" he tells Stahl.

Clarke goes on to explain what he believes was the reason for the focus on Iraq. "I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there, saying, 'We've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection,'" says Clarke.

Clarke, who advised four presidents, reveals more about the current administration's reaction to terrorism in his new book, "Against All Enemies."

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash60.htm

A quote from an Associated Press article dated March 19. 2004:

"Ex-adviser: Iraq considered after 9/11

By TED BRIDIS

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration considered bombing Iraq in retaliation almost immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks against New York and Washington, according to a new first-person account by a former senior counterterrorism adviser inside the White House.

Richard Clarke, the president's counterterrorism coordinator at the time of the attacks, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld complained on Sept. 12 - after the administration was convinced with certainty that al-Qaida was to blame - that, "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq."

A spokesman for Rumsfeld said he couldn't comment immediately.

Clarke makes the assertion in a new book, "Against All Enemies," which goes on sale Monday morning. He told CBS News he believes the administration sought to link Iraq with the attacks because of long-standing interest in overthrowing Saddam Hussein; Clarke was scheduled to appear Sunday night on the network's "60 Minutes" news program.

"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection" between Iraq and the al-Qaida attacks in the United States, Clarke said in an interview segment CBS broadcast Friday evening. "There's just no connection. There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al-Qaida."



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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 03-25-2004 - 11:59am

This is one of my fave features of this format, one problem you can only edit the body of the message not the title. I've

 


Photobucket&nbs

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Thu, 03-25-2004 - 3:18pm
The fact that Ms. Rice refuses to testify 'under oath' to the 9/11 commission and yet she has been criticizing Clark on so many talk shows certainly makes Clark more credible not less.

C

Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 03-26-2004 - 3:23am
IMO the commission should not allow Ms. Rice's rebuttal, unless it is in public and under oath.

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 03-26-2004 - 6:26am

>"the commission should not allow Ms. Rice's rebuttal, unless it is in public and under oath."<


I agree. Otherwise why have a commision? Why not save the tax payers the expence & host the whole thing on CNN, MSNBC or Fox?

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 03-26-2004 - 6:57am

>" That's when Thompson, a Republican and longtime governor of Illinois, asked a question that makes the average citizen want to stand up and cheer: Was Clarke saying ''there is one standard for White House special assistants when it comes to candor and morality and one standard for everyone else in America?''


Replied Clarke: ''I don't think it's a question of morality at all. I think it's a matter of politics.'' Translation: yes.


At that point, the hearing room broke into applause. It should have broken into tears, for the answer is rather sad. Clarke's response means morality does not provide the compass for behavior from a White House special assistant. Politics does. "<


Quote from..... Truth: It's a matter of politics.


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/26/truth_its_a_matter_of_politics/

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Fri, 03-26-2004 - 8:07am
I would add that she should only be able to impeach the facts not the author. This is becoming a big issue with me. This administration is ruthless in it's attacks on personal integrity--wonder why, doesn't it bring to mind it's integrity?
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Fri, 03-26-2004 - 8:12am
<>

and Thompson's reply was "no further questions."

I can't remember the other committee person, but Clarke said somethink like, in those testimonies I wasn't asked about my personal view. Then he goes on to state that Bush's invasion worked against the war on terrorism. It was a strong statement and the room became silent.

As one article said, a TKO for Clarke. TV always misses the best scenes.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Fri, 03-26-2004 - 10:18am
"Authors Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie claimed to have been told by O'Neill that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it".

New light on the life and death of John O'Neill

By Tom Griffin

LONDON - Former White House counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke has rocked the Bush administration with his criticism of the "war on terror". However, doubts about the administration's commitment to the fight against al-Qaeda are not new.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, another counter-terrorism expert, Irish-American John O'Neill, became the focus for those concerns. O'Neill had been one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) leading specialists on al-Qaeda, but he was destined never to play a role in America's response to September 11. In a supremely ironic twist of fate, he was himself killed in the World Trade Center attacks.

The story of John O'Neill, Richard Clarke and their battle against al-Qaeda began at the Twin Towers eight years earlier, when Islamic fundamentalists made their first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center with the 1993 bombing masterminded by Ramzi Yousef.

Yousef was eventually tracked down in Pakistan. The intelligence ended up on the desk of Richard Clarke on a Sunday morning. There were only a few hours to act on it. Clarke rang the FBI in the forlorn hope that there would be somebody to take the call. Clarke described what happened next in a 2002 interview.

"I called and John answered the phone. I said, 'Who's this'? He responded, 'Well, who the hell are you? I'm John O'Neill'. I explained, 'I'm from the White House. I do terrorism. I need some help'."

O'Neill had never worked on the case before, but together with Clarke he manned the phones coordinating the capture of Yousef before he could slip over the border into Afghanistan. It was, according to Clarke, "the beginning of a beautiful friendship".

After the capture of Yousef, O'Neill learned everything he could about the threat of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. He became one of the first people to understand the "new terrorism" which was already taking shape.

He set about convincing his colleagues of the threat with similar determination. "John would come into the room and there would be a presence about him," Clarke said. "He would go around the room like it was a ward meeting and he was an Irish politician."

There were some obstacles that O'Neill's charismatic persona couldn't overcome, however. That first became clear after the Khobar Towers bombings in Saudi Arabia in 1996, which killed 19 American soldiers.

According to his friend Chris Isham, O'Neill "felt the Saudis were definitely playing games and that the senior officials in the US government just didn't get it".

Similar problems dogged O'Neill's investigation of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, when he clashed so severely with US ambassador Barbara Bodine that he was refused clearance to enter the country.

The level of opposition he faced within the US government may have contributed to O'Neill's decision to leave the FBI in July 2001, even though there were signs of increasing al-Qaeda activity. He took up a new post as head of security at the World Trade Center.

He was in his office on the 34th floor of the North Tower when he was hit by American Airlines Flight 11 at 8.46am on September 11. From there he made his way to an emergency command center, the last place he was seen alive, before entering the South Tower where his body was found.

The career and untimely death of John O'Neill have given rise to a great deal of speculation about the source of the obstacles he faced. Its clear that the turf battles between O'Neill and diplomats anxious to maintain good relations with Arab states began in the Bill Clinton years.

There were signs that problems intensified under the Bush administration. When O'Neill retired, someone leaked the story to the New York Times, together with details of an incident when he had lost a briefcase carrying sensitive documents. O'Neill blamed the incoming FBI director Tom Pickard for the disclosure.

The most serious allegation against the Bush administration came in the controversial French book Bin Laden, la verite interdite (Bin Laden, the forbidden truth), released shortly after September 11.

Authors Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie claimed to have been told by O'Neill that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it".

Brisard and Dasquie drew attention to the strong business links between members of the Bush administration and Saudi Arabia through the oil industry, and even through defense company the Carlyle Group, between the Bush and Bin Laden families.

Richard Clarke's latest statements do not provide outright support to the thesis that these links led the Bush administration to obstruct O'Neill. Nevertheless, in a CBS interview last weekend, Clarke portrayed an administration that was remarkably reluctant to get to grips with al-Qaeda.

In the aftermath of September 11, Clarke claimed: "The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this'. Now he never said, 'Make it up'. But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this."

When Clarke insisted that there was no Iraqi connection, he claimed that the president responded "in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer."

Clarke followed up that interview on Wednesday with his testimony to America's official September 11 Commission. "By invading Iraq, the president has greatly undermined the war on terrorism," he told the bipartisan commission to applause from an audience which included many relatives of September 11 victims.

Clarke's insider criticisms of the administration have the potential to be uniquely damaging to a Republican election campaign built around George W Bush, the "war president".

Accordingly, the administration has hit back hard, asking why Clarke did not make similar points in previous interviews after September 11, given when he was still a public official.

Those interviews are still so far the only ones in which Clarke has elaborated on the role of John O'Neill, and that means that there may yet be further revelations about the obstacles O'Neill faced, the reasons he left the FBI and the source of the leak to the New York Times about his departure.

The Bush administration typically moves swiftly to rebut its critics. It may yet find itself having to challenge the memory of a man who died in the twin towers on September 11.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FC27Aa01.html

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 03-26-2004 - 1:54pm

More on John O'Neill, FBI's leading expert on Al Qaeda.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Fri, 03-26-2004 - 4:14pm
<>

There is irony here. As I was reading the article I heard on the TV that the republicans in Congress are going after Clarke with full force. Funny, they are more concerned that Clarke lied, than that Bush lied. I am not proud of the actions of the Congress. :-(

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