ATTACK WARNINGS IGNORED!

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-21-2004
ATTACK WARNINGS IGNORED!
37
Sun, 09-19-2004 - 12:02pm

From Vanity Fair July 2004


Interview with  Richard Clarke


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Re: Conversation with Rice:


 


He says he told her that al-Qaeda was <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />America’s No. 1 threat. In the book he writes that it seems she hadn’t heard the term before. Rice’s defenders pointed out that she spoke about Osama bin Laden in a radio interview in October 2000. “She obviously knew about bin Laden,” Clarke now says. “But it’s not just Condi. A lot of people….didn’t get the phrase ‘al-Qaeda.’”


According to Clarke, Rice told him that she couldn’t see why the N.S.C. (National Security Council) should be worrying about things like “getting equipment and training to firemen around this country.��� (in case of a terrorist strike)


She told Clarke that she wanted him to focus on breaking up the N.S.C.’s  Office of Transnational Threats, which he headed, and spinning out some of the jobs and getting back to the old N.S.C. model. She also told him that he did not need to go to the Principals’ meetings any longer.  (this was a guy who had been the Counterterrorism Czar since 1992 or so and had been in the field for 30 years)


Clarke says the reduction of his responsibilities (which did not affect his paycheck) was significant because it sent a signal to the bureaucracy that counterterrorism was no longer as important as it had been in the Clinton administration.


 


Re: De-emphasizing counterterrorism


 


In fact, Clarke and his staff felt that counterterrorism was being shoved to the bottom of the agenda: “I was being told by people in the Pentagon they couldn’t get money. People in the Justice Dept were telling me they couldn’t get money….I was told terrorism was no longer on the priority list for the attorney general for priority issues.”


Over at Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld had not replied to Clarke’s request for a briefing meeting in January. Rumsfeld was also attempting to scale back the D.O.D.’s (Department of Defense) special ops, war on drugs, and peacekeeping…..all the operations Clarke considered an essential part of fighting al-Qaeda on its own turf.


 


Re: Clarke’s memo to cut off Afghanistan


 


Clarke’s now famous January 2001 memo advocating a series of actions to “roll back” al-Qaeda, including cutting off its financing, helping such organization as the Northern Alliance fight it in Afghanistan, and breaking up international cells, seemed to languish, ignored, in people’s in-boxes. Finally it was discussed at the end of April, in a meeting of deputies chaired by Hadley, who wanted to reach a consensus among all the departments and agencies before formalizing policy. Clarke describes Hadley as a “very precise lawyer…You could light a nuclear bomb off under him and his hair wouldn’t get singed.” Reaching a consensus was bound to take time. The C.I.A., for instance was against Clarke’s suggestion to resume using the Predator, an unmanned plane, to spy on and possibly target al-Qaeda missile camps in Afghanistan, in part because a Predator had crashed the year before.


 


Re: Warnings to the president about planned attacks on the US


 


Meanwhile, in May and June the C.I.A. was getting increasingly scary intelligence reports that al-Qaeda was planning something big. Clarke sent Rice and her N.S.C. colleagues additional memos. At the same time, George Tenet was personally briefing the president about the reports.


Clark leans forward, “I’m not sure everybody has grasped this…Tenet on 40 occasions


in these morning meetings mentioned al-Qaeda to the president. Forty times, many of them in a very alarmed way, about a pending attack. And as far as I can tell from what has been said at the commission, on one of these occasions, one out of 40, the president must have said something like ‘Well, what are we going to do about it.’”


On August 6, Bush received the page-and-a-half-long presidential brief from the C.I.A., the title of which was “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.” Significantly, Clarke and his team were not shown it.


Finally, on September 4, when the principals were back in the capital from traveling and their summer vacations, they held a meeting, in which most of Clarke’s ideas were provisionally accepted as policy. As the world knows, it was too late. Seven days later al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil.


 


When asked why he had not requested to brief the president himself-- as Rice had testified—Clarke maintains he did, back in January, but Rice told him Bush would not be briefed unless there was a new policy he needed to make a decision on. “They’re very protective of this president.” Clark says. “He meet son a regular basis with only about a half-dozen senior White House people, who as a result wield tremendous influence.

Donna

Patriotism means to stand by the Country. It does not mean to stand by the President. -- Theodore Roosevelt.

Donna
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2003
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 6:11pm
>>How were we to know terrorists would really use our own airline planes as weapons to attack us with? Before 9/11 did you think that could be a possibility? I didn't. <<

Condoleeza Rice and President Bush knew it was a possibility.

>>>Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S. officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the city's airport."<<<

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-092701genoa.story

White House release

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/07/20010722-7.html

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 11:46pm
How can you read these lines from Clarke and still summarize his statements as "Clarke basically said he lied on the tape to make the administration look good"?

CLARKE: And no one in the Bush White House asked me to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have said them.

...

THOMPSON: Are you saying to be you were asked to make an untrue case to the press and the public, and that you went ahead and did it?

CLARKE: No, sir. Not untrue. Not an untrue case.

••••

Yes. In the background briefing he says that "there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration." Do you know why that's a truthfull statement? Because Clarke TRIED to give them the plan just a few days after Bush was sworn in, and Condi Rice's response to his request for a meeting was that he had been demoted to the deputies level and it would have to go through committee. Do you know when it got out of committee? One week before September 11th, 2001. That's when he finally got to talk to the National Security Council about what the "plan."

ROEMER: OK. With my 15 minutes, let's move into the Bush administration.

On January 25th, we've seen a memo that you've written to Dr. Rice urgently asking for a principals' review of al Qaeda. You include helping the Northern Alliance, covert aid, significant new '02 budget authority to help fight al Qaeda and a response to the USS Cole. You attach to this document both the Delenda Plan of 1998 and a strategy paper from December 2000.

Do you get a response to this urgent request for a principals meeting on these? And how does this affect your time frame for dealing with these important issues?

CLARKE: I did get a response, and the response was that in the Bush administration I should, and my committee, counterterrorism security group, should report to the deputies committee, which is a sub-Cabinet level committee, and not to the principals and that, therefore, it was inappropriate for me to be asking for a principals' meeting. Instead, there would be a deputies meeting.

ROEMER: So does this slow the process down to go to the deputies rather than to the principals or a small group as you had previously done?

CLARKE: It slowed it down enormously, by months. First of all, the deputies committee didn't meet urgently in January or February.

Then when the deputies committee did meet, it took the issue of al Qaeda as part of a cluster of policy issues, including nuclear proliferation in South Asia, democratization in Pakistan, how to treat the various problems, including narcotics and other problems in Afghanistan, and launched on a series of deputies meetings extending over several months to address al Qaeda in the context of all of those inter-related issues.

That process probably ended, I think in July of 2001. So we were ready for a principals meeting in July. But the principals calendar was full and then they went on vacation, many of them in August, so we couldn't meet in August, and therefore the principals met in September.

••••

ROEMER: You then wrote a memo on September 4th to Dr. Rice expressing some of these frustrations several months later, if you say the time frame is May or June when you decided to resign. A memo comes out that we have seen on September the 4th. You are blunt in blasting DOD for not willingly using the force and the power. You blast the CIA for blocking Predator. You urge policy-makers to imagine a day after hundreds of Americans lay dead at home or abroad after a terrorist attack and ask themselves what else they could have done. You write this on September the 4th, seven days before September 11th.

CLARKE: That's right.

ROEMER: What else could have been done, Mr. Clarke?

CLARKE: Well, all of the things that we recommended in the plan or strategy -- there's a lot of debate about whether it's a plan or a strategy or a series of options.

But all of the things we recommended back in January were those things on the table in September. They were done. They were done after September 11th. They were all done. I didn't really understand why they couldn't have been done in February.

•••

So sure, there was a plan. But it was completely ignored until days before tragedy struck. Of course Dick Cheney says that Clarke was out of the loop on counter-terrorism (which is odd, since he was their counter-terrorism coordinator) so maybe Cheney and the NSC were working on their own plan all that time, which is why they didn't want Clarke pestering them with Clinton's plan.

As for your other question, Clarke said on background that "it was decided in principle... to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda." Decided in principle yes. But never funded. So you can see how he can truthfully, passionately allege in his book that the Bush administration scaled back financing for anti-terror.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 09-22-2004 - 11:56pm




So you're saying that since he testified he was truthful, he must have been? Despite his attempts to explain them by saying he was just "highlighting the positive" or "spinning", his statements directly contradicted each other. He's saying he was truthful on those tapes, but also truthful in his book, where he says the exact opposite of what's on the tapes. They can't BOTH be true. Not sure why that's so hard to understand.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 10:13am
I dont have to re-read anything.

Clarke lied because he did not get the job that he wanted, and it was sour grapes.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 10:21am
That is why Clarke faded away so quickly.....no credibility.

He hammered the Clinton administration for not doing anywhere near enough on terrorism (recorded on tape and in newspapers during the Clinton years), and then as soon as the hearings come out, Clarke decides he is going to change his story, because he did not get the promotion he wanted.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-21-2004
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 10:30am

Did you even read the tape transcript or did you just answer? If you read it it is very easy to understand.

Donna

"Patriotism means to stand by the Country. It does not mean to stand by the President." -- Theodore Roosevelt.

Donna
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 10:35am
Hasty conclusions are much faster, huh.


Edited 9/23/2004 1:07 pm ET ET by metrochick
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 11:16am
<>

That's not what I'm saying at all. I agree that would be a ridiculous thing to say. I took issue wiith your CHARACTERIZATION of what Clarke told the commission. You said, "Clarke basically said he lied on the tape." He didn't say that, basically or otherwise. He very emphatically said he did not lie. You're saying he admitted to lying. He did no such thing.

I know that's not the crux of the issue. I'm just tired of hearing people say "by his own words!" "he discredited himself!" etc. He didn't. And people who say he did are buying into the White House smear.

I thought I pointed out pretty clearly how he does not directly contradict himself, but you don't seem at all effected by it. So I guess we should just stop here.

But since I already have the reputation for "nit-picking" things to death, here's the Unofficial Annotated Background Briefing, complete with what Richard Clarke was probably thinking (yes, now I'm psychic) as he tried his best to make the Bush administration look good (a difficult task - the man deserves a medal for his devotion to country. I should also point out that this briefing took place after he had resigned in disgust from counter-terrorism to work on cyber-terror. He came back to lend them a bi-partisan face on the issue.).:

••••••

The real briefing can be found here (athough I've read the White House only declassified the parts that make Clarke look bad.) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115085,00.html


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, in late 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.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 1:23pm


I read it, and it IS very easy to understand. Clarke told two exactly opposing stories of the Bush and Clintons administrations' terror initiatives. They can't both be true, thus one of them is a lie. Like I said, I don't know why that's so hard to understand.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 09-23-2004 - 1:38pm

>

Sheesh, how much further can you folks try to split this hair? He didn't say the words "I lied", but he did say he had a choice between telling the truth and resigning, he chose not to resign, therefore by his own statement we can only conclude that he chose NOT TO TELL THE TRUTH. To me, that says he basically lied. The question is on which occasion was he lying and on which occasion was he telling the truth. Each side will believe whatever suits their purposes, which means he has no credibility-are we supposed to base all of our conclusions on the testimony of one man who has such a credibility problem? Only if he says what we want to hear, I suppose.



I'm not affected by it because HIS STATEMENTS CONTRADICT EACH OTHER. His Clintonesque backpedaling (e.g. when I said no plan was passed, what I actually meant was that there WAS a plan, but it wasn't PASSED-ok, sounds right out of the Clinton playbook-maybe it all depends on the definition of the word "was" or something) about how they were both kinda sort of true, and that what he said didn't really mean what it sounded like it meant, well to me that even goes further to show his lack of credibility-he's not only a liar but a rather skillful one at that, if his testimony is to be believed. And some wonder why a lot of folks actually LIKE George Bush's lack of slick speaking ability-whether you agree with him or not, at least you get the sense that he actually believes what he's saying. And you're right, we should stop here, because you'll never convince me that two directly opposing statements were actually somehow in some confounded way, both true.