| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 5/24 |
| 2004/3/28-29 [Politics/Domestic/911] UID:12896 Activity:very high |
3/27 Clarke caught in yet another lie
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1106748/posts
\_ aka http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1106748/posts
\_ That's it, he is a Republican who voted for Gore? Is that
the best you guys can do??? What "other lie" have you caught
him in. The stench of Republican desperation is becoming pronounced.
\_ Compare his interview from 2001 and his testimony
before the 9/11 commission.
\_ The Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20071-2004Mar24?language=printer
says that Clarke claimed under oath that he voted Rep. in 200.
The MSNBC article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4608698
quotes him as saying he voted for Gore. He's lying in one of
those, obviously.
\_ I'm not even sure why we bother to point out this guy is lying
anymore it's so obvious. I don't know if he's being paid by
Democrats or has some personal vendetta against Bush, but he'll be
coming up on perjury charges real quick here I expect.
\_ I didn't realize Scott McClellan had a csua account.
\_ Dude. He registered Republican. He voted for McCain, a Republican.
Gore was not listed as a choice on Republican primary ticket. For
the Presidential election he voted for Gore. Both elections
\_ I'm not even sure why we bother to point out this guy is lying anymore
it's so obvious. I don't know if he's being paid by Democrates or has
some personal vendetta against Bush, but he'll be coming up on perjury
charges real quick here I expect.
happened in 2000. Is it really that hard for you guys to think ?
\_ Please don't bring facts into the discussion! |
| 5/24 |
|
| 209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1106748/posts PHPSESSID5e8ac4cb58ca2c826edb0129ebeebc88 Ahmed Shah Masood was aware of 9/11 attacks plan: CNN Friday November 07, 2003 1515 PST ATLANTA, November 08 Online: Slain Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Masood had some reports of 9/11 attacks and he wanted to inform the west about it, a US TV channel, CNN reported. According to the Pentagons Defence Intelligence Agency, assassinated Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Masood had limited knowledge of a planned attack against the United States and was warning the West of the threat. Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud was slain on September 9, 2001 by hiding a bomb in video camera. Two Tunisian al-Qaeda members impersonated as journalists killed Masood in a suicide attack. A Pentagon report got from the US national security archives said that Ahmed Shah Masood had got some information about the 9/11 attack through secret reports and he wanted to inform the US about it. The heavily edited DIA document does not specify what it meant by limited knowledge, and the portion that follows the reference is blacked out. It continues by referring to a speech Massoud gave to the European Parliament in April 2001 in which the cable says he warned the US government about bin Laden. Massoud was on a diplomatic trip to Europe seeking financial support for his cause from the EU and individual countries. The DIA report points out that Massoud was not a military threat to al Qaeda, even though his forces were fighting the Taliban for control of Afghanistan. Our investigators did look into the matter during their recent travels to Afghanistan and spoke to persons who might have some knowledge about the subject, said a spokesman for the independent commission set up by Congress to investigate the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The cable says the two fake journalists, who were killed in the bomb blast, were al Qaeda operatives. According to an article in Voice of Jihad, an online magazine the Middle East Media Research Institute says is associated with al Qaeda, the terrorist group claimed responsibility for Massouds assassination. The story appeared last week in a translated version of the magazine on the Web site of the Washington-based nonprofit independent institute, which provides translations of Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew media reports and analyses of trends in the region. The article quoted an interview with a bin Laden bodyguard after word reached bin Ladens camp of Massouds death: I remember asking him, What happened? And he replied by saying that Sheikh Osama bin Laden asked the brothers: Who will take it upon himself to deal with Ahmad Shah Massoud for me, because he harmed Allah and his sons? A few brothers volunteered to assassinate Massoud and be rewarded by Allah, and you heard the good news. Several Tunisian men were convicted in Belgium in September of supplying false documents that Massouds assassins used to help them travel to Afghanistan. Last time I had to declare my party loyalty, it was to vote in the Virginia primary for president of the United States in the year 2000. RCP: Clarkes statement before the 9/11 Commission was designed to leave the impression that he voted Republican in the 2000 Presidential race in other words for George Bush, thereby innoculating himself against charges of partisanship. Its now clear this was a clever semantic ploy intended to mislead the public - and the Commissioners as well. Sunday on Meet the Press : Russert: Did you vote for George Bush in 2000? Wednesday Before the 9/11 Commission: Clarke: Let me talk about partisanship here, since you raise it. Ive been accused of being a member of John Kerrys campaign team several times this week, including by the White House. Last time I had to declare my party loyalty, it was to vote in the Virginia primary for president of the United States in the year 2000. RCP: Clarkes statement before the 9/11 Commission was designed to leave the impression that he voted Republican in the 2000 Presidential race in other words for George Bush, thereby innoculating himself against charges of partisanship. Its now clear this was a clever semantic ploy intended to mislead the public - and the Commissioners as well. Hes Richard Clarke taken advantage of the circumstances this week to promote himself and his book. I have had some dealings with him over the years, but judging based on what Ive seen, I dont hold him in high regard. From 1995 to 1999 I was an analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency DIA and monitored events in Afghanistan. Part of my focus involved researching allegations made against Ahmed Shah Massoud concerning purported human rights violations and involvement in the narcotics trade. I was never able to find any reliable information that proved either charge. Coll found this to be a convenient excuse to dismiss broader cooperation with Mr. Massoud because of their own reluctance to become more involved in Afghanistan. In October 1998, I traveled to Afghanistan on my own time, but with DIA approval, and met with Mr. Contrary to conventional wisdom in Washington, his resistance remained a capable, though undersupplied, force and a viable option for countering al Qaeda and the Taliban threat. By the time I returned home, senior officials at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the CIA were aware of my trip. On the day I was to brief the wider intelligence community about my findings, the DIA suspended my security clearance and placed me on administrative leave. Immediately after leaving the DIA, I traveled to Afghanistan again. I was in the Panjshir Valley in October 1999, at the same time as the team of CIA operators, JAWBREAKER-5. While those men - presumably under orders from Washington - remained holed up in their guesthouse, I was interviewing al Qaeda POWs who had been captured by Mr. Those interviews confirmed that a vital part of disrupting the al Qaeda organization would involve toppling the sanctuary the Taliban regime provided. Yet most American officials chose to remain ignorant of that and other facts about Afghanistan. I dont agree with the Clarke is lying rhetoric many Pubbies are adopting. His case against Dubya is pure spin , and we should be portraying it that way. Eg Clarke claims that the Bush administration did nothing about terrorism before 9-11, but by his own admissions, in sworn testimony, this doing nothing was carrying forward the Clinton policy toward al-Qaeda, while considering and adopting a much more aggressive policy over a space of eight months. The resulting policy was similar - excepting more ambitious and comprehensive - to the suggestions Clarke had submitted to the Clinton administration in 98, and which it had not acted on in two years. IOW Clarkes bitch is that Bush did nothing, and didnt do it fast enough ! I think what the rats, Kerry included, are trying to do is go after people that only read the NYT, LAT, Daily News, Newsday and other liberal Gannett type newspapers that wont report what he had said and wrote in the recent past, compared to what he most recently testified to and wrote in his flippin book. He also said his book was written not for $, but to expose the truth. IMHO, Clarkes so full of $hit, the white of his eyes are turning brown. He disassociates himself from all of the mistakes, even though he was the wonk on counter-terrorism, but then he takes it upon himself to apologize on behalf of the country. And, then there was some very weird dialogue about his staying on with an administration that he blamed for 9-11 so that his cyber-terror manuscript would be submitted to the president-to the benefit of his own self interests. Yet we are to believe that the timing of the release of his book was free of any self interest. After reading all the responses to this thread and your posting above. The thought of this guy holding back information or even holding back a hunch to show/punish the administration that they needed him more than they thought they did is something only the truly evil are capable of doing. If this turns out to be true I hope this man suffers a LONG PAINFUL DEATH! Hell holds a speacial place for people such as these and they suf... |
| www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1106748/posts PHPSESSID5e8ac4cb58ca2c826edb0129ebeebc88 Ahmed Shah Masood was aware of 9/11 attacks plan: CNN Friday November 07, 2003 1515 PST ATLANTA, November 08 Online: Slain Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Masood had some reports of 9/11 attacks and he wanted to inform the west about it, a US TV channel, CNN reported. According to the Pentagons Defence Intelligence Agency, assassinated Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Masood had limited knowledge of a planned attack against the United States and was warning the West of the threat. Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud was slain on September 9, 2001 by hiding a bomb in video camera. Two Tunisian al-Qaeda members impersonated as journalists killed Masood in a suicide attack. A Pentagon report got from the US national security archives said that Ahmed Shah Masood had got some information about the 9/11 attack through secret reports and he wanted to inform the US about it. The heavily edited DIA document does not specify what it meant by limited knowledge, and the portion that follows the reference is blacked out. It continues by referring to a speech Massoud gave to the European Parliament in April 2001 in which the cable says he warned the US government about bin Laden. Massoud was on a diplomatic trip to Europe seeking financial support for his cause from the EU and individual countries. The DIA report points out that Massoud was not a military threat to al Qaeda, even though his forces were fighting the Taliban for control of Afghanistan. Our investigators did look into the matter during their recent travels to Afghanistan and spoke to persons who might have some knowledge about the subject, said a spokesman for the independent commission set up by Congress to investigate the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The cable says the two fake journalists, who were killed in the bomb blast, were al Qaeda operatives. According to an article in Voice of Jihad, an online magazine the Middle East Media Research Institute says is associated with al Qaeda, the terrorist group claimed responsibility for Massouds assassination. The story appeared last week in a translated version of the magazine on the Web site of the Washington-based nonprofit independent institute, which provides translations of Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew media reports and analyses of trends in the region. The article quoted an interview with a bin Laden bodyguard after word reached bin Ladens camp of Massouds death: I remember asking him, What happened? And he replied by saying that Sheikh Osama bin Laden asked the brothers: Who will take it upon himself to deal with Ahmad Shah Massoud for me, because he harmed Allah and his sons? A few brothers volunteered to assassinate Massoud and be rewarded by Allah, and you heard the good news. Several Tunisian men were convicted in Belgium in September of supplying false documents that Massouds assassins used to help them travel to Afghanistan. Last time I had to declare my party loyalty, it was to vote in the Virginia primary for president of the United States in the year 2000. RCP: Clarkes statement before the 9/11 Commission was designed to leave the impression that he voted Republican in the 2000 Presidential race in other words for George Bush, thereby innoculating himself against charges of partisanship. Its now clear this was a clever semantic ploy intended to mislead the public - and the Commissioners as well. Sunday on Meet the Press : Russert: Did you vote for George Bush in 2000? Wednesday Before the 9/11 Commission: Clarke: Let me talk about partisanship here, since you raise it. Ive been accused of being a member of John Kerrys campaign team several times this week, including by the White House. Last time I had to declare my party loyalty, it was to vote in the Virginia primary for president of the United States in the year 2000. RCP: Clarkes statement before the 9/11 Commission was designed to leave the impression that he voted Republican in the 2000 Presidential race in other words for George Bush, thereby innoculating himself against charges of partisanship. Its now clear this was a clever semantic ploy intended to mislead the public - and the Commissioners as well. Hes Richard Clarke taken advantage of the circumstances this week to promote himself and his book. I have had some dealings with him over the years, but judging based on what Ive seen, I dont hold him in high regard. From 1995 to 1999 I was an analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency DIA and monitored events in Afghanistan. Part of my focus involved researching allegations made against Ahmed Shah Massoud concerning purported human rights violations and involvement in the narcotics trade. I was never able to find any reliable information that proved either charge. Coll found this to be a convenient excuse to dismiss broader cooperation with Mr. Massoud because of their own reluctance to become more involved in Afghanistan. In October 1998, I traveled to Afghanistan on my own time, but with DIA approval, and met with Mr. Contrary to conventional wisdom in Washington, his resistance remained a capable, though undersupplied, force and a viable option for countering al Qaeda and the Taliban threat. By the time I returned home, senior officials at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the CIA were aware of my trip. On the day I was to brief the wider intelligence community about my findings, the DIA suspended my security clearance and placed me on administrative leave. Immediately after leaving the DIA, I traveled to Afghanistan again. I was in the Panjshir Valley in October 1999, at the same time as the team of CIA operators, JAWBREAKER-5. While those men - presumably under orders from Washington - remained holed up in their guesthouse, I was interviewing al Qaeda POWs who had been captured by Mr. Those interviews confirmed that a vital part of disrupting the al Qaeda organization would involve toppling the sanctuary the Taliban regime provided. Yet most American officials chose to remain ignorant of that and other facts about Afghanistan. I dont agree with the Clarke is lying rhetoric many Pubbies are adopting. His case against Dubya is pure spin , and we should be portraying it that way. Eg Clarke claims that the Bush administration did nothing about terrorism before 9-11, but by his own admissions, in sworn testimony, this doing nothing was carrying forward the Clinton policy toward al-Qaeda, while considering and adopting a much more aggressive policy over a space of eight months. The resulting policy was similar - excepting more ambitious and comprehensive - to the suggestions Clarke had submitted to the Clinton administration in 98, and which it had not acted on in two years. IOW Clarkes bitch is that Bush did nothing, and didnt do it fast enough ! I think what the rats, Kerry included, are trying to do is go after people that only read the NYT, LAT, Daily News, Newsday and other liberal Gannett type newspapers that wont report what he had said and wrote in the recent past, compared to what he most recently testified to and wrote in his flippin book. He also said his book was written not for $, but to expose the truth. IMHO, Clarkes so full of $hit, the white of his eyes are turning brown. He disassociates himself from all of the mistakes, even though he was the wonk on counter-terrorism, but then he takes it upon himself to apologize on behalf of the country. And, then there was some very weird dialogue about his staying on with an administration that he blamed for 9-11 so that his cyber-terror manuscript would be submitted to the president-to the benefit of his own self interests. Yet we are to believe that the timing of the release of his book was free of any self interest. After reading all the responses to this thread and your posting above. The thought of this guy holding back information or even holding back a hunch to show/punish the administration that they needed him more than they thought they did is something only the truly evil are capable of doing. If this turns out to be true I hope this man suffers a LONG PAINFUL DEATH! Hell holds a speacial place for people such as these and they suf... |
| www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20071-2004Mar24?language=printer Decapitating one person - even bin Laden in this context - I do not believe we would have stopped this plot. Under questioning by Republican members of the commission, Clarke, who said he voted Republican in 2000, rebutted charges by the White House that he was engaged in a partisan political attack. He also dismissed reports that he was seeking a high-level post in a future Democratic administration should Sen. Kerry of Massachusetts win the November election against President Bush. I will not accept any position in a Kerry administration, should there be one, Clarke said, stressing that he was speaking on the record, under oath. Asked about his books strong criticism of the Bush administration compared to a greater focus on shortcomings of the Clinton administration during his 15 hours of previous testimony to the Sept. I hate to say it but I didnt think the FBI would know whether there was anything going on in the United States by al Qaeda, Clarke said. He said neither he nor senior FBI officials were provided with information that two known al Qaeda members, who eventually participated in the attacks, had entered the United States. Rice has refused to testify in open session before the commission, citing the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. Instead, the Bush administration sent Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Rices replacement, citing his own expertise on national security matters. He said there had been stunning continuity between the Bush administrations initial approach to al Qaeda and the policies of the Clinton administration and that the new government vigorously pursued policies inherited from Clinton while developing its own response to al Qaeda. Echoing remarks he had made in interviews with the commission staff, Armitage said the Bush administrations early policy toward al Qaeda was headed in the right direction, although he conceded that deliberations were slow. Earlier, Tenet told the commission that intelligence officials appreciated the danger of al Qaeda and had a growing sense of urgency in the summer of 2001 about an impending disaster, but they thought it would come overseas, not in the United States. That, rather than the failure to kill bin Laden, was the more serious systemic failure. The testimony today followed the presentation of a report by the committee staff that described a rising sense of frustration in the United States intelligence community about the seeming inability of policy makers to decide on, and execute, decisive action to disrupt bin Ladens al Qaeda operation. Attempts to find, capture or kill bin Laden were undertaken after 1998 under intelligence directives signed by then-President Clinton and continued after President Bush took office in 2001, Tenet told the commission. The report by the committee staff said there was some disagreement during the Clinton period as to whether the CIA had authority to kill the al Qaeda network leader. While the Clinton officials told the commission that the president wanted bin Laden dead, every CIA official interviewed on this topic by the commission, including Tenet, emphasized capturing bin Laden and the only acceptable context for killing bin Laden was a credible capture operation. One former chief of the agencys bin Laden unit told the commission, We always talked about how much easier it would have been to kill him. Sandy Berger, who served as Bill Clintons national security adviser, dismissed those concerns and told the commission today that the CIA had the authorization to kill bin Laden. If there was any confusion down the ranks, it was never communicated to me nor to the president, and if any additional authority had been requested I am convinced it would have been given immediately, Berger said. The commissions report found, however, that confusion continued as the summer of 2001 approached, to the point that two veteran counterterrorism agents were so worried about an impending disaster that they considered resigning and going public with their concerns. The disaster they expected was overseas, not domestic, however, Tenet testified. The predominant focus and thread of the reporting took us overseas, he said. While the agency did not discount the possibly of an attack on the homeland, he said, the data just didnt exist with any specificity to take you there. The government just did not have the kind of specificity we needed . We didnt recruit the right people or technically collect the data, notwithstanding enormous effort to do so. We didnt integrate all the data we had properly, and probably we had a lot of data that we didnt know about that, if everybody had known about, maybe we would have had a chance, Tenet said. He also pointed to the wall that was in place between the criminal side and the intelligence side of law enforcement domestically and internationally as an impediment. Even people in the Criminal Division and the Intelligence Divisions of the FBI couldnt talk to each other, let alone talk to us or us talk to them, Tenet explained. He said the Patriot Act, passed after 9/11, was absolutely essential to breaking down those walls. The country was not systemically protected because even in racing through all these threats, sometimes exhaustively - we exhausted ourselves - there was not a system in place to say, Youve got to go back and do this and this and this. But the moral of the story is, if you take in those measures systemically over the course of time and closed seams, you might have had a better chance of succeeding stopping, deterring or disrupting. While there has been extended criticism of the CIA in the past for failing to prevent or provide warning of the 9/11 attacks, Tenet today was repeatedly praised for having pushed the growing danger from terrorism and al Qaeda in the years and even months before they took place. In July 2001, amid reports the al Qaeda was planning something dramatic, Tenet said the CIA worked with a network of foreign intelligence services to arrest and detain suspected terrorists in Bahrain, Yemen and Turkey. We cited plots in the Arabian Peninsula and Europe, Tenet told the panel, and ultimately in August 2001 we warned about bin Ladens desire to conduct terrorist attacks on the United States homeland. Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, asked about the lack of coordination among senior Bush administration officials about the threat. She drew a comparison with the Clinton senior-level meetings that took place almost daily in late 1999 to prepare for terrorist threats surrounding the millennium celebrations. Gorelick said that the commission had been told that Bushs secretary of transportation did not know about the threats and senior officials did not know what data the FBI had in its files. Tenet said the Bush administration had a different manner of communication in the pre-9/11 period when dealing with terrorism. Under Bush he was talking to the president, the vice present and national security adviser every day, he said. Tenet said it took a galvanizing force to mobilize both the administration and the American public to take the steps needed to meet the terrorist threat. He noted that even today the agency is still five years away from having the human intelligence capabilities to have access to the sanctuary areas where terrorist groups operate. He also said the commission had to establish benchmarks for the future, saying he worried that other attacks will be coming while memories of the 9/11 attack fade. |
| www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4608698 In July 2002 in front of the congressional joint inquiry on the September the 11th 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. Clarke to dissemble in front of the media, in front of the press, but if he lied under oath to the United States Congress, its a far, far more serious matter. Clarkes previous testimony declassified so as to permit an examination of Mr. Loyalty to any administration will be no defense if it is found that he has lied before Congress. CLARKE: Well, I think that this is part of a general pattern of the White House and the Republican National Committee and the presidents re-election committee distributing talking points like that to senators and to press and to media trying to make me the issue and trying to engage in character assassination. RUSSERT: Is there any inconsistency between your sworn testimony before the September 11 Commission last week and two years ago before the congressional committee? And I would welcome it being declassified, but not just a little line here or there. RUSSERT: You would request this morning that it all be declassified? Rices testimony before the 9-11 Commission declassified, and I want the thing that the 9-11 Commission talked about in its staff report this week declassified, because theres been an issue about whether or not a strategy or a plan or something useful was given to Dr. Rice has characterized this as not a plan, not a strategy, not a series of decisions which could be made right away, but warmed-over Clinton material. Lets declassify that memo I sent on January 25th and lets declassify the national security directive that Dr. Rices committee approved nine months later on September 4th, and lets see if theres any difference between those two, because there isnt. And what well see when we declassify what they were given on January 25th and what they finally agreed to on September 4th, is that theyre basically the same thing and they wasted months when we could have had some action. Clarke, you would urge Congress, the intelligence committees, to declassify your sworn testimony before the congressional inquiry two years ago as well as your testimony before the September 11th Commission? Rices testimony before the 9-11 Commission because the victims families have no idea what Dr. There werent in those closed hearings where she testified before the 9-11 Commission. So lets take her testimony before the 9-11 Commission and make it part of the package of what gets declassified along with the national security decision directive of September 4 and along with my memo of January 25. The White House is selectively now finding my e-mails, which I would have assumed were covered by some privacy regulations, and selectively leaking them to the press. Lets take all of my e-mails and all of the memos that Ive sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20 to September 11 and lets declassify all of it. RUSSERT: As you know, the White House has been rather aggressive trying to undercut your credibility. I was asked by Condi Rice, by the White House press secretary, by the White House chief of staff, to give a press background. Because Time magazine had come out-and this was almost a year after September 11. Time magazine had come out with a cover story, after extensive research, and the cover story was devastating. The cover story of Time magazine was that the White House had been given a plan by me on January 25 and had taken the entire nine months to get around to looking at it, at the principals level, that there had been over 100 meetings of Dr. Rices committee on subjects involving Iraq, Star Wars, China, but only one on terrorism and that one was on September 4. Now, the White House naturally wanted someone to say that things had been going on during that summer. And I was told, But you can say that it was approved by the deputies. I thought Pat Buchanan, a conservative Republican, former White House aide, put it pretty well last night when he was asked the same question. He said, When youre in the White House, you may disagree with policy. But when youre asked to defend that policy, you defend it, if youre a special assistant to the president, as Pat Buchanan was and as I was. I could have done what I was asked to do and defend them when they were being criticized for not having done enough before September 11 or I could have resigned. Because I believed it was very, very important for the United States to develop a plan to secure its cyberspace from terrorism. Here it is: The National Plan to Secure Cyberspace, which the president thanked me for effusively. I wouldnt have been able to do this-important document if I had quit on the date that you suggest. They had a hundred meetings before they got around to having one on terrorism. RUSSERT: But if you were willing to go forward, and, as you say, spin on behalf of the president, then why shouldnt people now think that this book is also spin? People on the taxpayers rolls, dozens of people, are engaged in the campaign to destroy me, personally and professionally, because I had the temerity to suggest that the American people should consider whether or not the president had done a good job on the war on terrorism. I think, before 9/11, he himself said-if you look at what he said to Bob Woodward, he himself said before 9/11, This was not an urgent issue for me. He acknowledged bin Laden was not the focus of him or his national security team. After 9/11-I say by going into Iraq, he has really hurt the war on terrorism. Now, because I say that, the administration doesnt want to talk on the merits of that. They dont want to talk about the effect on the war on terrorism of our invasion of Iraq. And you know, Tim, what I would like to do, beginning today, its been going on for a week now. What I would like to do beginning today, is lets raise the level of discourse. People have been saying all week that, you know, I must have a grudge against Condi Rice. I want it to be about the issues, about the war in Iraq and its affect on the war on terror. RUSSERT: You did tell Time magazine that the review that the administration did moved as fast as could be expected. CLARKE: I said it was the normal process for the consideration of issues. Every day George Tenet was going in to see the president in the Oval Office. Because George Tenet, the director of Central Intelligence, now gives the president his daily briefing. And almost every day the president was hearing from George Tenet that theres an impending al-Qaeda attack. As far back as February, George Tenet testified before the Congress that al-Qaeda was the major national security threat. And yet, they have 100 meetings before they get around to dealing with it. RUSSERT: On a scale of one to 10, how would you rate President Bushs performance on the war on terror prior to September 11? CLARKE: Well, there wasnt any personal performance by the president prior to September 11. Now, the only thing that I was ever able to detect that he did on the war on terrorism was after Tenet had been briefing him day after day after day after day about an al-Qaeda threat, the president said, in May, Well, lets, you know, get a strategy. Thats the only thing I ever heard that he got involved in personally. And I said, Well, you know the strategy was what I sent you on January 25, and its been stuck in these low-level committees. And, interestingly enough, the president never said after that May conversation, Wheres the strategy? And, again, if you go back to what the president himself says to Bob Woodward, he said, I knew there was a strategy in the works. You know, basically, it wasnt an urgent issue for them before September 11. CLARKE: Well, I think they deserve a failing grade for what they did before because, frankly, they didnt do-they never got around to doing anything. They held interim meetings, but they never actually decided anything before September 11. RUSSERT: Now, when you resigned, you sent a very polite letter to the president: Its been an enormous priv... |