The CBS 60 Minutes Richard Clarke Interview

Sofia wrote:

PDid--
Do you really think it's a good excuse to say, "Well, I really couldn't protect National Security because I'd been screwing around, and I was worried about what people may say."?

Wouldnt Congress have had to give some kind of permission for Clinton to assassinate bin Laden at the time?

I really dunno, actually, just asking. I do suspect that if so, the Republicans in Congress would not have given it to him.

0 Replies

Sofia wrote:

PDid--
Do you really think it's a good excuse to say, "Well, I really couldn't protect National Security because I'd been screwing around, and I was worried about what people may say."?

Actually, thats incorrect, as well as stupid.
When any sort of action is undertaken by the US against a foreign government, not only must the president brief the congress (remember the War Powers Act?), but they must also get permission of nations through which they wish to fly, base troops, etc...(rememebr the Bsuh administration's attempts to get Turkey to let us put troops there?). The Republicans, in witch hunt mode, would likely have blasted Clinton for any further efforts. BTW, the evidence in the book (now why do I keep mentioning that thing?) is that Clinton had little difficulty approving action when plans were feasible.

0 Replies

Quote:

Wouldnt Congress have had to give some kind of permission for Clinton to assassinate bin Laden at the time?

According to Sandy Berger's testimony in the 9/11 hearings, he had permission.

0 Replies

Are you saying the Clinton administration was not concerned about being accused of Wagging the Dog?

Are you confident that none of the administration were later quoted as saying it was an issue?

0 Replies

After CBS News broke the story about the August 6th memo, Condoleezza Rice contended to Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes:

Quote:

[the] "overwhelming bulk of the evidence was that this was an attack that was likely to take place overseas."

And Deputy NSC Advisor Steve Hadley parroted:

Quote:

"All the chatter [before 9-11] was of an attack, a potential al Qaeda attack overseas."

Bullshit, as we already know.

In addition, the December 2002 report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9-11 found:

Quote:

"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:

Quote:

[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."

0 Replies

Tarantulas wrote:

The article is here, or at least the first 500 of 6,549 words total. I'm not going to purchase the article to confirm the statement

The full text of that article is available here.

Quick "find" on the text confirms: in all 6,549 words no mention of AQ. And no mention of bin Laden.

Note: this is a text that starts by observing, "The United States has found it exceedingly difficult to define its 'national interest' in the absence of Soviet power". It then continues to discuss, in full-range overview mode, "the alternative" the Republicans were proposing to the Democrats' foreign policy, in particular when it came to "setting priorities". Those are the paragraph headers.

This is not just any freelance senior fellow's text. She wrote as GWB's senior foreign policy adviser - her article is presented under the header "candidates and surrogates" - and she explicitly set out to outline what "American foreign policy in a Republican administration" should look like. As it turns out, it should be about "Russian weakness", about "Coping with rogue regimes" - more paragraph headers. No mention of Al-Qaeda, anywhere - though this is two years after the embassy bombings.

0 Replies

Now nimh, you just defeated one of the righties favourite devices, the "the evidence is right there, but you are probably too lazy to find it , or to realize I don't know what I'm talking about" trick. Very Happy

0 Replies

PDiddie wrote:

Tarantulas wrote:
I don't think the current administration can be faulted for their unfinished ideas before they even took office.

Actually they can and should, since others finished those ideas years in advance of their assuming office.

This willful ignorance reflects the general incompetence of the so-called 'grownups' in charge, and is the best evidence necessary to enact regime change of our own in Washington DC in November.

I'm not sure who the "others" are of whom you speak. Ms. Rice was nothing more than a "foreign policy adviser" to a Presidential candidate at the time the article was written. I would suppose the policy ideas changed after the President took office and the National Security Adviser was appointed. This article back in 2000 was a series of preliminary ideas.

0 Replies

Sofia wrote:

PDid--
Do you really think it's a good excuse to say, "Well, I really couldn't protect National Security because I'd been screwing around, and I was worried about what people may say."?

Who said this? Who said anything remotely like this?

Sofia wrote:

But with stinking crap like Clinton's excuse, trying to blame the whole thing on Bush is laughable.

Who's laughing?

Not me. There are thousands dead. Thousands killed in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Not a laughing matter.

0 Replies

Tarantulas wrote:

I'm not sure who the "others" are of whom you speak.

These "others", right here.

0 Replies

hobitbob wrote:

Now nimh, you just defeated one of the righties favourite devices, the "the evidence is right there, but you are probably too lazy to find it , or to realize I don't know what I'm talking about" trick.

This is really unnecessary. Let's keep it civil, please.

0 Replies

Trying to pin 911 on Bush amid the other crap IS laughable.

And trying to hold Condi Rice accountable for the job BEFORE she had it, while you let Clinton and Co. cruise through 8 years and at least three opportunities is absurd!

0 Replies

PDiddie wrote:

Tarantulas wrote:
I'm not sure who the "others" are of whom you speak.

These "others", right here.

Ah, I see.

Quote:

And there were specific warnings about hijacked planes potentially being used as terrorist weapons dating to 1994.

Intelligence reports from 1998 indicated that bin Laden had a plot involving explosive-laden aircraft in the New York and D.C. areas while a 2000 report mentioned that possible bin Laden targets included the Statue of Liberty, skyscrapers and nuclear power plants.

Are you saying that a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University was privy to CIA intelligence reports? If that's true, then the Clinton administration had more problems than we realize.

0 Replies

Sofia wrote:

Trying to pin 911 on Bush amid the other crap IS laughable.

Why shouldnt Rice - or the Bush team, period - be held accountable for apparently not prioritizing the AQ danger, at all, when outlining what their alternative on foreign policy would be? The AQ threat was hardly classified information ... they had struck before.

Wholly apart from what Clinton did or did not do on the issue, it does reconfirm that the Bush team was so preoccupied with, for example, Iraq (which was mentioned in Rice's article - three times, as was Saddam - four times), that it didnt see where the real danger was ...

and it thus also serves to make Clarke's account of how his proposals and warnings on AQ were received during those first pre-911 months - i.e., reluctantly - more credible.

(btw, damn this thread has a fast pace!)

0 Replies

Tarantulas wrote:

Are you saying that a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University was privy to CIA intelligence reports? If that's true, then the Clinton administration had more problems than we realize.

You're making a mistake here, Tarantulas.

In May 2002 and this very month, Rice claimed that nobody "could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile", etc.

Rice was very much member of a current administration in 2002 and 2004, right?

Yet PD points out that "Intelligence reports from 1998 indicated that bin Laden had a plot involving explosive-laden aircraft in the New York and D.C. areas", etc.

Thats pretty straightforward, me thinks ... the point about Rice's 2000 article was a different one.

0 Replies

Thanks for the article, nimh. I thought she was right on the money. She did cite terrorism as a main concern. Was she expected to name all the terrorist orgs? There are hundreds, and several intertwined with AQ. And, this was pre-election. It was a basic overview of US policy as planned.

I refreshed and see Tarantulas is thinking along these samelines. She wouldn't have been at the level of classified briefings yet.

0 Replies

For all the True Believers
For all the true believers:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22033&highlight=

0 Replies

Yet PD points out that "Intelligence reports from 1998 indicated that bin Laden had a plot involving explosive-laden aircraft in the New York and D.C. areas", etc.

========
Who was on-call in 1998, and why do they get a pass?

0 Replies

Richard Clarke said that the Bush administration focused on Iraq, rather than Afghanistan.

Dr. Rice said:

Quote:

"Not a single National Security Council principal at that meeting recommended to the president going after Iraq. The president thought about it. The next day he told me Iraq is to the side."

3/22/04

We know better than this.

According to the Washington Post, "[S]ix days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush signed a 2-and-a-half-page document" that "directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq."

This is corroborated by a CBS News account which reported on 9/4/02 that five hours after the 9/11 attacks, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq."

We are all familiar with his words, oft-quoted:

Quote:

"Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

Months before 9/11, we know that President Bush, fine Christian man that he is, was quoted as saying:

Quote:

"F*ck Saddam. We're taking him out."

Is there anyone who will contend this is false? That Bush was not focused on Iraq to the exclusion of al Qaeda and Osama?

In terms of resources, the Iraq decision had far-reaching effects on the efforts to hunt down al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Boston Globe reported:

Quote:

"the Bush administration is continuing to shift highly specialized intelligence officers from the hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to the Iraq crisis."

0 Replies

Sofia wrote:

Thanks for the article, nimh. I thought she was right on the money. She did cite terrorism as a main concern. Was she expected to name all the terrorist orgs? There are hundreds, and several intertwined with AQ.

This wasnt just any random terrorist organisation. It was one that had already attacked the US - remember the embassies in Eastern Africa that were attacked?

Its true, it was mostly Africans who died - but the US had been the target. There may be hundreds of terrorist organisations, but I doubt there was more than 1 that had recently undertaken a massive, bloody attack on US targets.

nimh wrote:

You're making a mistake here, Tarantulas.

oic now ... sorry bout that. Yeh, you have a formal point which i overlooked earlier.

The intell reports PD cites can be used as evidence that Rice should have known better when she made the excuses, in 2002 and just now, about how nobody could possibly have known about ... etc.

But they cant be used as evidence that Rice should have known better when she wrote her 2000 article. Bit of a mix-up there.

But then the allegation on the 2000 article isnt so much that she didnt foresee AQ terrorists kidnapping a plane and turning it into a flying bomb - its that, as "surrogate" for the Bush candidacy, she didnt seem to take AQ into account at all when previewing what a Bush government would focus on. And there was planty of reason for them, back then already, to know better than that.

0 Replies

The CBS 60 Minutes Richard Clarke Interview

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know