The CBS 60 Minutes Richard Clarke Interview

Why so secretive?

On April 27, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case known as Cheney vs. U.S. District Court, involving the secrecy of the vice president's task force that brought together government officials with energy industry representatives to craft the nation's energy policy in 2001. Cheney has fought the release of his task force-related documents all the way to the high court. (Follow the trail of legal briefs here.) But why so secretive? Is this just part of an administration secrecy fetish, or is there something really damaging in those papers? Say, revelations about a link between military plans in Iraq and the task force's mission of increasing sources of foreign oil for the United States?

For a glimpse of what might be in those sealed energy task force documents, let's revisit Jane Mayer's New Yorker piece on Cheney from last monthNY Link. This explosive excerpt didn't get too much press elsewhere, but it could, in the end, be what this task force legal drama is all about. "For months there has been a debate in Washington about when the Bush Administration decided to go to war against Saddam. In Ron Suskind's recent book 'The Price of Loyalty,' former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill charges that Cheney agitated for U.S. intervention well before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Additional evidence that Cheney played an early planning role is contained in a previously undisclosed National Security Council document, dated February 3, 2001. The top-secret document, written by a high-level N.S.C. official, concerned Cheney's newly formed Energy Task Force. It directed the N.S.C. staff to coöperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the 'melding' of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: 'the review of operational policies towards rogue states,' such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'"

"A source who worked at the N.S.C. at the time doubted that there were links between Cheney's Energy Task Force and the overthrow of Saddam. But Mark Medish, who served as senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the N.S.C. during the Clinton Administration, told me that he regards the document as potentially 'huge.' He said, 'People think Cheney's Energy Task Force has been secretive about domestic issues,' referring to the fact that the Vice-President has been unwilling to reveal information about private task-force meetings that took place in 2001, when information was being gathered to help develop President Bush's energy policy. 'But if this little group was discussing geostrategic plans for oil, it puts the issue of war in the context of the captains of the oil industry sitting down with Cheney and laying grand, global plans.'"

"Something strange is going on, and Dave smells a cover up. CNN is now saying the White House never called them. But why would CNN say the White House HAD called if the White House never did? Hmmm. And Dave reveals that our source, a very good source, confirms the White House DID call the CNN.

and on the David Letterman child snoozing as Bush speaks item...

Quote:

"Something strange is going on, and Dave smells a cover up. CNN is now saying the White House never called them. But why would CNN say the White House HAD called if the White House never did? Hmmm. And Dave reveals that our source, a very good source, confirms the White House DID call the CNN.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html/index.html#cnn

Clarke's Lesson for the Media

By STAN SAGER

April 4, 2004 -- RICHARD Clarke is sorry. Any American who read a newspaper or watched TV after the former White House anti-terrorism chief testified before the 9/11 commission knows that.

But just as it fell to Clarke to make unauthorized amends to those supposedly wronged by the Bush administration, it now falls to another innocent to apologize to the American public: We, your media, failed you. Those entrusted with informing you failed you - we tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed.

The media almost uniformly let the public know about Clarke's apology, and about his belief that the war in Iraq has been a distraction from the War on Terror. But there was almost complete silence when it came to his other confession.

Under hostile questioning, Clarke admitted that nothing he said or suggested while he was at the White House could even conceivably have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

The press corps top priority, it seems, was getting out word that Clarke implicitly blames President Bush for 9/11. But somehow his confession that Bush would have had virtually no way of preventing 9/11 was not only not urgent - it wasn't even important enough for most media outlets to mention.

Let's go to the tape - paying particular attention to the local media market in New York City, the site of the most deadly terrorist attack in America's history.

The Post reviewed the evening news broadcasts from New York City's six major local stations (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, UPN, WB) and found that only one even mentioned Clarke's confession: ABC, at the tail end of its report.

Further, the Daily News, Newsday and the New York Times all failed to mention Clarke's confession in their stories the day after he testified. (Even The Post consigned mention of Clarke's statement to an editorial.)

The national networks fared a bit better, according to reports by the Media Research Center - but only a bit.

NBC's David Gregory, to his credit, mentioned Clarke's doubts that 9/11 could have been stopped right up top of his March 24 newscast.

The rest of the pack didn't fare so well.

The only other mention of Clarke's admission that the Media Research Center found was buried on the CBS Evening News. Anchor John Roberts started things off by characterizing Clarke's testimony as "electrifying" and saying it "captivated all who heard it." Then it was reporter Jim Stewart's turn. Stewart "reported" that Clarke's testimony had "knocked the White House on its heels," praised Clarke's "many credentials" and showcased a clip of Clarke insisting on his partisan neutrality.

Then came the clincher: "[Clarke] ended his testimony on a note of stark reality," Stewart said. "Even if the Bush administration had acted immediately on all of his recommendations, Clarke believes the plan and the men were in place, and 9/11 would have happened anyway."

Stark reality, indeed.

But does it matter? What's the point of rehashing history?

This inquiry isn't about laying blame or pointing fingers. It's simply about finding out what went wrong.

While those who work in the media have long known that the profession tilts leftward, perhaps we have not taken the threat seriously enough. Sure, there were warning signs, but we could hardly have expected the massive failure of objectivity that occurred on 3/24.

And for that, an apology is due.

Forum: Clashing with Clarke in class

The country is in an uproar over former White House terrorism expert Richard Clarke's recent contentions, which will continue to be debated.

Let me give some insight on my own very recent (February 2004) experience with Mr. Clarke, who teaches a class at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He teaches this class with Rand Beers, a former government official with National Security Council experience who now works on the Democratic presidential campaign.

As a national security fellow at the Kennedy School, I attended one of Messrs. Beers' and Clarke's classes to discuss U.S. experiences in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti and Kosovo. I was involved in the planning or execution of each of these military operations and wrote my master's thesis on U.S. Somalia policy while attending the Naval Postgraduate School in 1994-95.

I requested permission to sit in on the class, which Mr. Clarke cheerfully granted and told me to "pipe up" if I had anything to say, which I quickly did when I questioned his theory there were three major policy decisions during Somalia.

While we were debating U.N. actions in Somalia, Mr. Clarke incorrectly stated the U.S. military made a unilateral decision to pull forces out of Somalia. The defense secretary and the president decide deployment and redeployment of combat forces, not the military. So I questioned his statement to the contrary. I specifically asked him to clarify his statement.

He backed his contention, stating the military made the decision. He also said our participation in the U.N. mission in Macedonia proved how smooth U.N. operations could be. I reminded him of the soldiers taken prisoner by Serb forces and the ensuing crisis, but he ignored my comment.

After class, I asked him to explain who in the military ordered redeployment of forces from Somalia without permission of the president. I asked him specifically, "Who signed the redeployment order for those forces to leave Somalia?"

He finally clarified by saying "the secretary of defense." It seems Mr. Clarke was actually referring to the desire of the U.S. military leaders to leave Somalia rather than their ordering it without administration knowledge. Why is this important?

Because he purposely misled the class into believing the U.S. military, not the administration controlling the military, made the decision to leave Somalia at a critical time in the mission. When given a chance to correct the record, he chose not to do so. This was well before I knew Mr. Clarke had a book coming out or that he would have such a role in the current debate.

The CBS "60 Minutes" crew filmed the class and our discussion after the class. They should have verified his comments on Somalia and then investigated further to determine if he had a habit of obfuscating facts. Their investigation would have confirmed that, in at least this instance, Mr. Clarke chose to mislead.

I do not know why Mr. Clarke found it necessary to mislead his class or why he felt Bush administration pressure to make absolutely certain Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks was a request for him to lie.

The bottom line is Mr. Clarke obfuscated the truth in my presence for some unknown reason. After this experience with him, I cannot trust his judgment. The timing of his book release, his prior silence on the topic and his close relationship with campaign advisers, coupled with my personal experience, cause me to question his credibility on this subject and I now suspect it is for political and/or personal gain.

As September 11 commission member and former Navy Secretary John Lehman has noted, it is truly unfortunate for the country that, despite Mr. Clarke's personal knowledge and experience, he now lacks credibility. I am sorry to say I agree with that assessment.

CHUCK HARRISON

The writer is a national security fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Clarke Hasn't Apologized for Rwandan Genocide?

A former intelligence official that worked in the U.S. government during the Clinton years tells NewsMax that though the Rwandan genocide of the '90s was the subject of headlines blazing the word "genocide" throughout the world, U.S. officials were not allowed to use the "G" word.

The source told us that it was Richard Clarke's office at the National Security Council who decided in October of 1993 not to back up the Rwanda peace plan with adequate UN troops.

Then, in the spring of 1994, Clarke - Special Assistant to the President for Global Issues and Multilateral Affairs from 1993 to 1997 -- and Madeline Albright decided to allow the bloodshed to continue because of growing Congressional criticism on peacekeeping policy.

"They decided to hang the Rwandans out to dry because they feared losing points at home if they expanded peacekeeping further or more U.S. troops died," our source told us.

"Later, when the French tried to send troops after fighting broke out, Albright again tried to block sending in troops."

Though Albright later claimed that the administration did not understand how bad the situation was and that it happened too fast to react to, our source said the Clinton administration had warnings about the genocide in February of 1994.

Also, the Rwandan killings occurred over a 100-day period.

It was Clarke who was coordinating Clinton peacekeeping policy in late 1993 and throughout 1994. And Clarke was responsible for formulating the U.S. response, our source said.

"Their strategy at the time was to fall back on their flawed peacekeeping policy until after the November 1994 elections."

And in this passage from her book "A Problem from Hell," Samantha Power writes, "At the NSC the person who managed Rwanda policy was ... Richard Clarke, who oversaw peacekeeping policy ... Donald Steinberg managed the Africa portfolio at the NSC and tried to look out for the dying Rwandans, but he was not an experienced in-fighter, and, colleagues say, he 'never won a single argument' with Clarke."

We're not holding our breath waiting for Clarke to say he's sorry for failing the Rwandans.

After months spent trying to obtain more information about the classified Halliburton deals, Representative Waxman's staff discovered that the original oil-well-fire contract entrusted Halliburton with a full restoration of the Iraqi oil industry. "We thought it was supposed to be a short-term, small contract, but now it turns out Halliburton is restoring the entire oil infrastructure in Iraq," Waxman said. The Defense Department's only public acknowledgments of this wide-ranging deal had been two press releases announcing that it had asked Halliburton to prepare to help put out oil-well fires.

The most recent budget request provided by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq mentions the building of a new oil refinery and the drilling of new wells. "They said originally they were just going to bring it up to prewar levels. Now they're getting money to dramatically improve it," Waxman complained. Who is going to own these upgrades, after the United States government has finished paying Halliburton to build them? "Who knows?" Waxman said. "Nobody is saying."

So far, other than the irregularities at Halliburton, there has been no evidence of large-scale corruption in the rebuilding of Iraq. But a number of friends of the Administration have landed important positions, and others have obtained large contracts.

"I'm appalled that the war is being used by people close to the Bush Administration to make money for themselves," Waxman said. "At a time when we're asking young men and women to make perhaps the ultimate sacrifice, it's just unseemly." Many of those involved, however, see themselves as part of a democratic vanguard. Jack Kemp's spokesman, P. J. Johnson, told me, "We're doing good by doing well."

Defenders of Halliburton deny that it has been politically favored, arguing that very few other companies could have handled these complex jobs. As Cheney said last September on "Meet the Press,""Halliburton is a unique kind of company. There are very few companies out there that have the combination of very large engineering construction capability and significant oil-field services."

... the most important issue of our generation, global Islamic terrorism ...

A Job Well Done (Halliburton). Then-Defense Secretary Cheney wasn't the one who awarded the contract; career Pentagon officials did. This is undisputed.

Why? They needed a company that could rebuild things fast, in a war zone, on an emergency basis. Through competitive bidding, they picked the company with just that expertise.

By the way, Halliburton worked under the same basic deal in the Balkans under President Clinton. Was that also cronyism?

From NewsMax...

Quote:

Clarke Hasn't Apologized for Rwandan Genocide?

We're not holding our breath waiting for Clarke to say he's sorry for failing the Rwandans.

Tarantulas wrote:

... the most important issue of our generation, global Islamic terrorism ...

Hear, hear.

There was bi-partisan support in the USA to do nothing. Bob Dole, Minority Leader of the Republican Party in the U. S. Senate, said that we had no "national interest" in being in Rwanda and opposed contributing forces to the U.N.

Should we stop trying to change the subject and pull a well-you-did-something-bad-too, when confronted with concrete criticisms and allegations concerning what, after all, was the single largest attack on America in the past decades?

Richard A. Clarke, a Liar