The CBS 60 Minutes Richard Clarke Interview

CBS News Poll. March 30-April 1, 2004.

"Was the Bush Administration paying enough or not enough attention to terrorism before September 11, 2001?"

Enough 17%
Not Enough 72%

"Was the Clinton Administration paying enough or not enough attention to terrorism before they left office?"

Enough 16%
Not Enough 71%

"Do you think the Bush Administration did all it could to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or could they have done more?"

Did All It Could 23%
Could Have Done More 67%

"Do you think the Clinton Administration did all it could before they left office to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or could they have done more?"

Did All It Could 17%
Could Have Done More 71%

"Do you think the intelligence agencies -- the FBI and CIA -- did all they could to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or could they have done more?"

Did All They Could 13%
Could Have Done More 79%

"Do you think the Bush Administration has focused too much on the Iraq war and not enough on the Al Qaeda terrorists, OR too much on the Al Qaeda terrorists and not enough on the Iraq war, OR has the balance been about right?"

Too Much On Iraq 41%
Too Much On Al Qaeda 3%
About Right 48%

"Overall, do you think the White House is or is not cooperating with the hearings investigating the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States?"

Is 56%
Is Not 29%

"When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States, do you think members of the Bush Administration are telling the truth, are mostly telling the truth but hiding something, or are they mostly lying?"

Telling the Truth 24%
Hiding Something 59%
Mostly Lying 11%

The Los Angeles Times Poll. March 27-30, 2004.

Here are some statements that have been made by both Clarke and the Bush Administration. Do you agree or disagree with the next four statements?

"President Bush failed to take the threat of terrorism seriously enough before the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, and the Pentagon."

Agree 52%
Disagree 40%

"President Bush was more focused on attacking Iraq than dealing with terrorism as his top priority."

Agree 57%
Disagree 37%

"Richard CIarke is attacking the Bush Administration because he was turned down for the job of deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security."

Agree 28%
Disagree 42%

"Richard Clarke's book is politically motivated and released at this time to impact the presidential election."

Agree 58%
Disagree 27%

CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. March 26-28, 2004.

"Who are you more likely to believe in this matter: Richard Clarke or current members of the Bush Administration?" Options rotated

Clarke 44%
Current Members 46%

"Based on the information available to the Bush Administration before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, do you think the Bush Administration did or did not do all that could be expected to prevent the terrorist attacks?"

Did 42%
Did Not 54%

"Based on the information available to the Clinton Administration in the 1990s, do you think the Clinton Administration did or did not do all that could be expected to prevent terrorist attacks?"

Did 32%
Did Not 62%

"Do you think the Bush Administration should have been able to prevent the terrorist attacks on September 11th, or not?"

Should Have 27%
Should Not Have 67%

"Do you think the Bush Administration is or is not covering up something about its handling of intelligence information concerning possible terrorist attacks before September 11, 2001?"

Is 53%
Is Not 41%

"Which comes closer to your view of George W. Bush's actions concerning terrorism after the terrorist attacks on September 11th? Bush did not pay enough attention to the threat against the United States from al Qaeda because he was too concerned about Saddam Hussein. OR, Bush paid the right amount of attention to the threat against the United States from al Qaeda." Options rotated

Not Enough 46%
Right Amount 49%

This seems logical. Bush had been in office only about eight months when the attacks took place, and it has become increasingly clear as a result of recent news reports and testimony at the 9/11 commission that Bill Clinton and his administration were well aware of the problems posed by terrorists and Osama bin Laden throughout Clinton's two terms in the 1990s.

They let them slip in and hit us, and now they are trying to sweep it under the rug.

The plot was so well hidden that NO ONE knew about it but the terrorists. [..] So if you're looking for someone to blame, blame the terrorists. Because no one else had any idea this was going to happen.

In the end, the one guilty party for the death of the 9/11 victims are the Al Qaeda terrorists. I think all of us agree. (And any poster who does call Bush the "murderer", for example, can simply be disregarded, cause (s)he obviously can't be taken seriously.)

The administration couldn't have known, on the basis of the information it had, that the terrorists would hijack passenger planes and fly them into New York and the Pentagon, on 9/11/2001. There is most probably no briefing lying around in an NSA office somewhere saying, "hey, people, you know whats gonna happen next September 11?" I think most of us agree.

There were lots of warnings that something was going to happen. There was even a warning, apparently, that one possible scenario was of Al-Qaeda hijacking planes and using them as bombs. Still, whether it was one of a hundred or one of a thousand scenarios, even such a warning in itself couldnt have enabled the administration to wake up on 9/11 and know: this is what we have to do.

But did the administration respond with appropriate urgency and efficiency to the warnings that were sounded? Was it sufficiently aware of it being Al-Qaeda that was the prime danger to America's safety, at the moment?

Were warnings about Al-Qaeda belittled as concerning "that little man in Afghanistan", when it was pointed out?

Did the administration fail to implement policies that would have at least prevented one or the other of the hijackers from entering the country, getting onto a plane, et cetera?

And was this because they were insufficiently focused on Al Qaeda, perhaps because they had their eyes set on Iraq?

Could Rice, as National Security Advisor, perhaps spontaneously have come up with the idea to order more thorough research, more intense surveillance, more stringent clampdown on suspicious persons, when after all she was getting all those abstract warnings of something really big being about to happen?

Could we have had more specific intell on what was about to happen, if the administration had been sufficiently focused on the threat posed by what after all was an obvious enemy?

Did Rumsfeld c.s. fail to see certain patterns in the chatter because they were so intent on finding a Saddam link that they discounted, even sent back intell that didnt fit their preconceptions?

In short, could the US have been better prepared, at least, for what was about to happen?

Those are some of the quite specific questions I've seen raised here. And rhetorical assertions about "noone being to blame but the terrorists" do little to answer them. As little as the unending retorts that focus on the questioner's credibility (e.g. Clarke's), in fact. Both strike one as attempts to change the subject and/or duck the questions.

nimh wrote:

Were warnings about Al-Qaeda belittled as concerning "that little man in Afghanistan", when it was pointed out?

2. See answer #1. I say No.

nimh wrote:

Did the administration fail to implement policies that would have at least prevented one or the other of the hijackers from entering the country, getting onto a plane, et cetera?

3. IIRC the hijackers had been in the country for years by the time GWB took office. So, No.

nimh wrote:

Could Rice, as National Security Advisor, perhaps spontaneously have come up with the idea to order more thorough research, more intense surveillance, more stringent clampdown on suspicious persons [..]?

5. Yes. It's possible she could have done many things spontaneously. As she said, most of it would have been focused overseas where the terrorist threats were coming from and directed against. There was no reason to suspect internal terrorism on 9/10.

nimh wrote:

Could we have had more specific intell on what was about to happen, if the administration had been sufficiently focused on the threat posed by what after all was an obvious enemy?

6. See #1 and #4. The administration was sufficiently focused and was in the process of gathering information for contingency action. I say No to this one.

nimh wrote:

In short, could the US have been better prepared, at least, for what was about to happen?

I don't see how we could have done anything better given the circumstances. My answer is No.

"This was not something that had to happen," said Thomas H. Kean, the chairman of the commission and a former Republican governor of New Jersey. Mr. Kean has gone further than other panel members in arguing that the attacks were clearly preventable.

"There are many examples," he said in an interview. "People got into this country with improper travel documents. People were placed on watch lists but nobody communicated that to airports.

With new evidence made public almost daily to show how the Sept. 11 attacks might have been prevented, the independent commission investigating them says its final report will offer a book-length chronology of the law-enforcement, intelligence and military failures that stopped the government from understanding the threat of Al Qaeda until it was too late.

Many of the missed opportunities are well documented, especially those in the months before the attacks: the Central Intelligence Agency's delay until August 2001 of raising an alert about two of the terrorists, who by then were already in the country; the Federal Bureau of Investigation's failure to follow up on a warning in July from a Phoenix agent that Qaeda terrorists might be training at American flight schools; and the bureau's failure to understand the significance of Zacarias Moussaoui, the flight school student arrested in Minnesota a month later and later linked to the Sept. 11 hijackers. [..]

In her long-awaited testimony to the commission on Thursday, Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, acknowledged that the briefing contained a blunt warning that Osama bin Laden intended to attack "inside the United States" and that the F.B.I. had detected a "suspicious pattern" that could suggest plans for a domestic hijacking.

On Friday, government officials provided other details about the contents of the briefing report given to the president, including a warning that Al Qaeda might have a support network in the United States and that terrorists might try to attack with explosives within American borders. [..]

One of the most important of those dots was sitting in the files of midlevel analysts at the intelligence agency, which has acknowledged that it knew in 2000 about the danger posed by two Qaeda operatives who were later among the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi; they had attended a terrorist planning meeting in January 2000 in Malaysia.

nimh wrote:

Those are some of the quite specific questions I've seen raised here. And rhetorical assertions about "noone being to blame but the terrorists" do little to answer them.

I live to serve. I hope the above answers quell your fears that anyone is trying to avoid important questions.

nimh - You seem to be pretty good at finding obscure (to me, anyway) factoids on-line. In furtherance of your points above, it would be useful to have a feel for how many threats the US government tracks on any given day, during any given week, during any given month, ... [..]

Again, it would be useful to know in more specific numbers what kind of threats the US deals with on a regular basis, and how often these threats come to nothing. [..]