Debate Grows Over Bush's Handling of Terror Threat
Debate Grows Over Bush's Handling of Terror Threat
By CARL HULSE
New York Times
Published: March 22, 2004
The accusations by Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism specialist, that the Bush administration failed to take the threat of Al Qaeda seriously before Sept. 11 overtook other campaign developments on Sunday and promised to reverberate this week when the Sept. 11 commission conducts a public hearing.
The White House moved quickly to respond to the harsh criticism by Mr. Clarke and his account of how top White House advisers were fixated on Iraq. It issued a detailed rebuttal that said Mr. Bush had "specifically recognized the threat posed by Al Qaeda."
In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, noted that Mr. Clarke had been in the counterterrorism office for a number of years and that, in her view, the United States "didn't have a strategy" for fighting Al Qaeda when the Bush administration came into office in January 2001.
"We were in office eight months," Dr. Rice said, referring to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "Dick Clarke had been here a good deal longer."
But Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, who is a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, barely let Mr. Clarke's appearance on CBS's "60 Minutes" end before he issued a scathing statement about the administration's record on terror.
"The facts are that within six months of the first bombs falling on Afghanistan, this administration was diverting military and intelligence resources to its planned war in Iraq, which allowed Al Qaeda to regenerate," said Mr. Graham, who was one of the first lawmakers to label the war with Iraq a distraction from the fight against terror. "As the people of Indonesia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and most recently Spain have learned painfully well, this president failed to execute the real war on terrorism."
Mr. Clarke's new book was also a topic on the Sunday talk shows as lawmakers and analysts tried to interpret the implications of such critical views coming from a White House insider with access to the highest levels of the administration.
"I am much more concerned about the safety of my granddaughter in school here in Washington because of Al Qaeda than I am with 10 Saddam Husseins," Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on ABC. "And we took our eye off the ball because of a preoccupation with Iraq."
But his Democratic colleague, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, said on Fox that he saw "no basis" for the accusation that the administration was too focused on Iraq in the wake of Sept. 11. "I think we've got to be careful to speak facts and not rhetoric and not to go about what happened in the past so totally that we divide ourselves," he said.
The focus on Mr. Clarke's account of what he described as the president's failure on terrorism could not be welcome at the Bush campaign headquarters, where strategists had been celebrating what they saw as new success with their attacks on Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate.
A furor over the president's handling of terrorism threatened to shift attention from the Bush campaign's efforts to keep Mr. Kerry on the defensive over tax and spending policy.
there is always the possibility that everyone that contests Bush policy is a traitor, but then would it not become a question of which traitor is the more dangerous?
I read this on the BBC website
Quote:'Anti-terror tsar'
Despite the accusations of political opportunism, Mr Clarke cannot be swatted aside so easily, the BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says.
Mr Clarke served in every US administration since Ronald Reagan, before resigning in February 2003.
Later this week the ex-security adviser will go before a special US commission investigating whether the 11 September attacks were preventable.
Our correspondent says if Mr Clarke makes a similar attack on the president at the hearing, it could prove very damaging for the White House.
Mr Clarke helped shape US policy on terrorism under President Reagan and also the first President Bush.
He also worked under President Bill Clinton as his "terrorism tsar" and was then retained by the current President Bush.
and couldn't help but wonder; If Clarke was the terrorism Tsar for Clinton, why was so little accomplished during Clinton's eight years in office?
Look at the sordid history of giving terrorists their way:
The first attack on the World Trade Center, Feb. 26, 1993. Unanswered.
Murdered American soldiers dragged through the streets by thugs in Somalia in the infamous Black Hawk Down disaster, Oct. 3, 1993. Unanswered.
The attack on the U.S. embassies in Africa, Aug. 7, 1998. Hundreds were killed. Still, unanswered.
The attack on the USS Cole, Oct. 12, 2000. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed. Again, unanswered.
Mr Clarke has no credibility...
Quote:Mr Clarke has no credibility...
and Mr Clark's employers named Reagan and Bush I do have credibility?
Are they the ones trying to defraud the public to sale their book?
I assume that is an opinion as I have seen no facts supporting "fraud" but it's always nice to see judgement prior to investigation, it restores my "faith" in the conservative mind-set. (don't confuse me with facts, I have an attitude) The book goes on sale today, perhaps you can read it and offer your critical/factual analysis of the "fraud."
mmm . . . this is interesting . . .
I agree .... Reading, reading ....
The timing is suspect for the interview and book release, a year and a half after 9/11 and Kerry on vacation so it looks like it has nothing to do with his campaign...
CBS didn't get to show the Reagan movie, CBS is owned by VIACOM who published Clarke's book.
Doesn't help the credibility of Clarke or CBS, Clarke and the previous admin. was on the wrong track as far as national security and they are doing a lot of covering of their a$$ becauase they know the questions are going to reach beyond the current Admin.
perhaps as far back as Reagan.
At 6:20 a.m. on October 23, 1983, a large Mercedes truck approached the Beirut airport, passing well within sight of Israeli sentries in their nearby base, going through a Lebanese.army checkpoint, and turning left into the parking lot. A U.S. Marine guard reported with alarm that the truck was gathering speed, but before he could do anything, the truck roared toward the entrance of the four-story reinforced concme Aviation Safety Building, used as headquarters for the Eighth Marine Battalion, crashing through a wrought-iron pate, hitting the sand-bagged guard post, smashing through another barrier, and ramming over a wall of sandbags into the lobby, exploding with such a terrific force that the building was instantly reduced to rubble.
A few minutes later, another truck smashed into the French paratroopers' headquarters at Bir Hason, a seafront residential neighborhood just two miles from the U.S. compound, hitting it with such an impact that it moved the entire building 30 feet and killed 58 soldiers.
The loss of 241 U.S. Marines, most of them still sleeping in their cots at the time of the suicide mission, was the highest single?day death toll for the Americans since 246 died throughout Vietnam at the start of the Tet offensive on January 13,1968.
Perhaps, and if things are as screwed up in that dept. as seems, they sould go back as far as necessary.
It seems everyone involved has a hand in the mistakes but yet they are all throwing rocks in the same glass house, the damn thing don't have a chance, it must look like lace by now.
McGentrix wrote:O'neil would have been the second guy, right? Did you notice that he too waiting until his book was published to come forward? These guys are just putting forth what they feel will help them feed their kids, let them afford their expensive life styles and to make sure they can retire reasonably well off. None of them have America's best interests at heart.
Not have a personal agenda? Please. How about one not touting their book about their experiences...
What is your argument here? Any book written by anyone who has worked within any administration can have no credibility? It must always be simple greed motivating? Does this apply to only ex administration members or others too. Would it apply to, say, Ann Coulter? Or is the greed motive restricted to ex admin writers?
Acquiunk wrote:Clark's allegations have two problems which lessen their effectiveness. First he was a Clinton appointee holdover .
I think if you're going to debunk Clarke's claims, you should actually know his background. It seems you have decided that because Clarke was a Clinton appointee holdover, that automatically lessens the authenticity of Clarke's statements.
Richard Clarke has 30 years of government service. Clarke worked for
Ronald Reagan. Clarke worked for
George H W Bush. Twelve years in Republican administrations before he ever met Clinton.
As for promoting a book
Gee, I'll remember that every time a pro Bush book is written and the author has the audacity to make the press rounds to promote it.
McGentrix wrote:Well, at least one not trying to push a personal agenda. That would be nice...
An oxymoron. An author writing a non fiction book is always pushing his personal agenda.
McGentrix wrote: Did you notice that he too waiting until his book was published to come forward?
Paul O'Neill didn't write the book. The author is Ron Suskind. Minor detail you have conveniently overlooked.
It would also help if you actually read the transcript of the interview with Clarke before you de facto dismiss it. Clarke discusses thwarted attacks during the Clinton admin that included a terrorist attack on LAX.
Fug da Facts
"the conservative mind-set. (don't confuse me with facts, I have an attitude)"
The facts are in the documentation. Right Wingers won't read those because reading facts may fry their limited brain cells
