Richard Clarke: Bush Admin Negligent in Antiterrorism

[GePap]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Whats wrong with this picture?

The counterterrorism Tzar, who had a cabinet level post, the man with the responsibility for dealing with groups like AQ, who held that position through 3 presidents, has the gall to slam anyone else for HIS failures to deal with AQ.

How is he "the man responsible"? He can only advice and inform the president and the cabinet members in charge of actual departments-he has no power to make decisions-he only has the ear of the leaders. What ever happened to "the buck stops here"?

Now if you can show he gave poor advince, or did not warn of the dangers, fine, but if he warned-and was ignored, he did his job-and fault lies up the chain.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by GePap

How is he "the man responsible"? He can only advice and inform the president and the cabinet members in charge of actual departments-he has no power to make decisions-he only has the ear of the leaders. What ever happened to "the buck stops here"?

Now if you can show he gave poor advince, or did not warn of the dangers, fine, but if he warned-and was ignored, he did his job-and fault lies up the chain.

The president is clearly where the buck stops. Obviously, if Mr Clarkes advice was not heeded then he would have a point. Unfortunately, his advice was heeded during (at least) the 8 years of the Clinton administration. Pretending otherwise is nonsense.

Bad advice

"Clarke's comments have brought one of the most liberal Republicans in the House of Representatives to the president's side. Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, chair of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, said Monday, "Mr. Clarke is engaging in revisionist history, apparently for personal partisan reasons. The fact is, when he had the authority and responsibility to craft U.S. counterterrorism policies, he consistently failed to articulate a cogent strategy or plan to Congress."

Shays notes that at a briefing on June 28, 2000, he asked Clarke, then serving as President Clinton's Special Assistant and National Coordinator, Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism, when an all-source threat assessment and strategy would be completed. His answer: "No assessment has been done, and there is no need for an assessment, I know the threat." "

Some cogent questions to Mr Clarke about his advice

"Question number 1: Mr. Clarke, the first time the Sudanese government offered bin Laden to the United States, exactly what advice did you give Bill Clinton?

Question number 2: Mr. Clarke, the second time the Sudanese government offered bin Laden to the United States, exactly what advice did you give Bill Clinton?

Question number 3: Mr. Clarke, the third time the Sudanese government offered bin Laden to the United States, exactly what advice did you give Bill Clinton?

Question number 4: When Al-Qaeda attacked our barracks in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Clarke, what exactly advice did you give Clinton for striking back at them?

Question number 5: Mr. Clarke, when Al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, what advice did you give Clinton for striking back at them?

Question number 6: Mr. Clarke, when Al-Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in 2000, what advice did you give President Clinton for striking back at them?

Question number 7: Mr. Clarke, when Al-Qaeda attacked the two U.S. embassies in North Africa, weren't you one of the experts who advised Clinton to bomb the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan?

Question number 8: Mr. Clarke, when Clinton was slashing the defense budget in the face of these Al-Qaeda attacks, did you advise him against it?

Question number 9: Mr. Clarke, when Clinton undermined the CIA in the face of all these takers, did you advise him against doing that?

Question number 10: Mr. Clarke, isn't it true that you and your colleagues in the Clinton administration generally were complete and miserable failures in defending this nation for eight years, and isn't it a little weak of you to now come forward and say that what Bush didn't do in the first nine months of his term, is pathetic? "

[GePap]

To the list of rush's sad sad questions.
On the actual valid point of your post:

Lets note the date of Shay's question-June 2000...OK, so in June 2000 the man did not mention AQ as a sgnificant threat-

2. Points:

a. By January 2001 he could very well have changed his mind on the issue.

b. EVEN if we follow this line of thinking and say Clarcke did not have his eye on the ball-the Bush amdin. KEPT him in his position, which would scream to me the incoming admin. believed he was doing a fine job at it-so if Clarcke was ignorant of the real threat-the Bush admin. coming in shared this deficiency-after all, amdins. are responsible for the people they hire and keep. They , that is, Bush and Condi and so ofrht, msut ahev believed he was doing a good enough job on the issue-so badmouth Clarcke all you want, assasinate his character-just remember it was the Bush amdin. that decided he was their guy to run counterterrorism as well, when they very well had the power to replace him:

so which is it?

Clarcke did warn them, they ignored him
Clarcke did not warn them, and they did no care anyway?

Cause obviously it is NOT Clarcke did not warn them but other people in the admin. knew AQ was a threat (hell, they can read the paper, no?) and even though they saw this guy NOT acting, they kept him...come to think about it, that is yet another bad possiuble decission.

[Arrian]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, eh?

Look, I want Bush gone as much as the next guy (ok, prolly not as bad as Che wants him gone ), but it seems to me that Mr. Clarke is throwing stones from the balcony of his glass house.

9/11 was the culmination of laspes in intelligence & security throughout the US government, going back years before the event. That most certainly includes Mr. Clarke, just as it includes Dubya, and Clinton before him.

-Arrian

[Ming]

Originally posted by Arrian
9/11 was the culmination of laspes in intelligence & security throughout the US government, going back years before the event. That most certainly includes Mr. Clarke, just as it includes Dubya, and Clinton before him.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Arrian
Damned if you do, damned if you don't, eh?

Nope. If the Bush admin. was dissatisfied with his action on terrorism, they could very well have replaced the guy. So again, if he and the Clintonites were so easy on terror, as pro-Bush people are fond of saying, obviously the Bushies shared their laxness before 9/11, no?

Look, I want Bush gone as much as the next guy (ok, prolly not as bad as Che wants him gone ), but it seems to me that Mr. Clarke is throwing stones from the balcony of his glass house.

IF he can show that he was giving urgent warining in the spring and summer of 2001, then, for all his previous failures, at the end he was seeing the error of his ways and trying tor ectify the issue. More interesting of course are his allegations post 9/11, which are in line with some of what O'Neill has also said.

9/11 was the culmination of laspes in intelligence & security throughout the US government, going back years before the event. That most certainly includes Mr. Clarke, just as it includes Dubya, and Clinton before him.

-Arrian

Fine with me-except of course, that according to some, Bush can do no wrong, EVER.

[Arrian]

And according to others, can do no right, EVER.

-Arrian

[chequita guevara]

I TOLD YOU SO!!!!

[GePap]

Originally posted by Arrian
And according to others, can do no right, EVER.

-Arrian

Yup-sadly, this is close to the truth

[Urban Ranger]

Did any of the Bush defenders addressed Clarke's point on Iraq?

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by GePap
To the list of rush's sad sad questions.
On the actual valid point of your post:

Lets note the date of Shay's question-June 2000...OK, so in June 2000 the man did not mention AQ as a sgnificant threat-

2. Points:

a. By January 2001 he could very well have changed his mind on the issue.

b. EVEN if we follow this line of thinking and say Clarcke did not have his eye on the ball-the Bush amdin. KEPT him in his position, which would scream to me the incoming admin. believed he was doing a fine job at it-so if Clarcke was ignorant of the real threat-the Bush admin. coming in shared this deficiency-after all, amdins. are responsible for the people they hire and keep. They , that is, Bush and Condi and so ofrht, msut ahev believed he was doing a good enough job on the issue-so badmouth Clarcke all you want, assasinate his character-just remember it was the Bush amdin. that decided he was their guy to run counterterrorism as well, when they very well had the power to replace him:

so which is it?

Clarcke did warn them, they ignored him
Clarcke did not warn them, and they did no care anyway?

Cause obviously it is NOT Clarcke did not warn them but other people in the admin. knew AQ was a threat (hell, they can read the paper, no?) and even though they saw this guy NOT acting, they kept him...come to think about it, that is yet another bad possiuble decission.

Please feel free to quote where I badmouthed Clarke or assasinated his character.

While the Bush administration didnt replace him they did reduce his position from 'cabinet level'. That suggests to me that he might have been on his way out, but that they wanted to retain the continuity of the office (which would have been especially important after 9/11) .

[GePap]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Please feel free to quote where I badmouthed Clarke or assasinated his character.

You linked to Rush-so you have others do the dirty work, big deal.

While the Bush administration didnt replace him they did reduce his position from 'cabinet level'. That suggests to me that he might have been on his way out, but that they wanted to retain the continuity of the office (which would have been especially important after 9/11) .

Let me get this straight- demoting the OFFICE of counterterrorism to deal with the MAN holding it makes sense to you? If anything, keeping the same man AND demoting the office is a terrible sign- if we were to assume they were unhappy with his work, why not demote him to a LOWER OFFICE, while bringing new blood to the counterterrorism post at a high level?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Did any of the Bush defenders addressed Clarke's point on Iraq?

Myth: After the 9/11 attacks, the President ignored the evidence and tried to pin responsibility for 9/11 on Iraq.

The Facts:

· The President sought to determine who was responsible for the 9-11 attacks. Given Iraq's past support of terror, including an attempt by Iraqi intelligence to kill a former President, it would have been irresponsible not to ask if Iraq had any involvement in the attack.

· When the President and his senior advisers met at Camp David on September 15-16, 2001, to plan a response to September 11, the DCI told the President that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attack. The President then advised his NSC Principals on September 17 that Iraq was not on the agenda, and that the initial US response to 9/11 would be to target al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan.

· Dick Clarke did prepare a memo for the President regarding links between Iraq and 9/11. He sent this memo to Dr. Rice on September 18, after the President, based on the advice of his DCI that that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attack, had decided that Iraq would not be a target in our military response for 9/11. Because the President had already made this decision, Steve Hadley returned the memo to Dick Clarke on September 25 asking Clarke to "please update and resubmit," to add any new information that might have appeared. Clarke indicated there was none. So when Clarke sent the memo forward again on September 25, Dr. Rice returned it, not because she did not want the President to read the answer set out in the memo, but because the President had already been provided the answer and had already acted based on it.

[GePap]

Hey Dino, care to enlighten us as to whom wrote those "facts"?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DanS
Here is the White House response, which is pretty hard-hitting.

Given the severe credibility gap the White House has, why would anyone believe them without proof? We are talking about an administration that has been caught in lie after lie after lie.