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Richard Clarke's Book

When I hear a story I usually believe half of each side.

Al Queda wasn't formed in December 1999 so Clarke had two Clinton terms to address Al Queda and he was counterterrorism chief during the entry into the USA of the 9-11 hijackers. On the other hand I believe Bush and his administration were new and dismissed Clarke's advice as much as Clarke felt he had earned causing a breakdown in confidence and communication between the two parties.
 
corplinx said:
Essentially, Clarke was betrayed by other administration members on his own watch as terror czar. I think he is going to have a very uncomfortable time before the 9-11 commission.
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Where have you been seeing this? Links and/or references...? I'm interested in seeing more...
 
Originally posted by zenith-nadir I am not sure what to think because I am trying to think of things Clinton did about Al Queda during the previous 8 years of Richard Clarke's tenure. [/B]
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There was the time he lobbed a cruise missile or two into Afghanistan based on intelligence that bin Laden had been staying at a compound. He got raked over the coals for that one; even leftists were apopleptic over that.
 
Cheney calling Rush Limbaugh to give his spin on Clarke (or did he just take Rush's call?).

Anyone gonna claim Rush is a world class journalist?

Can you fool all of the people all of the time?
You can't even fool enough of them enough of the time.
But e-voting will take care of that.
 
I suspect that the first question out of Rush's mouth was not...

"So Dick, you were wrong about WMD -- an honest mistake, of course -- you were wrong about the cost of Medicare reform -- an honest mistake of course -- you were wrong about the number of jobs the Administration thought would be created this year -- an honest mistake of course -- and, I note these errors were across a wide range of policy issues -- so why should anyone trust the Administration's interpretation of the role, advice, actions, position, etc. regarding Mr. Clark?"

Yes, I am pretty sure that is how the interview/phone-call started.
 
TillEulenspiegel said:
Have You read the book?
If not , please withold you opinion.

Copyright 1999 Houston Chronicle News Services

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration said Tuesday that there is a direct link between the terrorist group led by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and a dozen or so suspects detained in an unnamed Mideast country on grounds they were planning a Year 2000 attack against Americans
NOTICE THE DATE Article here:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/side2/1054464


Please post proof that custody of OBL was offered to the Clinton administration and refused.
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Yeah, and offered to Daddy Bush also. And Roosevelt was offered the great-great Grandad of the guy who was OBL's cousin's neighbor. Let's hit the CURRENT administration for CURRENT performance.

And as far as it being unbelieveable that Clarke was out of the loop, didn't Rummy get blind-sided by Rice and the Prez? His buddy? Do you honestly think these people wake up in the morning and think "How can I best serve America today?". No, they wake up and plan how to screw over anyone that gets in their way of getting more power. They are so busy either hanging on to their position against all attackers or trying to progress up the ladder they don't have time for running the country. I have no problem believing that good and bad advice is ignored for the sake of personal advancement. It's happened before.
 
Bottle or the Gun said:


Yeah, and offered to Daddy Bush also. And Roosevelt was offered the gret-great Grandad of the guy who was OBL's cousin's neighbor. Let's hit the CURRENT administration for CURRENT performance.
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What a concept.
 
subgenius said:

What a concept.
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If you want to blame an administration, you have to go back to the late 1920's, when we first started screwing around over there, even though it was through agreements and cooperation by both sides.
 
So is/did Cheney testify before the 9/11 commission?
And if not why's he got the time to talk on the radio? Radio/rodeo what's the diff?
 
Condi's credibility is shot as far as I am concerned.

Rice didn’t read the full 90 pages of the National Intelligence Estimate regarding the Niger/Uranium claim, and so she didn’t know about State’s objections to some of the intelligence on which Bush was working. Bush went on to make the claim in a speech despite the State Department's objections. There were also objections by the CIA about the veracity of the information but Rice didn't seem to know that either.

On another note, on May 16th, 2002 Condi said this, "I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people…would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

Yet a 1999 CIA report warned of Al Qaeda beign interested in just this sort of plan. There were warnings in 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999. All were clues to plots of using aircraft as missiles. Yet Condi claimed ignorance.
 
I'm kinda' worried by the assertion that in the midst of the war on terrorism the Terrorism Czar was out of the loop. It leads one to ask some questions like: if he wasn't right for the job or not doing the job why did they let him hang around for those two years?

The Administration is not credible on this. NOt to suggest that much could have been done, but it does seem increasingly credible that these guys wanted to get Saddam from day one and didn't want to be distracted if at all possible.

My god, "out of the loop" and yet he was the Terrorism authority till last year. Well, if he was out of the loop, it still suggests huge incompetence on behalf of the Administration for not having a terrorism Czar who was in the loop...it suggest that their response was cobbled together rather than coordinated and the responsiblitiy of a single indivicual...as it is on the flow chart.

The fish, as they say, stinks from the head down....
 
The whole out of the loop thing backfires on them for the reasons you state.
Its consistent with how they kept Tenet out of the loop in terms of their being a parrellel intelligence agency that he didn't know about that was telling them things they wanted to hear, like our friend Carl is investigating right now.
 
From the head down? No no, this is not a "buck stops here" outfit.
The buck stops "there."
 
More independent confirmation of Clarke's statements:


WASHINGTON (AP) - The Clinton and Bush administrations' failure to pursue military action against al-Qaida operatives allowed the Sept. 11 terrorists to elude capture despite warning signs years before the attacks, a federal panel said Tuesday.

The Clinton administration had early indications of terrorist links to Osama bin Laden and future Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as early as 1995, but let years pass as it pursued criminal indictments and diplomatic solutions to subduing them abroad, it found.

Bush officials, meanwhile, failed to act immediately on increasing intelligence chatter and urgent warnings in early 2001 by its counterterrorism adviser, Richard A. Clarke, to take out al-Qaida targets, according to preliminary findings by the commission reviewing the attacks.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040323/D81G48D80.html

We can still impeach Clinton can't we?
 
Why do you think Clarke has waited a year to tell us this?

Oh yes, he has a book to sell now.

I happen to believe Clarke more than Rice and Bush though.
 
LTC8K6 said:
So why didn't we attack Iraq first?

We did go after the Taliban before we went after Iraq, didn't we?
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Wow, can you imgaine the hue and cry had Bush gone after Iraq before the Taliban?

No, Bush may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier but he is certainly not that dim.

Lurker
 
ceptimus said:
Why do you think Clarke has waited a year to tell us this?

Oh yes, he has a book to sell now.

I happen to believe Clarke more than Rice and Bush though.
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He claims that he is speaking out because he thought it was ridiculous for Bush to claim that he did a good job with regards to terrorism. I suppose it's reasonable to claim that Clarke's actions might be politically motivated. But if he wanted Bush to lose, then why would he release the book now instead of September or October?
 
So... Clarke is saying that immediately after 9/11, Bush was so fixated on Saddam that he went ahead and invaded... Afghanistan. Is that about right?
More crap from a disgruntled ex-employee.
 
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