posted September 10, 2004 03:53 PM              

Clarke, who made international headlines last spring when he emerged as the highest-ranking whistle-blower from inside the White House's war on terrorism, painted an alarming picture of a White House still pursuing a losing strategy while America's safety hangs in the balance.

"The pool of people who really hate us is so much greater than it was on 9/11 because of this needless and counterproductive war in Iraq," Clarke said to applause from nearly 2,000 people at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach auditorium.

On the home front, except for improved airline safety, little or nothing has been done to protect the many other vulnerable targets such as trains, chemical plants, Wal-Marts and financial headquarters, said Clarke, who served as counterterrorism czar under both Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, he and other counterterrorism officials urged a wide range of protective actions, such as security for commuter trains vulnerable to the type of backpack bombs that later blew up a train in Madrid.

"That could happen in the BART system today," he said. He described most homeland-security measures in the past three years as "token efforts."

He also called the war on terrorism a misnomer.

"We're not engaged in a war on terrorism, a war against a tactic," he said. "We're not concerned here with all terrorist groups." There are many terrorist organizations around the world that the U.S. government is not actively fighting, he noted.

The enemy, he said, consists of about 100,000 members of about 14 jihadist groups, loosely linked to al Qaeda and representing "a virulent strain of Islam." This strain, he said, is a violence-embracing form of the Sunni fundamentalist movement known as Wahabism.

America needs to confront such enemies directly, but it also needs to wage a "war of ideas" with the hundreds of millions of Muslims who currently support the hardcore fanatics, he said.

Clarke was a senior White House adviser to the last three presidents and was the government's "foremost expert on al Qaeda," in the words of U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner writing in the New York Times last week.

Clark's bombshell book earlier this year, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," became a No. 1 New York Times best-seller. The book says the Bush team failed to give sufficient attention to the al Qaeda threat both before and after Sept. 11, focusing instead on a preoccupation with Saddam Hussein and invading Iraq.

Clarke, who left the White House in frustration in February 2003, issued high-profile criticisms as a star witness before the national Sept. 11 commission and on CBS News' "60 Minutes," both in March this year.

He had been dissatisfied before he left. In what Clarke viewed as a sign of the Bush administration downgrading counterterrorism, for example, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told him that he could stop attending the "principals" meetings of the National Security Council.

His book provoked strong reactions from the White House, with Vice President Dick Cheney saying Clarke hadn't been "in the loop," and others suggested he resented working for Rice.

Hoping to avert another Vietnam, he began a career in Washington in 1973, working for the Pentagon for five years before joining the State Department. He worked on security in the Reagan administration and, as assistant secretary of state for politico-military affairs under President George H.W. Bush, he coordinated international support for the Persian Gulf War.

Clarke's appearance at Berkeley was sponsored by UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, the campus Institute of International Studies and the chancellor's office.

posted September 10, 2004 04:16 PM              

The number of Americans killed in Iraq topped 1,000 yesterday as at least 15 U.S. troops died in fierce fighting over the past two days. The grim milestone was reached 18 months after the US launched its invasion of Iraq early last year. Around half of those killed were between 18 and 24 years old, according to Pentagon statistics citied by Agence France Presse.
All but 140 of the 1,000 deaths have come since May 1st 2003, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished".

Donald Rumsfeld sought to play down the impact of the symbolic figure, telling reporters at the Pentagon yesterday that the "civilized world" had long passed the 1,000th death at the hands of terrorists. He cited the 3,000 deaths during the Sept. 11 attacks, and the hundreds who died in the school siege in southern Russia last weekend.

The number of Iraqis killed since March 2003 is unknown. The website Iraq Body Count estimates at least 11,800 Iraqi civilians have been killed but some estimates put the Iraqi civilian death toll three times as high.

Patrick Cockburn, journalist with the London Independent. He joins us on the phone from Baghdad.

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AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Patrick Cockburn, journalist with The London Independent. He's in Baghdad right now. Welcome to Democracy Now!

PATRICK COCKBURN: Hello.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. You have just written a piece, "U.S. Military Death Toll on Iraqi Soil Tops 1,000." Can you talk about the significance of this milestone?

PATRICK COCKBURN: Well, it shows above all that the war is intensifying month by month. Maybe there's an over-- we look too much at the number of dead. We should also look at the number of wounded, 7,000. Many of these people have suffered terrible wounds that they would have died in previous wars. People have lost all of their limbs. People who will never move out of a wheelchair in the future. But in Iraq, what's very noticeable now and maybe hasn't impressed outside world, but it’s a war on two fronts. American soldiers are dying at the hands of Shiite Muslims, which wasn't true six months ago, as well as these continuing guerrilla attacks by the Sunni Muslims west and north of Baghdad.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Patrick Cockburn, he's in Baghdad. Can you describe right now the scene in Baghdad? Can you describe what's happening, the level of the fighting? Can you talk about what people in this country should understand about Iraq?

PATRICK COCKBURN: Well, the fighting all over the city – I mean, if you look at Baghdad from a distance, that isn't at first obvious, although you could see the flashing of shells going off in Sadr City last night, but if you look at it more closely, you will find there's balance everywhere. You have street fighting in east Baghdad with very heavy casualties, over 200 people killed and wounded yesterday. Then in other parts of the city, looking at one place where a very typical ambush of an American humvee, one soldier killed, one wounded, a very large mine dug in beside the road. I was looking actually on top of a roof of one of the houses. The buckles or remains of a machine gun were lying on the roof. And one of the doors had been torn off the humvee and hurled a good forty – fifty yards over the house. And about five minutes away, there had been a very expert assassination attempt against the governor of Baghdad. A gunman opening fire behind and in front of his convoy, intending them to go down a side street where another large bomb had been prepared and two people completely innocent were killed in this. So all over the city, you have violence occurring. There's no sign of this ending. And in fact, it seems to be escalating.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the two 29-year-old Italian women, along with two Iraqis, who were kidnapped, part of A Bridge to Baghdad, the group, perhaps the longest standing foreign peace group in Iraq since the Persian Gulf War more than ten years ago?

PATRICK COCKBURN: Yes, well, this was particularly shocking, partly because the people targeted had done nothing except good to Iraq, and secondly, this was in broad daylight in the center of the capital near the national theater. That's the nearest big building. They turned up in heavily armed -- people thought they were government security forces -- swept around the guards and kidnapped these two women. While it was they were quite well known here, they aren't people whom anybody thought would be targeted by kidnappers.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you expect to happen now, and are you getting any sense of the debate in the United States? Is there coverage here – is there coverage in Iraq of the presidential contest here in the United States?

PATRICK COCKBURN: I'm not sure I quite understood that, but the Iraqis are very conscious that the presidential election is going on, but that this is the background to everything that is happening here, and that may explain events -- it certainly does explain events earlier in the year, the tremendous attack on Fallujah in April, which was suddenly called off. Now, Iraqis sort of assumed that both the attack and the southern cease-fire leaving Fallujah in the hands of the rebels, that the real initiative came from the White House and not from the military commanders here.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Patrick Cockburn, your response to the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, incorporating Iraq into the war on terror when responding to questions about 1,000 soldiers dead, saying, quote, “The civilized world had long passed the 1,000th death at the hands of terrorists,” citing 9/11 and the hundreds who died in Russia in the school.

PATRICK COCKBURN: Well, obviously, it's -- there's a horrible irony about that. There's never been any evidence produced that the terrorism which previously – that the one place that al Qaeda didn't operate was Iraq, because they were [inaudible] with Saddam. Of course, now, because of the war, it could be much easier, extremely easier for any Islamic militant to come to Iraq to find sympathizers here. That's a situation created by Rumsfeld, and by the war and the occupation. So it seems to me a horrible irony in the claim that somehow the thousands who -- the invasion of Iraq occurred because of terrorism, and the complete failure to admit that they have done nothing except do terrorists a favor by invading this country.

AMY GOODMAN: How?

PATRICK COCKBURN: Because they’ve created a great base here for anybody. I mean, anybody in the Middle East or elsewhere who want to act against the U.S., against Britain can now find succor in Iraq. The large parts of this country are outside the control of the internal Iraqi government or the U.S. forces. There's no evidence that the Iraqis were behind any of the al Qaeda attacks previously. It's now a much more potent base for things like militant groups than Afghanistan ever was. But this is the result of the actions, it seems to me, of Rumsfeld and President Bush.

posted September 10, 2004 05:01 PM            

I also remember his statements from his book being totally discredited during his 9/11 testimony, under oath.

I also remember him as the primary source for the serial liar Michael Moore's statements that Bush let the Saudi citizens leave the US without being interviewed by the FBI. Later, I remember him saying he and he alone approved the release of the Saudis to leave the US.

I also remember Clarke is or was on the Kerry campaign staff.

posted September 10, 2004 11:22 PM              

Clarke took responsibility for approving of a plan brought to him by either the Department of State or the White House chief of staff’s office.(andy card...the guy who told bush jr "america is under attack" in the classroom)
he didnt dream it up but those in bush's state dept. or else andy card mustve considered it a priority....
he also testified....

"The request came to me, and I refused to approve it," Clarke testified."I suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look at the names of the individuals who were going to be on the passenger manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with the - at the time - No. 2 person in the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then approved - the flight."

yes and do you remember the other career intelligence man appointed to replace him?
another guy who worked for Reagan , Bush sr. ,Clinton, and Bush jr?
rand beers..... the guy who quit 5 days before the Invasion of Iraq , then weeks later volunteered as national security adviser for Sen. Kerry in a campaign to oust his former boss.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A62941-2003Jun15¬Found=true

and i seem to remember this KOOK too.....some other "democrat" on the intelligence committee just flogging a book....
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9584265.htm

__When the weapons were not found, one year after the invasion of Iraq, Bush attended a black-tie dinner in Washington, Graham recalled. Bush gave a humorous speech with slides, showing him looking under White House furniture and joking, ``Nope, no WMDs there.''___

posted September 11, 2004 12:22 AM            

I'll find the article where Clarke declares the request for the Saudis to leave didn't get any higher than him. He made that statement after he left the Bush administration.

Whatever reasons people gave for leaving the Bush administration and whatever help they give John Kerry, it isn't going to be enough.

OK, found it.

Wednesday, June 30, 2004 11:59 p.m. EDT
Richard Clarke: Big Part of Moore's Movie 'a Mistake'

Former White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke, who served as a principal source for conspiracy filmmaker Michael Moore's movie "Fahrenheit 9/11," said this week that the central premise of the film is "a mistake."

In an interview with the Associated Press, Clarke took issue with Moore's criticism that President Bush allowed prominent Saudis, including members of Osama bin Laden's family, to fly out of the U.S. in the days after the 9/11 attacks.

Saying Moore's version of the episode has provoked "a tempest in a tea pot," Clarke called his decision to make the bin Laden family flyout a big part of the film's indictment against Bush "a mistake."
"After 9/11, I think the Saudis were perfectly justified ... in fearing the possibility of vigilantism against Saudis in this country. When they asked to evacuate their citizens ... I thought it was a perfectly normal request," he explained.

In May, Clarke confessed that he and he alone made the decision to approve the flyouts.

"It didn’t get any higher than me,” he told The Hill newspaper. "On 9/11, 9/12 and 9/13, many things didn’t get any higher than me. I decided it in consultation with the FBI.”

Clarke told the 9/11 Commission the same thing in March, after first detailing the episode for Vanity Fair magazine last August - leaving plenty of time for Moore to adjust his film to the facts as recounted by his primary source.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/7/1/00111.shtml

posted September 12, 2004 11:37 AM              

but are you insisting that on 9\11 9\12 & 9\13 some KOOK who wasnt even in the bush cabinet was making all the decisions for the state dept, the chief of staff, the fbi, basically RUNNING the whitehouse.....??
even i'm not enuff of a KOOK to believe that.....
Dubya (i'll use his middle initial instead of jr....it sounds like a drunken redneck slurring "W") was back at the whitehouse by 7pm on 9\11....the flights didnt take place for days...

posted September 12, 2004 11:12 PM              

"it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House."
- Testimony of Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, National Security Council, before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 3, 2003.

the saudi ambassador Prince Bandar doesnt contact richard clarke for such assistance....
especially when Bush Dubya is right there.....
but perhaps Clarkes relief at handing it over to the fbi wasnt well justified...

Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private security guards) on the Bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent contact with Usama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity.
- National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12

so the fact remains that the Bush administration invested high level resources on evacuating "saudi royal family members" out of the country with virtually no serious investigation.....
but then why would they suspect anything...every1 knows Al Quaeda hates the royal family of Saudi Arabia.(as do MANY of the Saudi Arabian people)

posted September 13, 2004 11:48 PM            

quote:

---

"it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House."
- Testimony of Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, National Security Council, before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 3, 2003.

---

Review

To look over, study, or examine again.
To consider retrospectively; look back on.
To examine with an eye to criticism or correction: reviewed the research findings.
To write or give a critical report on (a new work or performance, for example).
Law. To reexamine (an action or determination) judicially, especially in a higher court, in order to correct possible errors.


In each case, a review is a retroactive action taken after the fact of the occurrence.

His testimony at the 9/11 Commission hearings is perfectly consistent with his remarks that the decision to release the Saudis didn't get any higher than him and that lots of things on 9/11, 9/12 and 9/13 didn't get any higher than him.

Almost everyone working in the White House for the President, including the President's advisors, the President, Vice President, all the Cabinet members and various and sundry other officials ARE/WERE higher than Clarke in his position as the so called terrorist czar in the NSA. Yet he says the decision didn't get any higher than him....he made the decision.

Clarke made the decision without consulting the White House or anyone else other than the FBI agent who contacted him to see if there was any reason the Saudis shouldn't be cleared to leave. His decision was subject to "review"...after the fact as all decisions of lower level government officials are. No inconsistencies between the two statements and no doubt Michael Moore had advance warning, before he edited his lying documentary that he was putting the wrong spin on events.

posted September 14, 2004 11:07 PM              

perhaps you should go back and re view the second statement of my first reply in this thread, where i conceded that Richard Clark took responsibility for "approving the plan"
the fact remains that Clarke was a member of the bush administration, and he "approved" the plan...he was IN the whitehouse...lol
so you have yet to show how Clarkes hypothetically "discredited" statements were the basis of some conjectured "lie" in micheal moores movie

i'm only adding to that....its clear from his quotes that he "approved" the plan contingent upon an fbi investigation (which wasnt taken seriously)
it seems to me that if clarke WAS running the warroom and had all his superiors with him from 9/11 till 9/13 then it was bush, cheney,rumsfeld rice and tenet(they were all there) who were twiddling their thumbs, standing behind him, deferring to his experience.......

so when prince bandar(the saudi ambassador who coordinated the gathering of saudi's) went to the whitehouse and visited with bush dubya the morning of september 13, it was already a foregone conclusion that the flights would take place, with the help and resources of the whitehouse and the fbi....which had been preparing it for days already.....bandar is a long time family friend of the bush's...
would that lead any1 to conclude that bush dubya "dissapproved" of the flights?
of course every1's actions are subject to re view, except dubya's

you might also re view your statement that clarke "is or was" on the kerry campaign staff,
Clarke has denied numerous times having any connection to the Kerry campaign and During the 9/11 commission hearings Clarke said,

"The White House has said that my book is an audition for a high-level position in the Kerry campaign," he said. "So let me say here, as I am under oath, that I will not accept any position in the Kerry administration, should there be one."

i guess we'll hafta see huh?
if your "memory" of farenheit 9/11 is based on some newsmax story then i guess sensationalism DOES sell ............

posted September 15, 2004 11:41 PM              

by all accounts for years,clarke has been a straight shooter who would be the first to go in "guns blazing" if given the authority
in fact, i'd say he's better presidential material than Bush, Kerry, or any of the current cabinet....

perhaps this is alot to read but at least its not some blog from newsmax, these are excerpts from the 9/11 commission report........

When announcing his new national security team after being reelected in 1996, President Clinton mentioned terrorism first in a list of several challenges facing the country.103 In 1998, after Bin Ladin's fatwa and other alarms, President Clinton accepted a proposal from his national security advisor, Samuel "Sandy" Berger, and gave Clarke a new position as national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection, and counterterrorism. He issued two Presidential Decision Directives, numbers 62 and 63, that built on the assignments to agencies that had been made in Presidential Decision Directive 39; laid out ten program areas for counterterrorism; and enhanced, at least on paper, Clarke's authority to police these assignments. Because of concerns especially on the part of Attorney General Reno, this new authority was defined in precise and limiting language. Clarke was only to "provide advice" regarding budgets and to "coordinate the development of interagency agreed guidelines" for action.104

Clarke also was awarded a seat on the cabinet-level Principals Committee when it met on his issues-a highly unusual step for a White House staffer. His interagency body, the CSG, ordinarily reported to the Deputies Committee of subcabinet officials, unless Berger asked them to report directly to the principals. The complementary directive, number 63, defined the elements of the nation's critical infrastructure and considered ways to protect it. Taken together, the two directives basically left the Justice Department and the FBI in charge at home and left terrorism abroad to the CIA, the State Department, and other agencies, under Clarke's and Berger's coordinating hands.

On December 4, as news came in about the discoveries in Jordan, National Security Council (NSC) Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke wrote Berger, "If George's [Tenet's] story about a planned series of UBL attacks at the Millennium is true, we will need to make some decisions NOW." He told us he held several conversations with President Clinton during the crisis. He suggested threatening reprisals against the Taliban in Afghanistan in the event of any attacks on U.S. interests, anywhere, by Bin Ladin. He further proposed to Berger that a strike be made during the last week of 1999 against al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan-a proposal not adopted.11

Michael Sheehan, the State Department member of the CSG, communicated warnings to the Taliban that they would be held responsible for future al Qaeda attacks. "Mike was not diplomatic," Clarke reported to Berger. With virtually no evidence of a Taliban response, a new approach was made to Pakistan.13 General Anthony Zinni, the commander of Central Command (CENTCOM), was designated as the President's special envoy and sent to ask General Musharraf to "take whatever action you deem necessary to resolve the Bin Laden problem at the earliest possible time." But Zinni came back empty-handed. As Ambassador William Milam reported from Islamabad, Musharraf was "unwilling to take the political heat at home."14

But President Clinton insisted on including Pakistan in the itinerary for his trip to South Asia.63 His one-day stopover on March 25, 2000, was the first time a U.S. president had been there since 1969. At his meeting with Musharraf and others, President Clinton concentrated on tensions between Pakistan and India and the dangers of nuclear proliferation, but also discussed Bin Ladin. President Clinton told us that when he pulled Musharraf aside for a brief, one-on-one meeting, he pleaded with the general for help regarding Bin Ladin. "I offered him the moon when I went to see him, in terms of better relations with the United States, if he'd help us get Bin Ladin and deal with another issue or two."64

The U.S. effort continued. Early in May, President Clinton urged Musharraf to carry through on his promise to visit Afghanistan and press Mullah Omar to expel Bin Ladin.65 At the end of the month, Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering followed up with a trip to the region.66 In June, DCI Tenet traveled to Pakistan with the same general message.67 By September, the United States was becoming openly critical of Pakistan for supporting a Taliban military offensive aimed at completing the conquest of Afghanistan.68

In December, taking a step proposed by the State Department some months earlier, the United States led a campaign for new UN sanctions, which resulted in UN Security Council Resolution 1333, again calling for Bin Ladin's expulsion and forbidding any country to provide the Taliban with arms or military assistance.69 This, too, had little if any effect. The Taliban did not expel Bin Ladin. Pakistani arms continued to flow across the border.

Finances and Saudi Arabia
Al Qaeda appears to have relied on a core group of financial facilitators who raised money from a variety of donors and other fund-raisers, primarily in the Gulf countries and particularly in Saudi Arabia.115
A U.S. interagency group traveled to Saudi Arabia twice, in 1999 and 2000, to get information from the Saudis about their understanding of those finances. The group eventually concluded that the oft-repeated assertion that Bin Ladin was funding al Qaeda from his personal fortune was in fact not true.
The NSC staff thought that one possible solution to these weaknesses in the intelligence community was to create an all-source terrorist-financing intelligence analysis center. Clarke pushed for the funding of such a center at Treasury, but neither Treasury nor the CIA was willing to commit the resources.88

Border Security
The third point on which the principals had agreed on March 10 was the need for attention to America's porous borders and the weak enforcement of immigration laws. Drawing on ideas from government officials, Clarke's working group developed a menu of proposals to bolster border security. Some reworked or reiterated previous presidential directives.92 They included

creating an interagency center to target illegal entry and human traffickers;
imposing tighter controls on student visas;93
taking legal action to prevent terrorists from coming into the United States and to remove those already here, detaining them while awaiting removal proceedings;94
further increasing the number of immigration agents to FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces to help investigate immigration charges against individuals suspected of terrorism;95
activating a special court to enable the use of classified evidence in immigration-related national security cases;96 and
both implementing new security measures for U.S. passports and working with the United Nations and foreign governments to raise global security standards for travel documents.97
Clarke's working group compiled new proposals as well, such as

undertaking a Joint Perimeter Defense program with Canada to establish cooperative intelligence and law enforcement programs, leading to joint operations based on shared visa and immigration data and joint border patrols;
staffing land border crossings 24/7 and equipping them with video cameras, physical barriers, and means to detect weapons of mass destruction (WMD); and
addressing the problem of migrants-possibly including terrorists- who destroy their travel documents so they cannot be returned to their countries of origin.98
These proposals were praiseworthy in principle. In practice, however, they required action by weak, chronically underfunded executive agencies and powerful congressional committees, which were more responsive to well-organized interest groups than to executive branch interagency committees.

The Cole attack prompted renewed consideration of what could be done about al Qaeda. According to Clarke, Berger upbraided DCI Tenet so sharply after the Cole attack-repeatedly demanding to know why the United States had to put up with such attacks-that Tenet walked out of a meeting of the principals.134
Though Clarke worried that the CIA might be equivocating in assigning responsibility to al Qaeda, he wrote Berger on November 7 that the analysts had described their case by saying that "it has web feet, flies, and quacks."

On November 25, Berger and Clarke wrote President Clinton that although the FBI and CIA investigations had not reached a formal conclusion, they believed the investigations would soon conclude that the attack had been carried out by a large cell whose senior members belonged to al Qaeda

As the Clinton administration drew to a close, Clarke and his staff developed a policy paper of their own, the first such comprehensive effort since the Delenda plan of 1998
The paper backed covert aid to the Northern Alliance, covert aid to Uzbekistan, and renewed Predator flights in March 2001. A sentence called for military action to destroy al Qaeda command-and-control targets and infrastructure and Taliban military and command assets. The paper also expressed concern about the presence of al Qaeda operatives in the United States.155

6.4 CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
In December, Bush met with Clinton for a two-hour, one-on-one discussion of national security and foreign policy challenges. Clinton recalled saying to Bush, "I think you will find that by far your biggest threat is Bin Ladin and the al Qaeda." Clinton told us that he also said, "One of the great regrets of my presidency is that I didn't get him [Bin Ladin] for you, because I tried to."159 Bush told the Commission that he felt sure President Clinton had mentioned terrorism, but did not remember much being said about al Qaeda. Bush recalled that Clinton had emphasized
other issues such as North Korea and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.160

Clarke said that the new team, having been out of government for eight years, had a steep learning curve to understand al Qaeda and the new transnational terrorist threat.162

Organizing a New Administration
Rice decided to change the special structure that had been built to coordinate counterterrorism policy. It was important to sound policymaking, she felt, that Clarke's interagency committee-like all others-report to the principals through the deputies.167

Rice made an initial decision to hold over both Clarke and his entire counterterrorism staff, a decision that she called rare for a new administration. She decided also that Clarke should retain the title of national counterterrorism coordinator, although he would no longer be a de facto member of the Principals Committee on his issues. The decision to keep Clarke, Rice said, was "not uncontroversial," since he was known as someone who "broke china," but she and Hadley wanted an experienced crisis manager. No one else from Berger's staff had Clarke's detailed knowledge of the levers of government. 168

Clarke was disappointed at what he perceived as a demotion. He also worried that reporting through the Deputies Committee would slow decisionmaking on counterterrorism.169

Early Decisions
Within the first few days after Bush's inauguration, Clarke approached Rice in an effort to get her-and the new President-to give terrorism very high priority and to act on the agenda that he had pushed during the last few months of the previous administration. After Rice requested that all senior staff identify desirable major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He attached to it his 1998 Delenda Plan and the December 2000 strategy paper. "We urgently need . . . a Principals level review on the al Qida network," Clarke wrote.172

Clarke also suggested that decisions should be made soon on messages to the Taliban and Pakistan over the al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan, on possible new money for CIA operations, and on "when and how . . . to respond to the attack on the USS Cole."173

The national security advisor did not respond directly to Clarke's memorandum. No Principals Committee meeting on al Qaeda was held until September 4, 2001

The Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (SEIB), distributed to a broader group of officials, has a similar format and generally covers the same subjects as the PDB. It usually contains less information so as to protect sources and methods. Like their predecessors, the Attorney General, the FBI Director, and Richard Clarke, the National Security Council (NSC) counterterrorism coordinator, all received the SEIB, not the PDB.3 Clarke and his staff had extensive access to terrorism reporting, but they did not have access to internal, nondisseminated information at the National Security Agency (NSA), CIA, or FBI.

In his January 25 memo, Clarke had advised Rice that the government should respond to the Cole attack, but "should take advantage of the policy that 'we will respond at a time, place and manner of our own choosing' and not be forced into knee-jerk responses."177 Before Vice President Cheney visited the CIA in mid-February, Clarke sent him a memo-outside the usual White House document-management system-suggesting that he ask CIA officials "what additional information is needed before CIA can definitively conclude that al-Qida was responsible" for the Cole.178 In March 2001, the CIA's briefing slides for Rice were still describing the CIA's "preliminary judgment" that a "strong circumstantial case" could be made against al Qaeda but noting that the CIA continued to lack "conclusive information on external command and control" of the attack.179 Clarke and his aides continued to provide Rice and Hadley with evidence reinforcing the case against al Qaeda and urging action.180

September 2001
The Principals Committee had its first meeting on al Qaeda on September 4. On the day of the meeting, Clarke sent Rice an impassioned personal note. He criticized U.S. counterterrorism efforts past and present. The "real question" before the principals, he wrote, was "are we serious about dealing with the al Qida threat? . . . Is al Qida a big deal? . . . Decision makers should imagine themselves on a future day when the CSG has not succeeded in stopping al Qida attacks and hundreds of Americans lay dead in several countries, including the US," Clarke wrote. "What would those decision makers wish that they had done earlier? That future day could happen at any time."247

Clarke then turned to the Cole. "The fact that the USS Cole was attacked during the last Administration does not absolve us of responding for the attack," he wrote. "Many in al Qida and the Taliban may have drawn the wrong lesson from the Cole: that they can kill Americans without there being a US response, without there being a price.... One might have thought that with a $250m hole in a destroyer and 17 dead sailors, the Pentagon might have wanted to respond. Instead, they have often talked about the fact that there is 'nothing worth hitting in Afghanistan' and said 'the cruise missiles cost more than the jungle gyms and mud huts' at terrorist camps." Clarke could not understand "why we continue to allow the existence of large scale al Qida bases where we know people are being trained to kill Americans."248

Turning to the CIA, Clarke warned that its bureaucracy, which was "masterful at passive aggressive behavior," would resist funding the new national security presidential directive, leaving it a "hollow shell of words without deeds." The CIA would insist its other priorities were more important. Invoking President Bush's own language, Clarke wrote, "You are left with a modest effort to swat flies, to try to prevent specific al Qida attacks by using [intelligence] to detect them and friendly governments' police and intelligence officers to stop them. You are left waiting for the big attack, with lots of casualties, after which some major US retaliation will be in order[.]"249

posted September 16, 2004 11:55 AM              

His fixation on Iraq clouded his vision.

posted September 17, 2004 12:50 AM              

isis , Saudi Ambassador Royal Prince Bandar's nickname isnt "Bandar Clinton", its "Bandar Bush"

and the people of the middle east have been resenting monarchal rule for generations
but how do you rise up against royal dictators who are having millions of dollars a minute being pumped into their security forces....with high level contacts into the worlds superpower's military industrial complex??
there are no jungles in saudi arabia for rebel forces to hide.....
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Features/0,,2-11-37_1565082,00.html