Richrd Clarke starring in moveon.org Ad

[adonai]

Good thing Clarke isn't coming forth out of any political motivation.

Clarke Is Star of New Anti-Bush Campaign Ad
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
March 25, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - Richard Clarke's Bush-bashing comments will serve as fodder for a new Bush-bashing campaign ad.

MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group, said it will use Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 commission as the basis for a new television ad that will begin airing nationwide next week -- initially on CNN, MoveOn.org said in a press release.

"Evidence unearthed by Mr. Clarke confirms other reports that the president downgraded counter-terrorism efforts in the months preceding 9/11 despite clear warnings," said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org's political action committee.

"President Bush should not be running campaign ads boasting of his 9/11 role now that we have seen mounting evidence that he dropped the ball -- a clear failure of leadership in the months leading up to al Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center," Pariser said.

In a press release, MoveOn.org said, "Images from Bush's campaign commercial exploiting 9/11" appear throughout the new ad, which ends with the tag line, "George Bush, a failure in leadership."
In testimony before the 9/11 commission on Wednesday, Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism chief, said counterterrorism was not a priority of the Bush administration. He said the Bush White House could have done more to prevent the 9/11 terror attacks.

The White House and other Bush defenders have released documents and transcripts that cast serious doubt on Clarke's credibility, but many Democrats -- including MoveOn.org -- are taking Clarke at his (latest) word.

Link

[JackSpratts]

Daschle: Bush admin. Aims to Defame Clarke
David Espo

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle accused the Bush administration Thursday of making former terrorism aide Richard Clarke the latest target in a campaign of "character assassination" against those who stand in President Bush's way.

"They've known for months what Mr. Clarke was going to say," Daschle said in a Senate speech one day after the former White House aide sharply criticized the president's stewardship of the war on terror.

"Instead of dealing with it factually, they've launched a shrill attack to destroy Mr. Clarke's credibility," Daschle said.

The senator said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., and retired Amb. Joseph Wilson had suffered similar treatment at the hands of Bush's aides. "I saw the White House ferocity first hand," added Daschle, whom Republicans often depict as the Democrats' obstructionist-in-chief in Congress.

The South Dakota Democrat spoke after Clarke appeared before the bipartisan commission that is investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Clarke, the author of a new book critical of Bush, testified that the administration accorded a lower priority to combatting al-Qaida when it came to power than the outgoing Clinton administration had shown. He also said the invasion of Iraq undermined the war on terror.

The White House has mounted a furious counterattack, dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other officials to challenge Clarke. "He needs to get his story straight," said Rice, Bush's national security adviser, as the White House identified Clarke as the senior official who had praised Bush's anti-terrorism efforts in an anonymous briefing for reporters in 2002.

And White House spokesman Scott McClellan continued the counterattack against Clarke on Thursday, saying that he "has a growing credibility problem."

"He continues to make statements that are flat-out wrong," McClellan said.

Bush defended his handling of the war on terror in a trip to New Hampshire during the day, without mentioning Clarke by name.

"Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people," he said.

The commission held two days of public hearings this week and is to hold additional public sessions next month.

Daschle urged the White House to reverse course and permit Rice to answer questions in public, saying she "seems to have time to appear on every television show."

Republican and Democratic members of the commission also have urged the administration to abandon its refusal to allow her to testify. Some GOP members of Congress, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they, too, believed Rice should appear, at least in part to offer a rebuttal to Clarke.

"Some things are more important that politics, and Sept. 11 ought to be at the top of the list," Daschle said. "We need the facts on Sept. 11, not spin and character assassination."

http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&oi=ne...e%25 20Clarke

[adonai]

The funny thing about it all, is that this character assassanation is being done with Clarke's own words. I'm sure you've already seen these, but here's a few lest you've forgotten.

"It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months," said the Jan. 20, 2003, letter from Clarke to Bush. "I will always remember the courage, determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th."

Link

Clarke describes the handover of intelligence from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration and the latter's decision to revise the U.S. approach to Al Qaeda. Clarke was named special adviser to the president for cyberspace security in October 2001. He resigned from his post in January 2003.

RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.

Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office — issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, mid-January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.

The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies — and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals.

Over the course of the summer — last point — they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance.

And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course [of] five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.

QUESTION: When was that presented to the president?

CLARKE: Well, the president was briefed throughout this process.

QUESTION: But when was the final September 4 document? (interrupted) Was that presented to the president?

CLARKE: The document went to the president on September 10, I think.

QUESTION: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002] Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against the — general animus against the foreign policy?

CLARKE: I think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with terrorism issue. This is the one issue where the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesn't sound like animus against uh the previous team to me.

JIM ANGLE: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?

CLARKE: All of that's correct.

ANGLE: OK.

QUESTION: Are you saying now that there was not only a plan per se, presented by the transition team, but that it was nothing proactive that they had suggested?

CLARKE: Well, what I'm saying is, there are two things presented. One, what the existing strategy had been. And two, a series of issues — like aiding the Northern Alliance, changing Pakistan policy, changing Uzbek policy — that they had been unable to come to um, any new conclusions, um, from '98 on.

QUESTION: Was all of that from '98 on or was some of it ...

CLARKE: All of those issues were on the table from '98 on.

ANGLE: When in '98 were those presented?

CLARKE: In October of '98.

QUESTION: In response to the Embassy bombing?

CLARKE: Right, which was in September.

QUESTION: Were all of those issues part of alleged plan that was late December and the Clinton team decided not to pursue because it was too close to ...

CLARKE: There was never a plan, Andrea. What there was was these two things: One, a description of the existing strategy, which included a description of the threat. And two, those things which had been looked at over the course of two years, and which were still on the table.

QUESTION: So there was nothing that developed, no documents or no new plan of any sort?

CLARKE: There was no new plan.

QUESTION: No new strategy — I mean, I don't want to get into a semantics ...

CLARKE: Plan, strategy — there was no, nothing new.

QUESTION: 'Til late December, developing ...

CLARKE: What happened at the end of December was that the Clinton administration NSC principals committee met and once again looked at the strategy, and once again looked at the issues that they had brought, decided in the past to add to the strategy. But they did not at that point make any recommendations.

QUESTIONS: Had those issues evolved at all from October of '98 'til December of 2000?

CLARKE: Had they evolved? Um, not appreciably.

ANGLE: What was the problem? Why was it so difficult for the Clinton administration to make decisions on those issues?

CLARKE: Because they were tough issues. You know, take, for example, aiding the Northern Alliance. Um, people in the Northern Alliance had a, sort of bad track record. There were questions about the government, there were questions about drug-running, there was questions about whether or not in fact they would use the additional aid to go after Al Qaeda or not. Uh, and how would you stage a major new push in Uzbekistan or somebody else or Pakistan to cooperate?

One of the big problems was that Pakistan at the time was aiding the other side, was aiding the Taliban. And so, this would put, if we started aiding the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, this would have put us directly in opposition to the Pakistani government. These are not easy decisions.

ANGLE: And none of that really changed until we were attacked and then it was ...

CLARKE: No, that's not true. In the spring, the Bush administration changed — began to change Pakistani policy, um, by a dialogue that said we would be willing to lift sanctions. So we began to offer carrots, which made it possible for the Pakistanis, I think, to begin to realize that they could go down another path, which was to join us and to break away from the Taliban. So that's really how it started.

QUESTION: Had the Clinton administration in any of its work on this issue, in any of the findings or anything else, prepared for a call for the use of ground forces, special operations forces in any way? What did the Bush administration do with that if they had?

CLARKE: There was never a plan in the Clinton administration to use ground forces. The military was asked at a couple of points in the Clinton administration to think about it. Um, and they always came back and said it was not a good idea. There was never a plan to do that.

(Break in briefing details as reporters and Clarke go back and forth on how to source quotes from this backgrounder.)

ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no — one, there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office?

CLARKE: You got it. That's right.

QUESTION: It was not put into an action plan until September 4, signed off by the principals?

CLARKE: That's right.

QUESTION: I want to add though, that NSPD — the actual work on it began in early April.

CLARKE: There was a lot of in the first three NSPDs that were being worked in parallel.

ANGLE: Now the five-fold increase for the money in covert operations against Al Qaeda — did that actually go into effect when it was decided or was that a decision that happened in the next budget year or something?

CLARKE: Well, it was gonna go into effect in October, which was the next budget year, so it was a month away.

QUESTION: That actually got into the intelligence budget?

CLARKE: Yes it did.

QUESTION: Just to clarify, did that come up in April or later?

CLARKE: No, it came up in April and it was approved in principle and then went through the summer. And you know, the other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the rollback strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the NSPD from one of rollback to one of elimination.

QUESTION: Well can you clarify something? I've been told that he gave that direction at the end of May. Is that not correct?

CLARKE: No, it was March.

QUESTION: The elimination of Al Qaeda, get back to ground troops — now we haven't completely done that even with a substantial number of ground troops in Afghanistan. Was there, was the Bush administration contemplating without the provocation of September 11th moving troops into Afghanistan prior to that to go after Al Qaeda?

CLARKE: I can not try to speculate on that point. I don't know what we would have done.

QUESTION: In your judgment, is it possible to eliminate Al Qaeda without putting troops on the ground?

CLARKE: Uh, yeah, I think it was. I think it was. If we'd had Pakistani, Uzbek and Northern Alliance assistance.

Link

[JackSpratts]

i saw that and i couldn’t believe that's the bush admin's big defense, it's so amazingly lightweight they might as well just admit clarke was right and go home (not that clarke didn't have witnesses, he did).

i guess you've never been to a retirement party. old gripes get momentarily placed aside for a few hours of bland, civil discourse, usually followed up by thank you notes of equally meaningless boilerplate. it’s an old and tired convention but it’s considered bad form to be critical around such times and anyway it leads to frameable wall plaques and never underestimate the power a wall plaque can have on a man’s psyche. better than a gold watch.

but if ever anyone will be knocked off by his own words, it'll be clarke's last boss, george w. bush.

- js.

[span]

Originally posted by JackSpratts
i saw that and i couldn’t believe that's the bush admin's big defense, it's so amazingly lightweight they might as well just admit clarke was right and go home (not that clarke didn't have witnesses, he did).

i guess you've never been to a retirement party. old gripes get momentarily placed aside for a few hours of bland, civil discourse, usually followed up by thank you notes of equally meaningless boilerplate. it’s an old and tired convention but it’s considered bad form to be critical around such times and anyway it leads to frameable wall plaques and never underestimate the power a wall plaque can have on a man’s psyche. better than a gold watch.

but if ever anyone will be knocked off by his own words, it'll be clarke's last boss, george w. bush.

- js.

what are you talking about? he said that in an August of 2002 briefing to reporters, about 6 months before he "retired" (actually quit).

[adonai]

it keeps getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper

December 15, 2000

Q: As far as international crimes go, what's the one largest threat to U.S. citizens right now?

MR. CLARKE: I think the largest threat is obviously posed by international narcotics smuggling, which costs a number of lives and costs an enormous amount of money. But more and more, we see that the people who are engaged in international narcotics smuggling are also engaged in other businesses, other illegal activities.

US Embassy

Quite contrary to his bragging about supposedly warning everyone about Al-Qaeda

[daddydirt]

Any Richard Clarke fans out there please read Losing Bin Laden by Richard Miniter. (Clarke was one of the main sources for the book) Please explain to me why on earth Clarke didn't run to 60 Minutes back then with his litany of grievances.

I'm sure it's all just dumb luck that the book's release and the tv interview happened to coincide with the first days of hearings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

"I'm an independent. I'm not working for the Kerry campaign," says Clarke. (but my best friend Rand Beers is the principal advisor to the Kerry campaign)

The thing that made me laugh the most this week was Kerry's reaction. At first he "reserved judgement" before commenting, because he hadn't read the book yet. (As if his principal campaign advisor hadn't clued him in already)

Then in his first public appearance after his vacation in Idaho, cameras catch him leaving his SUV.....but wait.....he's forgotten something in the vehicle....he reaches back inside.....and comes back out with.......the book.

[span]

Originally posted by daddydirt

Then in his first public appearance after his vacation in Idaho, cameras catch him leaving his SUV.....but wait.....he's forgotten something in the vehicle....he reaches back inside.....and comes back out with.......the book.

lol...i thought he was reaching back in for his jock strap that he bought in front of reporters...because he's such a manly man

[adonai]

GOP Moves to Declassify Clarke Testimony

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON - Top Republicans in Congress sought Friday to declassify two-year-old testimony by former White House aide Richard Clarke, suggesting he may have lied this week when he faulted President Bush handling of the war on terror.

"Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories under oath," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said in a speech on the Senate floor.

The Tennessee Republican said he hopes Clarke's testimony in July 2002 before the House and Senate intelligence committees can be declassified. Then, he said, it can be compared with the account the former aide provided in his nationally televised appearance Wednesday before the bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said he supports the move. "We need to lean forward in making as much information available to the public as possible, without compromising the national security interests of the nation," he said in a statement. Hastert said the initial request had been made by Rep. Porter Goss, the Florida Republican who heads the House intelligence committee.

The developments marked the latest turn in a Republican counterattack against Clarke, who has leveled his criticism against Bush in a new book as well as in interviews and his sworn testimony before the commission.

In his testimony, Clarke said that while the Clinton administration had "no higher priority" than combatting terrorists, Bush made it "an important issue but not an urgent issue" in the eight months between the time he took office and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Clarke also testified that the invasion of Iraq had undermined the war on terror.

In a sharply worded speech, Frist said that Clarke himself was "the only common denominator" across 10 years of terrorist attacks that began with the first attack on the World Trade Center.

Additionally, he accused Clarke of "an appalling act of profiteering" by publishing a book that relied on access to insider information relating to the worst terrorist attacks in the nation's history.

He also accused him of making a "theatrical apology" to the families of the terrorist victims at the outset of his appearance on Wednesday, saying it was not "his right, his privilege or his responsibility" to do so.

"Mr. Clarke can and will answer for his own conduct — but that is all," he said.

Frist, without elaborating, said Clarke's testimony in 2002 was "effusive in his praise for the actions of the Bush administration."

Frist also noted that Clarke, appearing as an anonymous official, had praised the administration's actions in an appearance before White House reporters in 2002.

Clarke on Wednesday dismissed that appearance as the fulfillment of the type of request that presidential appointees frequently receive.

But, Frist said, "Loyalty to any administration will be no defense if it is found that he has lied to Congress."

No immediate information was available on how the declassification process works, but one GOP aide said the CIA and perhaps the White House would play a role in determining whether to make the testimony public.

Without mentioning the congressional Republicans' effort, White House spokesman Scott McClellan continued the administration's criticism of Clarke on Friday.

"With every new assertion he makes, every revision of his past comments, he only further undermines his credibility," McClellan told reporters.

Asked about Bush's personal reaction to the criticism from a former White House aide, McClellan said, "Any time someone takes a serious issue like this and revises history it's disappointing."

Link

[JackSpratts]

"Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories under oath."

imagine, saying something nice about your boss in washington…

selective declassifications solely for the purpose of destroying your critics is an abuse of power and a tactic of tyrants. how about declassifying everything, even the material awkward to bush, as a matter of fact how about putting bush under oath and asking him pointed and very specific questions? then we’ll have plenty of ammo to get at the truth, which is of course what everyone wants, including republicans, right?

today we learn that condy rice who is everywhere, in front of any camera she can find, except ones where she first has to swear an oath, had to retract statements she herself made. 2 years ago she claimed nobody had any idea air attacks against the trade center were planned. turns out the cia had a few ideas about it. she said today well, nobody told her…

she also contradicted both herself and cheney as the administration fell all over themselves attacking clarke.

she said clarke's anti terrorism plan was no good, then contradicted herself later in the week saying the plan was ok.

cheney tells limbaugh clarke didn’t know everything, he wasn't "in the loop", not so said rice - clarke had been at "every meeting."

the most damaging of all is the white house's reversal of their denial that the now infamous sept 12th clarke-bush meeting happened, when bush insisted clarke “get the goods on iraq,” and only iraq, while the experts told bush “wait a minute, iraq had no connection to 9/11.” with witness after republican witness this week coming forward agreeing the meeting took place exactly as described by clarke, the white house today had no choice and flipped from denial to reluctant acknowlegdment, finally admitting the now infamous 9/12 meeting occured. thanks for hacking up a little peice of honesty mr. bush.

graham, who presumably knows what’s in those meetings the republicans want to declassify says declassify it all guys, “bring it on!” as tom daschle sarcastically remarks, if they have something on clarke, try him for perjury. they don’t, and they can’t, but that shouldn’t stop the country getting at the truth – even if it means swearing in the entire white house.

- js.

[theknife]

all this fuss about Clarke obscures a central point of his testimony: the invasion of Iraq is not helping the war on terrorism.

Clarke's Critique Reopens Debate on Iraq War

Administration Strongly Resists View That Invasion Undermined War on Terrorism
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 28, 2004; Page A22

John F. Lehman, a Republican member of the 9/11 commission, put it bluntly to former counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke when he testified publicly last week: Why did his earlier, private testimony to the commission not include the harsh criticism leveled at President Bush in his book?

"There's a very good reason for that," Clarke replied. "In the 15 hours of testimony, no one asked me what I thought about the president's invasion of Iraq. And the reason I am strident in my criticism of the president of the United States is because by invading Iraq . . . the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism."

all the attacks on his character (which is pretty decent by most accounts) and motives (which undoubtedly include book publicity) don't change the validity of these assertions.

White House officials strongly dispute Clarke's conclusion, saying it reflects an old-fashioned approach to dealing with terrorism. "Those who question Iraq have an outdated and one-dimensional view of what is really a multi-dimensional threat to our nation," said Jim Wilkinson, deputy national security adviser for communications. "Some think the solution is to kill Osama bin Laden, finish Afghanistan and then go back to a defensive posture and hope we're not attacked again. This approach represents the old way of thinking because it ignores the fact that the modern terrorist threat is a global threat."

But Clarke's complaint resonates with some other former administration officials. Rand Beers, who served as counterterrorism chief after Clarke, has voiced the same complaint and is now foreign policy adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry (Mass.). Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst and Middle East specialist who left Bush's National Security Council staff a year ago, also agrees.

"Clarke's critique of administration decision-making and how it did not balance the imperative of finishing the job against al Qaeda versus what they wanted to do in Iraq is absolutely on the money," Leverett said.

He said that Arabic-speaking Special Forces officers and CIA officers who were doing a good job tracking Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and other al Qaeda leaders were pulled out of Afghanistan in March 2002 to begin preparing for Iraq. "We took the people out who could have caught them," he said. "But even if we get bin Laden or Zawahiri now, it is two years too late. Al Qaeda is a very different organization now. It has had time to adapt. The administration should have finished this job."

Jessica Stern, Harvard University lecturer and author of "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill," concurs. "It was a distraction on the war on terrorism and made it more difficult to prosecute because the al Qaeda movement used the war in Iraq to mobilize new recruits and energize the movement," she said. "And we apparently sent Special Forces from Afghanistan, where they should have been fighting al Qaeda, to Iraq."

But Eliot Cohen, director of strategic studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and an advocate of attacking Iraq, argues that Clarke's analysis wrongly assumes the battle against terrorism paralyzes the government when it comes to other wars. He said that if one assumes the fight against terrorism is a multi-year effort that could stretch decades, then "there is nothing the U.S. government can do for 30 years but fight al Qaeda." He noted that the bulk of the fighting in Iraq was carried out by military units, such as the 101st Airborne, that were not involved in Afghanistan.

Cohen agreed, however, that a war the scale of the Iraq invasion could divert the attention of senior officials from other issues, such as fighting terrorism. Pat Lang, who was head of Middle East and South Asia intelligence in the Defense Intelligence Agency for seven years, said: "When you commit as much time and attention and resources as we did to Iraq, which I do not believe is connected to the worldwide war against the jihadis, then you subtract what you could commit to the war on terrorism. You see that especially in the Special Forces commitment, as we have only so many of them."

Wilkinson countered that, under Bush's strategy, "we're taking territory and resources away from the terrorists across many fronts, from liberating Iraq and Afghanistan, to removing WMD from Libya, to seizing terrorist finances." He added that a recently discovered memo urging an Islamist battle against the U.S. occupation in Iraq, allegedly written by Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi to senior al Qaeda leaders, demonstrates "the terrorists understand what Iraq means to their survival."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Mar27.html

[cheapprick]

Anyone with political aspirations, living outside the U.S., has to move there today.

Any accusation, no matter how damning, can be shuffled off as partisan politics.

That's great.

[adonai]

Originally posted by cheapprick
Anyone with political aspirations, living outside the U.S., has to move there today.

Any accusation, no matter how damning, can be shuffled off as partisan politics.

That's great.

Actually one would just need to be consistent and not contradict things they'd said earlier.

[theknife]

Clarke's not backing down an inch...gotta give him credit for some balls:

Clarke wants all testimony, records declassified
Ex-counterterrorism aide: 'Not just a little line here and there'
Sunday, March 28, 2004 Posted: 7:24 PM EST (0024 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former White House counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke, whose criticism of the Bush administration's antiterrorism policy has triggered a ferocious response from the White House, said Sunday that he supports Republican calls to declassify testimony he gave Congress in 2002.

At issue is testimony Clarke gave behind closed doors at a July 2002 hearing of the House and Senate intelligence committees jointly investigating the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Clarke said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the release of the testimony would prove false any claims that his earlier testimony contradicts statements in his new book, "Against All Enemies."

"I would welcome it being declassified," he said. "But not just a little line here and there -- let's declassify all six hours of my testimony."

Clarke called on the White House to end what he called "vicious personal attacks" and "character assassination," and focus on issues.

they're trying to nail him on contradictory testimony and he wants to bring it all out into the open. i'll bet nobody takes him up on this

[adonai]

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN MARCH 28, 2004 19:03:28 ET XXXXX

SOURCES: CLARKE 'TO EARN OVER $1 MILLION FOR BOOK'; CONTRACT: BONUSES ADDED

**Exclusive**

Former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke is on track to earn over $1 million in cash advance and royalties for his controversial book AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, publishing sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

"Mr. Clarke's six-figure advance will soon turn into a seven-figure compensation, if sales continue at this pace," a top source at Clarke's imprint SIMON & SCHUSTER reveals.

"Astonishingly, we are already approaching a point where the advance paid to Mr. Clarke is covered."

AGAINST ALL ENEMIES sold more than 140,000 units in its first week, a second publishing insider claims.

Publicly, SIMON & SCHUSTER has refused to reveal specifics of its contract with Clarke, citing business privilege.

But an insider explains how the contract called for bonuses to be paid to Clarke for "hitting The [NYT bestsellers] List" in its debut, a contact clause common in publishing.

"There are bonuses for each week the book remains on the charts," the source, who demanded anonymity, explains.

link

[theknife]

of course he's cashing in on the publicity

but at issue is his version of pre-9/11 events....the fact he's calling for all his previous testimony to be released means he's pretty confident about what the record will show.

he's raising the stakes - will the administration call his bluff?

[adonai]

i certainly hope they do

[cheapprick]

Actually one would just need to be consistent and not contradict things they'd said earlier.

That seems fair enough I suppose.

So, if Clarke had come out and said that, oh let's say Iraq, posed a clear and imminent danger, he should be strung up if he tried to recant?



You've held jobs. If you want to keep your job sometimes you are told to tow the line. If I worked for Bush, I'd say the same for as long as I worked for him. I don't think that lessens my credibility, it just suggests I prefer employment.

I used to work for a big box retailer. While we were not told to lie about various features of the extended warranty, we were expected to highlight the positive and ignore the negative. If that's not the line of work you can handle, you quit. If I had wrote a book about it, it wouldn't be less true.

[Repo]

Just as the Bush reelection team started their television campaign showing George W. Bush as strong on fighting terrorism, out comes a little known career government worker showing that George W. Bush and his aides actually dropped the ball on terrorism. This government worker isn't a Democrat leftover from the Clinton Administration but a Republican leftover from the Reagan Administration; he has worked for every administration since good old Uncle Ronny was in charge and he wasn't just any government worker, he was the White House counterterrorism aide, somebody that knows more than a little about fighting terrorists...

Richard Clarke the counterterrorism aide to Mr. Bush alleges that Bush and his National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were in effect asleep at the wheel leading up to the 9-11 attacks and that neither Bush nor Rice took him or his advice seriously, instead bogging down his terrorism reports in underlings' meetings until it was too late. It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that both Bush and Rice were lightweights coming into their respective jobs and in hindsight were remiss before and after the 9-11 attacks...

Rice had counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke meet with lower level people in the Bush White House unlike the Clinton White House where he met with the top level people, that in itself shows that Rice didn't take the terrorist threat as serious as her predecessor Sandy Berger...

Bush claims CIA Director George Tenet briefed him regularly but if he briefed him and Bush didn't do anything than what good were the briefings? What did he brief Bush on, baseball? If the Bush White House took the threats seriously than why was the counterterrorism aide meeting with pee-ons? If Bush was briefed then why didn't he do something? The White House could have warned the airlines, they could have warned the public but they didn't. Bush was briefed and then he forgot about it; he did nothing...

The FBI field agents knew something was up and reported to FBI headquarters in Washington and the FBI there did nothing. The CIA was briefing Bush but either there was nothing in the briefing or Bush wasn't listening because nobody did anything until the 9-11 attacks. Here is the amazing thing, not one person from the FBI, CIA or the Bush White House has been fired for their poor job performance leading up to 9-11, instead it is Washington business as usual, protect the top Washington heads and attack and malign the whistleblowers, in this case former counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke. Everyone affiliated with the Bush White House is dissing Clarke. Yea, it is Clarke's fault that Condoleezza Rice was too busy to read his reports. Yea, it is Clarke's fault that Rice pushed him to meet with underlings. Yea, it is Clarke's fault that Bush was and is obsessed with Iraq...

Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist claims to be appalled for the "act of profiteering" because Clarke wrote a book on the Bush Administration's failings. Too bad Frist isn't as appalled at Dick Cheney for his "act of profiteering" from the first Gulf War, he made millions off of that war and as vice president still makes money from the company that now makes money from the Iraq occupation. Frist's partisanship when it comes to being appalled over "act of profiteering" is in itself appalling. Frist even called Clarke's apology to the 9-11 families "theatrical." The only theater going on is the Bush Administration pretending to be strong on fighting terrorism. Abraham Lincoln once said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." The Bush Administration and their Senate stooges are about to find out what President Lincoln meant. They are no longer fooling anybody, except themselves. The more television commercials I see touting George W. Bush as tough on terrorism, the less I believe it. Bush's campaign commercials are kind of like the commercials for the 4-hour erection medicine, 4 more for the same old prick...

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