Gen Alexander Haig slamming Clarke on Fox & Friends

Fox News Channel | March 22, 2004

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Gen. Haig following Condi Rice and Mansoor Ijaz slamming Richard Clarke and the feckless Clinton Administration on Fox & Friends this morning. This really has been an effective smack-down of the Demo attempt to politicize the 9-11 commission and this election year slime being spread by Kerry partisans.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

My last posting of the day... Have to move on.

[The Wizard]

I missed it...someone...help

[Poohbah]

Did he make the tag with Condi before he went into the ring? :o)

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Mr. Haig had a good list of missed opportunities from the Clinton Administration, ending (at one point) with the "cruise missiles at night so that he wouldn't hurt anyone." Classic General Haig!

[rintense]

Yes, and Condi tagged Ijaz too. This is great stuff. I say put Ijaz in front of the 9-11 commission and let him tell the truth.

[mewzilla]

Or, as 43 put it: I'm not going to aim a two million dollar missile at a ten dollar tent only to have it hit a camel in the butt.

[cyncooper]

Haig flat out said the dems are siding with the enemy "including their nominee for president".

The part I heard (he's still talking) that made me sit up was the slamming of the war on terror and how the dems continuously side with our enemies and undermine our efforts.

[Just mythoughts]

Thank you for all your good work this a.m.

Have a good day.

[Coop]

He's in charge here. :-)

[Peach]

Bob Woodward in his book Bush at War was given unprecedented access to the president and his administration, including Clarke. Clarke did not mention his concerns about a "focus on Iraq."

The Bush administration was continuing the Clinton administration's foreign policy which called for regime change in Iraq.

Iraq's involvement in supporting terrorists is longer than I can post her but some of the more obvious: Abdul Rahman Yasin, the one conspirator from the 1993 WTC bombing, had fled to Iraq and was harbored by Saddam Hussein for years. Paying Palestinian bomber's families. Salmon Pak where terrorists used a real airplane to learn how to hijack OUR planes.

Clarke claims that Condi Rice didn't even know who Al Qaeda was. I'm nearly falling on the floor laughing. The entire world knew UBL was a threat when he was interviewed in a world exclusive interview, by CNN's Nic Robertson in August of 1998, televised in it's entirety to the world via CNN and CNN International and when he famously repeated his jihad against America.

Just a year ago Clarke was singing a different tune, telling reporter Richard Miniter, author of the book "Losing bin Laden," that it was the Clinton administration - not team Bush - that had dropped the ball on bin Laden.

Clarke, who was a primary source for Miniter's book, detailed a meeting of top Clinton officials in the wake of al Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.

He urged them to take immediate military action. But his advice found no takers.

Reporting on Miniter's book, the National Review summarized the episode:

"At a meeting with Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno, and other staffers, Clarke was the only one in favor of retaliation against bin Laden."

The list of excuses seemed endless:

"Reno thought retaliation might violate international law and was therefore against it.

"Tenet wanted to more definitive proof that bin Laden was behind the attack, although he personally thought he was.

"Albright was concerned about the reaction of world opinion to a retaliation against Muslims, and the impact it would have in the final days of the Clinton Middle East peace process.

"Cohen, according to Clarke, did not consider the Cole attack 'sufficient provocation' for a military retaliation."

And what about President Clinton? According to what Clarke told Miniter, he rejected the attack plan. Instead Clinton twice phoned the president of Yemen demanding better cooperation between the FBI and the Yemeni security services.

Clarke offered a chillingly prescient quote from one aide who agreed with him about Clinton administration inaction. "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?" said the dismayed Clintonista

Clarke was given the opportunity to state his concerns to both the author of Losing Bin Laden and Bob Woodward. He didn't.

He's a demoted former administration official trying to hawk a book and has zero credibility.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

EXCELLENT POINTS, Peach! That's a wonderful perspective -- too bad the producers of 60 Minutes didn't think about some of these points and pose them to Mr. Clarke last night, just in the spirit of "fair and balanced..." No, I guess that might be expecting too much of CBS -- or as Rush says "The Partisan Media".

[Peach]

I'll be spamming or slamming (?) the threads on this today.

The DNC has their talking points. We have ours!

[OldFriend]

Seems that this Clarke episode has an unintended consequence. It completely discredits the 9/11 commission and it's report.

Once again the enemy has opened the door into it's own nose. (quoting Rush)

[kdot]

Thank you for the great refresher. We can't let the snakes erase their failures out of history.

[cyncooper]

I'm pleased the highest levels have decided these charges are not going to be allowed to go unrefuted.

Hurray!

Rowan Scarborough on Fox now saying "this is the new Richard Clarke", the old one has been saying for years to interviewers and testimony to Congress how the Clinton administration was paralyzed and would not move on OBL, and now he's turned around and said in the extremely short turn around time between inauguration and 9/11 it is Bush who has the blame. It does not compute.

And clearly it is not just the Bush campaign. It is US plus high profile Republicans who are not officially part of the campaign, who support this administration and will not stand by while outrageous lies are told by the likes of Paul O'Neill and now Richard Clarke. Enough!

I like your list.

[OldFriend]

CNN has hired William Cohen to be a once a week commentator.

Similar of course, to all the former Bush administration officials that were hired by CNN to comment on President Clinton's campaign for re-election in 1996.

Don't you all remember all those Bushies on CNN???????????????

[baseballmom]

Excellent summation, Peach. Condi reported this morning that Clarke was NOT invited to the Camp David meeting immediately following 9/11. She also mentioned that Clarke was against the creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security. He wanted to be top dog, and didn't get it.

[Peach]

LOL. Sheesh - I wonder if CNN will ask Cohen how he held a 5 lb. sack of sugar and said if this was anthrax, it could kill hundreds of thousands of people.

[Quilla]

The part I heard (he's still talking) that made me sit up was the slamming of the war on terror and how the dems continuously side with our enemies and undermine our efforts.

The democrat's constant attack on the President, his actions and policies, is seriously undermining America's position around the world. They speak out against our war in Iraq (in spite of their vote authorizing same) as though it was a mistake. It harms our troops, it weakens our position, and makes us targets. I swear this partisan, political rhetoric sounds like treason to me.