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To: lodwick
good to see you back in the saddle again.
147 posted on 03/21/2004 10:38:09 AM PST by Endeavor (Don't count your Hatch before it chickens)
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To: Endeavor
Do you think testimony from our side this week at the 9/11 comm. will make Richard Clarke's book hit the bargin barrel sooner rather than later? Help or hurt Kerry?

...Clarke was known for pounding the table to urge his counterparts at the CIA, FBI and Pentagon to do more about Al Qaeda. But he did not have much luck, in part because in both the Clinton and early Bush administrations, the top leadership did not back up Clarke and demand results.

A White House official countered that the true fault lay with Clarke for failing to propose an effective plan to go after Al Qaeda. On Jan. 25, this official told NEWSWEEK, Clarke submitted proposals to "roll back" Al Qaeda in Afghanistan by boosting military aid to neighboring Uzbekistan, getting the CIA to arm its Predator spy planes and increasing funding for guerrillas fighting the Taliban. There was no need for a high-level meeting on terrorism until Clarke came up with a better plan, this official told NEWSWEEK. The official quoted President Bush as telling Condi Rice, "I'm tired of swatting flies." Bush, this official says, wanted an aggressive scheme to take bin Laden out.

...In the meeting, says Clarke, Wolfowitz cited the writings of Laurie Mylroie, a controversial academic [Isikoff fails to mention Mylroie served as an adviser on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign.] who had written a book advancing an elaborate conspiracy theory that Saddam was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Clarke says he tried to refute Wolfowitz. "We've investigated that five ways to Friday, and nobody [in the government] believes that," Clarke recalls saying. "It was Al Qaeda. It wasn't Saddam." A spokesman for Wolfowitz described Clarke's account as a "fabrication." Wolfowitz always regarded Al Qaeda as "a major threat," said this official. Link

She [Mylroie]thinks that Pollack, like many other former and current State Department employees and intelligence community members, intentionally tried to downplay Iraqis ties too terrorism, positing that "once the danger of Iraqi terrorist activity was admitted, the inescapable implication followed that the Clinton administration, including Pollack himself, had turned a blind eye to a major threat." Link

Clinton had to ignore it, real war is just too risky on one's legacy.

Wessie Clark was asked by Kerry to comment on this 'contraversy' on Fox News! Yikes, could I be getting my wish, a Kerry/Clark ticket?

156 posted on 03/21/2004 3:53:50 PM PST by BigWaveBetty (Have you forgotten - - How we felt that day?)
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