FORMER WHITE HOUSE TERRORISM ADVISOR: BUSH ADMIN WAS DISCUSSING BOMBING IRAQ FOR 9/11 DESPITE...

DRUDGE ^ | 3/19/04 | Drudge

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Former White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tells Lesley Stahl that on September 11, 2001 and the day after - when it was clear Al Qaeda had carried out the terrorist attacks - the Bush administration was considering bombing Iraq in retaliation. Clarke's exclusive interview will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday March 21 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Clarke was surprised that the attention of administration officials was turning toward Iraq when he expected the focus to be on Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. "They were talking about Iraq on 9/11. They were talking about it on 9/12," says Clarke.

The top counter-terrorism advisor, Clarke was briefing the highest government officials, including President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the aftermath of 9/11. "Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq....We all said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan," recounts Clarke, "and Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq.' I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with [the 9/11 attacks],'" he tells Stahl.

Clarke goes on to explain what he believes was the reason for the focus on Iraq. "I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection [between Iraq and Al Qaeda] but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there, saying, 'We've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection,'" says Clarke.

Clarke, who advised four presidents, reveals more about the current administration's reaction to terrorism in his new book, "Against All Enemies."

Developing...

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Moderator note: Be sure to read the related story on Richard Clarke:

FORMER WHITE HOUSE TERRORISM ADVISOR RICHARD CLARKE'S LEGACY OF MISCALCULATION

[MizSterious]

It's my understanding that they actually considered several sources for the terrorist attack. Nevertheless, there are ample connections between AQ and Iraq--they trained AQ fer cryin' out loud.

[leadpenny]

Check out post #8 by Catspaw on this thread:

SECOND PLANE FLIES INTO OTHER TOWER!

[GraniteStateConservative]

you have to take out Saddam because all terror roads lead through Baghdad

I'd say that Iran had and still has that title.

[MizSterious]

Thank you for bringing up Salman Pak--I believe there were threads on that on FR at one time, too, some even including the airplane they were using for training terrorists to hijack airplanes.

[TomGuy]

Second plane flies into towers!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/520265/posts

[adam_az]

He's the putz who had Clinton bomb the aspirin factory and embarassed Reagan with his stupid sonic boom and empty raft idea.

His magnum opus was to eviscerate FOIA.

Thanks a lot, CLYMER!


http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/143

In 1986, as a State Department bureaucrat with pull, he came up with a plan to battle terrorism and subvert Muammar Qaddafi by having SR-71s produce sonic booms over Libya. This was to be accompanied by rafts washing onto the sands of Tripoli, the aim of which was to create the illusion of a coming attack. When this nonsense was revealed, it created embarrassment for the Reagan administration and was buried.

In 1998, according to the New Republic, Clarke "played a key role in the Clinton administration's misguided retaliation for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which targeted bin Laden's terrorist camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan." The pharmaceutical factory was, apparently, just a pharmaceutical factory, and we now know how impressed bin Laden was by cruise missiles that miss.

Trying his hand in cyberspace, Clarke's most lasting contribution is probably the new corporate exemption in the Freedom of Information Act. Originally designed to immunize companies against the theoretical malicious use of FOIA by competitors, journalists and other so-called miscreants interested in ferreting out cyber-vulnerabilities, it was suggested well before the war on terror as a measure that would increase corporate cooperation with Uncle Sam. Clarke labored and lobbied diligently from the NSC for this amendment to existing law, law which he frequently referred to as an "impediment" to information sharing.

While the exemption would inexplicably not pass during the Clinton administration, Clarke and other like-minded souls kept pushing for it. Finally, the national nervous breakdown that resulted from the collapse of the World Trade Center reframed the exemption as a grand idea, and it was embraced by legislators, who even expanded it to give a get-out-of-FOIA-free card to all of corporate America, not just those involved with the cyber-infrastructure. It passed into law as part of the legislation forming the Department of Homeland Security.

However, as with many allegedly bright ideas originally pushed by Richard Clarke, it came with thorns no one had anticipated.

In a January 17 confirmation hearing for Clarke's boss, Tom Ridge, Senator Carl Levin protested that the exemption's language needed to be clarified. "We are denying the public unclassified information in the current law which should not be denied to the public," he said as reported in the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News.

"That means that you could get information that, for instance, a company is leaking material into a river that you could not turn over to the EPA," Levin continued. "If that company was the source of the information, you could not even turn it over to another agency."

"It certainly wasn't the intent, I'm sure, of those who advocated the Freedom of Information Act exemption to give wrongdoers protection or to protect illegal activity," replied Ridge while adding he would work to remedy the problem.

Thanks for everything, Mr. Clarke.

[ErnBatavia]

Muchas Gracias! I just went there for a quick scroll; still just as chilling as 9/11...

[WhiteGuy]

Another poster here commented the following: (I paraphrase)

The clifton administration had our highly paid intel experts zeroed in on osmama binLaden and the el-kida's back in the late 90's.

The clifton administration did nothing to solve the problem.

Beginning in January 2001, president bush was commander in chief.

Based on the intel gathered by the CIA, NSA, etc, there was the same clear danger, yet no action was taken to weaken or eliminate the el-kida terrorist group.

I don't understand this.

Someone please help me out here, this isn't true is it?

[FlyVet]

60 Minutes/Minutes II has had an anti-Bush Admin hit piece almost every week since the beginning of the year. No election year bias, I'm sure......

I don't think we've seen the rage yet, this is going to get louder and louder as we approach November. They hate Bush's guts, plain and simple.

I had 8 stinking years with Rapist Philanderer Liar Clown as my Commander in Chief. They want Kerry, a man cut from the same cloth. THAT'S who THEY ARE.

[Endeavor]

Before you blow a gasket, you might want to look at this:http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/143

The Bush admin moved this guy to a place he couldn't hurt anybody with his brilliant ideas. No suprise he's dissing them now.

[Endeavor]

er, surprise.

Looks like we're all on this like a duck on a June bug!

[Peach]

Bob Woodward in his book Bush at War, was given access, unprecedented access, to national security documents and people.

He describes how and why the Bush administration was considering bombing Iraq in the days following 9/11. It all made perfect sense to me and to Woodward.

In one section of the book, Cheney and others are discussing Iraq, anthrax and 9/11. They decide that they paraphrase "can't do anything about Iraq right now" with the allusion that they know Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks, but we don't have the troops in place or a game plan yet.

[Nick Danger]

Another "didn't get rid of him" Clinton holdover.

...and miles to go before I sleep.

[GraniteStateConservative]

What I recall is that the Clinton WH had drawn up some plans but we didn't trust them to be useful so we drew up our own, which were ready in August of 2001.

[txhurl]

You know, Clarke and his ilk can trot this stuff out all they want, here at FR we have DOCUMENTATION for ALL of it.

If this type attack is the only way the left will learn what we know, fine. I can't wait for Salman Pak to become a household word.

[Zack Nguyen]

The idea that Iraq and Al Qaeda had nothing to do with each other just stretches credulity. I mean come on! Hussein may not be overtly religious, but he hates the West, and that I'm sure was enough for bin Laden.

[Bush Cheney]

Simple. To get to the root of the problem you take out Afghanistan and Iraq. I guess this former advisor doesn't get it.

[Howlin]

Absolutely. I remember that well. We ALL agreed that is who did it that very second.

[txrangerette]

Depends on the meaning of..."no
action was taken". The Bush folks
had been developing a plan to go
after al-Qaeda, & it had just been
shown to the Pres. the day before
9-11.

Please don't believe political
lies against this good man.

[Republican Red]

That really is nothing new. I remember reading excerpts from the Woodward book "Bush at War".

Most wanted to go after Iraq immediately but cooler heads prevailed and they decided to go to Afghanistan first.