Posted on 03/23/2004 7:23:21 AM PST by ConservativeMajority
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Major players in the Bush administration came out firing Monday to dispute the claims made by a former counterterrorism official in a new book critical of Bush's terrorism prevention efforts.
National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice appeared on all five network morning shows saying, "Dick Clarke was counterterrorism czar for a long time with a lot of attacks on the United States. What he was doing was -- what they were doing apparently was not working. We wanted to do something different."
Vice President Richard Cheney made an appearance on the Rush Limbaugh radio program, rare in the sense that the most listened-to host in talk radio entertains few guests. Cheney said that Clarke "wasn't in the loop on a lot of this stuff."
Cheney said, "Just three weeks after the -- after we got here, there was communication, for example, with the President of Pakistan, laying out our concerns about Afghanistan and al Qaeda, and the importance of going after the Taliban and getting them to end their support for the al Qaeda."
Cheney added that Clarke "was here throughout those eight years, going back to 1993, and the first attack on the World Trade Center; and '98, when the embassies were hit in East Africa; in 2000, when the USS Cole was hit. And the question that ought to be asked is, what were they [the Clinton administration] doing in those days when he was in charge of counterterrorism efforts?"
The Vice President dismissed Clarke's claim that the President didn't treat al Qaeda as a serious threat before September 11th.
"The President did not want to do is to have an ineffective response with respect to al Qaeda," Cheney said. "And we felt that up until that point that much of what had been done vis-a-vis al Qaeda had been totally ineffective: some cruise missiles fired at some training camps in Afghanistan that basically didn't hit anything. And it made the U.S. look weak and ineffective."
Cheney suggested that Clarke is something of a disgruntled employee when he said, "I suppose he may have a grudge to bear there since he probably wanted a more prominent position than [Rice] was prepared to give him."
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan came out swinging as well.
He said, "His assertion that there was something we could have done to prevent the September 11th attacks from happening is deeply irresponsible, it's offensive, and it's flat-out false."
McClellan referred to the controversy surrounding the book release as "Dick Clarke's 'American grandstand."
He added, "It appears from what I've seen that he's been more focused on the process than the substance. It appears to be more about Dick Clarke than about the substance."
The White House press secretary pointed out, "These threats did not happen overnight. ... Dick Clarke was here for some eight years. This administration was here for some 230 days before the attacks of September 11th."
McClellan continued, "If he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he's raising these grave concerns that he claims he had."
He questioned Clarke's motivation and timing when he said, "He is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book. Certainly let's look at the politics of it. His best buddy is Rand Beers, who is the principal foreign policy advisor to Senator Kerry's campaign."
McClellan added, "The Kerry campaign went out and immediately put these comments up on their website that Mr. Clarke made."
In the off-camera briefing earlier on Monday, McClellan told reporters that Clarke had refused requests and then orders to attend a certain number of meetings with Dr. Rice. He said that early on in the administration, Dr. Rice started holding daily briefings with the senior directors of the National Security Council, of which Clarke was one. But McClellan said that Clarke refused to attend those meetings.
The administration continues to be vexed by holdovers from the Clinton administration. George Tenet, appointed director of the CIA by President Clinton in 1996 has been a lightning rod for criticism over intelligence failures about 9/11 and Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Some suggest that his mismanagement of the agency has undermined the Bush administration.
The leak probe now underway was spawned by the CIA's decision to send a known partisan, former Ambassador Joe Wilson to Africa to investigate claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa. The agency has yet to explain how Wilson was chosen for the mission and why the White House was not informed in advance.
When asked if the president had any regrets about his policy of "setting a new tone in Washington" which included retaining members of a previous administration, McClellan told Talon News, "The president has always been someone who's worked to elevate the discourse and worked to focus on where we can advance on common ground issues of great importance."
The Clinton administration cleared the decks when it swept into the Washington, going as far as firing the entire staff of White House travel office. When Janet Reno became Attorney General in 1993, she fired all 94 of the U.S. Attorneys in what she said was a "joint decision" with the White House.
The Independent 9/11 Commission begins to hear testimony beginning on Tuesday.
Copyright © 2004 Talon News -- All rights reserved.
That is one think clinton wasn't... he came in and replaced everybody, even the travel office. The chorus was his, and it seems, part of it still is.
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