hey, Clarke... President Bush sends his regards!!
Posted on 03/24/2004 3:25:24 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Mar 24, 2004
Bush Team Reveals Clarke as Formerly Anonymous Defender of White House Policies By Scott Lindlaw Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House, intensifying its effort to discredit Richard Clarke, took the unusual step Wednesday of revealing he was the anonymous official who had defended President Bush's anti-terrorism strategy in August 2002. In a new book, Clarke accuses the administration of giving too little attention to the threat posed by al-Qaida until the day of the Sept. 11 attacks. But in the 2002 discussion with reporters, Clarke outlined a multi-pronged approach for confronting al-Qaida that he said the White House had developed over several months leading up to the attacks.
"Dick Clarke, in his own words, provides a point-by-point rebuttal of what he now asserts," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "This shatters the cornerstone of Mr. Clarke's assertions."
Asked about his White House briefing comments, Clarke said he had chosen to "put the best face" on Bush's policies while working for him in 2002.
"I think that is what most people in the White House in any administration do when they're asked to explain something that is embarrassing to the administration," Clarke told the commission investigating the terrorist attacks.
Just before Clarke began testifying Wednesday afternoon, McClellan read lengthy excerpts of the Aug. 4, 2002, briefing that Clarke gave reporters.
McClellan quoted Clarke criticizing the Clinton administration. "There was no plan on al-Qaida that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration," Clarke said.
At the time of the original briefing, the White House had insisted that journalists refer to Clarke only as a "senior administration official." But on Wednesday, the administration changed the terms. Fox News asked the White House for permission to reveal Clarke as the source, and the White House agreed, McClellan said.
After Fox aired its report, White House officials told other members of the news media they, too, could identify Clarke as the source.
Clarke was a top counterterrorism official for both the Clinton and Bush administrations. He said in the 2002 briefing that President Clinton had a strategy for tackling al-Qaida, but that it languished for years because that administration could not resolve several thorny issues.
Bush officials reviewed those policies when they came into office, and decided to "increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action fivefold, to go after al-Qaida," Clarke said in 2002.
Bush embraced a plan for the "rapid elimination" of al-Qaida, shifting from the Clinton administration's policy of seeking to "roll back" the threat over several years, Clarke said at that earlier briefing.
The decision to reveal Clarke as the source in the August 2002 illustrated the White House's determination to blunt Clarke's attacks on Bush in an election year.
"Let's remember why we are having this conversation, because Mr. Clarke made assertions that we have said are flat-out wrong," McClellan said. Moreover, in his book, "Mr. Clarke certainly decided on his own to go ahead and rebuild conversations that were considered private previously," the spokesman said.
Asked at the commission hearing Wednesday whether he intended to mislead journalists and their readers in 2002, Clarke said no.
"When you are special assistant to the president and you're asked to explain something that is potentially embarrassing to the administration, because the administration didn't do enough or didn't do it in a timely manner and is taking political heat for it, as was the case there, you have a choice," he said.
One "choice that one has is to put the best face you can for the administration on the facts as they were, and that is what I did."
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On the Net:
Transcript of Clarke's briefing with reporters in August 2002: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115085,00.html
FOX, CNN and TBO, so far.
It's impossible to UNdiscover a breaking news story of this magnitude... no matter how desperately the alphabet network lapdogs of the far left attempt to do so. In this day of the internet, and thousands of independent web logs: even that which Dan Rather has personally decreed shall remain hidden from the eye of man gets dragged out into the bright, cleansing sunlight of truth, sooner or later.
Keep watching. :)
True. But the media, instead of just reporting that Clarke has contradicted himself, will spin this as a foul diabolical White House plot to discredit Clarke, the courageous whistle-blower.
(I think sarcasm tags are wimpy.)
hey, Clarke... President Bush sends his regards!!
Yes, I saw that POS waving the report in the air assailing Fox News. Brit just chuckled after the film of Kerrey was complete.
Heh. Wasn't that rich?
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