Shays: Clarke Statements Revisionist

Congressmen Christopher Shays; Connecticut Fourth District ^ | March 22, 2004 | Congressman Christopher Shays

[cricket]

Stamford, CT -- Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT), chair of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, expressed concern today about recent claims by former Clinton and Bush Administration official Richard Clarke that the Bush Administration failed to respond to the terrorist threat prior to September 11.

Noting Clarke told the subcommittee in June, 2000 that there was: “no need for an assessment” of the terrorist threat, Shays stated, “Mr. Clarke is engaging in revisionist history, apparently for personal partisan reasons. The fact is, when he had the authority and responsibility to craft U.S. counterterrorism policies, he consistently failed to articulate a cogent strategy or plan to Congress.”

Prior to September 2001, three national commissions - Bremer, Gilmore and Hart/Rudman - had concluded the U.S. needed a comprehensive threat assessment, a national strategy and a plan to reorganize the federal response to the new strategic menace of terrorism. The National Security Subcommittee, which Shays chairs, held 20 hearings and two formal briefings before September 11th on terrorist threats and preparedness.

Shays noted that at a briefing on June 28, 2000, he asked Mr. Clarke, then serving as President Clinton’s Special Assistant and National Coordinator, Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism, when an all-source threat assessment and strategy would be completed. His answer: “No assessment has been done, and there is no need for an assessment, I know the threat.”

Earlier that year, at the Department of Defense Worldwide Conference on Terrorism, Mr. Clarke’s assistant, Ms. Lisa Gordon-Haggerty, was asked when a national strategy to combat terrorism would be completed. She said Mr. Clarke’s office was developing a national strategy, and the plan would be completed over the next several weeks. No national strategy to combat terrorism was ever produced during the Clinton Administration.

“The task of responding to the terrorist threat is too important to be lowered to partisan bickering,” said Shays. “The bottom line is, the failure to respond to the terrorist threat was systemic, not political. It spanned several administrations and pervaded the intelligence community.”

“Lowering this debate to this partisan level serves neither the American people nor the cause of fighting terrorism to which Mr. Clarke is so committed,” Shays added.

Letters from the Subcommittee to Mr. Clarke following his testimony, and to Dr. Condoleezza Rice regarding concerns about Mr. Clarke's performance, are attached.

Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT) is Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, International Relations, and Emerging Threats, Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Government Reform and has held over 50 hearings on terrorism.

Letters to Mr. Clarke and Dr. Rice (PDF) http://www.house.gov/shays/news/2004/march/clarke.pdf

[js1138]

placemarker

[CheezyD]

bump for later

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Howlin , do you have a ping list?

[thackney]

BTTT

[Dolphy]

The fact is, when he had the authority and responsibility to craft U.S. counterterrorism policies, he consistently failed to articulate a cogent strategy or plan to Congress.”

Having authority and responsibility really paralyzes people like Clarke. They prefer just talking about how well they would do something or how much they know.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Letters to Mr. Clarke and Dr. Rice (PDF)

[betty boop]

His answer: “No assessment has been done, and there is no need for an assessment, I know the threat.”

To say the very least, Clarke is an exceptionally arrogant man, even for a Washington politico/bureaucrat type, who all tend to be arrogant. Thanks for the post, cricket.

[Peach]

The issues are too important for the RNC to let the DNC play games the way they have been.

The RNC needs to keep up the pressure and take it to the people and bypass the liberal filter.

Couple this with the White House trying to declassify Clarke's private testimony to the 911 Commission and see if he committed perjury AND Condi Rice's scheduled interview on 60 Minutes - we're getting someplace!

The leftists will regret making Clarke their go to guy and the presstitutes will be shown for the mere stenographers they are.

[lilylangtree]

Clarke is demoncRAT posing as a Pub. Rec'd this a.m. the following email where Clarke donated only to demoncRATS in the last decade.

Insight on the News - National
Issue: 3/30/04

Records Show Richard Clarke Gave Only to Democrats
By J. Michael Waller

Former counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke insists his attacks on President George W. Bush have nothing to do with politics, but an Insight check of Federal Election Commission (FEC) records shows that his only political contributions in the last decade have gone to Democrats.

Clarke is suspected of using his former post in the Bush White House as a weapon with which to slash and wound the president during his re-election campaign against Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). The Kerry campaign's coordinator for national security issues, Rand Beers, has described Clarke as his "best friend." According to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where Clarke and Beers are adjunct lecturers, they teach a course together about terrorism. Clarke's detailed Harvard biography specifically mentions his service under President Ronald Reagan and the elder President Bush, but says nothing about his eight years working for President Bill Clinton.

During the 9/11 commission hearings this week, Clarke denied any partisan leanings. "Let me talk about partisanship here, since you raised it," he told Commissioner John Lehman, pointing out that he, like Lehman, had served in the Reagan administration. "The White House has said that my book is an audition for a high-level position in the Kerry campaign," he said. "So let me say here, as I am under oath, that I will not accept any position in the Kerry administration, should there be one." He said he was a registered Republican in 2000.

But what about this presidential election year? According to FEC records, Clarke has been giving his money to Democratic friends -- not Republicans -- running for national office.

In 2002, while still on the Bush National Security Council (NSC), Clarke gave the legal maximum limit of $2,000 to a Democratic candidate for Congress, Steve Andreasen, who tried to unseat Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota. Andreason had been director for defense policy and arms control on the Clinton NSC. In making his donations of $1,000 on July 22 and another $1,000 on Nov. 7, 2002, Clarke listed his occupation as "U.S. Government/Civil Servant," according to FEC records indexed with the Center for Responsive Politics.

Clarke maxed out again in the 2004 election cycle, donating $2,000 to another Clinton White House veteran, Jamie Metzl, who is running as a Democrat for Congress from Missouri. Metzl was a staffer on the Clinton NSC and worked for Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) as deputy staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. With that donation, made on Sept. 15, 2003, after his resignation from the Bush NSC, Clarke listed his occupation as "Self-Employed/Consultant."

FEC records show that Clarke reported no political contributions when he worked in the Clinton administration in the electoral cycles of the 1990s and 2000, when he said he was a Republican.

J. Michael Waller is a senior writer for Insight. An in-depth story about Clarke will be posted at Insightmag.com on Monday.

[cyncooper]

Read the letter Shays submitted to the 9/11 commission in advance of Clarke's appearance.

Also included is a copy of a letter he sent to Clarke in the summer of 2000 admonishing him for his demeanor and conduct when he appeared before Shays' committee, and a letter Shays sent Dr. Rice on *January 22, 2001* (two days after GWB was inaugurated) informing her of his concerns about Richard Clarke:

http://www.cnsnews.com/pdf/2004/911commissionLetter.pdf

[Asclepius]

Cool letters, dude. Apparently Clarke told a congressional subcommittee in 2000 that a comprehensive to combat terrorism was "silly".

How, the congressman asks in the letter in response to Clarke's claim that no plan exists and no plan needs to exist, that no assessments exist and no assessment needs to exist, does one prioritize spending if one has no priorities?

Clarke is clerk, a low-level clerk, or at least he has the soul of a clerk, as revealed in these letters. Concepts like management or asset allocation baffle him. He would rather do clerk-like things and think what he thinks are deep thoughts.

[hchutch]

Well, well...

Shays jumps in. And on the right side of something for once...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

An in-depth story about Clarke will be posted at Insightmag.com on Monday.

I can hardly wait!

[Poohbah]

Clarke, give your soul to Jesus, 'cuz your a** belongs to Frist, Rice, and Cheney.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

An A**H**LE arrogant clerk!

[Cicero]

It's not enough at this point to show Clarke up as a clintoid liar. Not enough people will see it. He has to be ground into the dirt and convicted of perjury. Nothing less will do to reverse some of the damage and discourage more clintonoids from doing the same thing.

But the big mistake was keeping these jokers on in the first place. If and when Bush gets re-elected, he MUST get rid of all these traitors in his administration. This guy NEVER should have been kept on. He was politically treacherous and incompetent at his job. So, why was he retained?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ROFL!

Daschle is deeply saddened!!!!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See the Link at post #11 for an even better letter.

[Owen]

The WH is not defending this well. Better to up the ante on them. It's a matter of impressions, not truth.

"Now the opposition is claiming George Bush knew the WTC was going to be attacked and intentionally did nothing to stop it because he explicitly wanted an excuse to attack Iraq. This is absurd and the American people know it. With Tony Blair, GW Bush has led the charge in the war on terror, creating a Dept of Homeland Security that no previous administration even considered . . . ."

By exaggerating the criticism, they reach ridicule magnitude. It is a good tactic. It should be used.