[Peach]

1. Rep. Christopher Shays, chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, said that in June 2000 Clark told the subcommittee there was "no need for an assessment" of the terrorist threat.

Three national commissions concluded the US needed a comprehensive threat assessment and a national strategy. Shays held 20 hearings pre 9/11 and on June 28, 2000 he asked Mr. Clarke, then serving as Clinton's Special Assistant and National Coordinator, Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counterterrorism, when an all source threat assessment and strategy would be completed.

Clark answered "No assessment has been done, and there is no need for an assessment. I know the threat."

2. In 2000, the Department of Defense Worldwide Conference on Terrorism asked Mr. Clarke's assistant when a national strategy on terrorism would be completed. The assistant responded that a strategy was being developed (in 2000 - the last year of the Clinton presidency). However, no national strategy to combat terrorism was every produced during the Clinton administration.

3. 911 Commissioner Lehman noted to Clarke on Tuesday that his 15 hours of private testimony differed substantially from his public testimony. So substantially that Lehman told Clarke he couldn't believe it. As a result of that, the White House is seeking to declassify whether Clarke lied under oath.

4. On page 127 of Clarke's new book "Against All Enemies", Clarke notes that it's possible that al Qaida operatives in the Phillipes "taught Terry Nichols how to blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building." Intelligence places Nichols there on the same days as Ramzi Yousef, and "we do know that Nichols's bombs did not work before his Philippines stay and were deadly when he returned."

And yet, the Clinton administration focused exclusively on homegrown terrorists, and never talked publicly about this matter. Laurie Mylroie, terrorism expert who worked for the Clinton administration, and others, have since talked about the Iraqi connection to the OKC bombing frequently. Yet your news organization has been largely if not completely silent.

5. Despite Clarke's assertion that he is non-partisan, a few moments research into public records indicates that Clarke has only donated to Democrat's campaigns, never to Republicans.

6. Insight magazine published an article in June 2001 (pre 9/11) that reflects exactly what the Bush administration was doing to combat terrorism and provides information that proves Clarke was primarily focused on cyber terrorism vs. the kind of terrorism that kills thousands of people.

[jwalsh07]

Not any more, now he's known as a lying weasel who prifited from the deaths of Americans.

[NormsRevenge]

For decades he was the ultimate inside operator, the person who knew how to tackle the toughest national security problems and overcome bureaucratic inertia with behind-the-scenes guts, arrogance, smarts and hard work.

efficient, abrasive,, But was he effective?

How many attacks have we sustained over all his years and who is really to blame?

Buy MY book and find out. ;-o (just kidding..)

[inkling]

Holy Crap! Did Clarke write this himself?!

Clarke, who is single, is known as a voracious reader, from science fiction to history to the latest tutorial on al-Qaida, and as someone who enjoys relaxing with friends over dinner. The native New Englander loves seafood, follows the Boston Red Sox and the Washington Capitals, enjoys jazz and has a room in his Sears catalogue home packed with duck decoys and prints.

...His measurements are 36, 42, 56. He loves chinese food and long walks in the rain. No smokers, and please, no head games.

GACK!

[RoseofTexas]

Geez, the RAG rats are trying so hard to paint Smeagol Clarke as mother Teresa. HA! It'll never work!

[trek]

Fellow freepers. I have no evidence for this but I smell Soros behind the Richard Clarke story. I don't know if they have dirt on Clarke or if they have merely bribed him with serious millions to be funneled via a book deal or maybe even a swiss account. This whole business just does not smell right.

Soros is a very powerful and shady figure. Finding a way to turn Clarke is just his style. Don't be fooled by his sudden interest in American politics. Soros hates Bush and the war on terror because they are a threat to his empire. Soros makes his millions manipulating currencies. Opaque banking practices are critical to his business. And that is why he hates the war on terror. The same changes to the international banking system needed to defund the Jihadis are a mortal threat to his "business".

It sure is a shame that the "investigative media" have no interest in this story. I suspect there is a huge scandal here. But I doubt we will ever hear about. The libs have the press on too short a leash.

[Diogenesis]

No suprise reading AP militants helping terrorists.

[wardaddy]

The intensity of the Republican campaign to discredit him as a disgruntled partisan who is out to sell books is a testament to how seriously the White House views his criticism.

Actually Ms. Sherlocke, they might just be angry that he is a baldfaced liar......the Old Pretender.

[kezekiel]

So, he's focused, a hard worker, reads books, and gets the job done.

Such hard-hitting journalism. Thanks for getting to the bottom of this one, AP!

[LADY J]

"This really isn't Dick," said Steven Simon, who worked with Clarke both at the White House and at the State Department. "It strikes me as a pretty clear indicator of the magnitude of his outrage."

Actually this really IS Dick. We have the proof right from his own mouth.

[MNJohnnie]

As anyone figured the ego angle and race angle on this? You have a middle aged ego centric, self important male bureaucratic insider being passed over for an African American female who later is instrumental in demoting this self important stuffed shirt. I think part of the reason Clarke has been so especially verminous in his comments about Rice is his poor little ego is bruised that a Black Woman is so much for efficient and better qualified despite his 30 years of self-purmotion.

[cricket]

"The intensity of the Republican campaign to discredit him as a disgruntled partisan who is out to sell books is a testament to how seriously the White House views his criticism."

. . .the spin continues ad nauseum.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Clarke's role was to create a distraction for the only highly visible 911 Commission public hearings.

The question one should ask is who would benefit from this distraction? Why would they want a distraction? What did they want to hide? Who/What are they trying to protect?

If you look at who participated in the promotion of Mr. Clarke's testimony, the only conclusion one can make is that the Clinton administration was in "legacy mode". The coordination of the partisan media (TM-EIB) created a perfect storm of contrived controversy.

The 911 Commission has been compromised by the political left who used it as a hammer this week to bash the Bush administration. This early spring attack was designed to expose an uninterested public to the commission in a negative fashion, so that its summer report can be called partisan when it shows THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION ignored threats which caused al-Qaida to up the ante.

Just a hunch.

[Ditto]

Leslie Gelb, who hired Clarke for his first State Department job in 1979, said Clarke "has annoyed and angered everybody he's worked with for 30 years. ... But everybody wanted him around because he could actually get the job done."

Which jobs, beside hatchet jobs, did he get done? The guy sounds like a lot of semi-talented, frustrated, hype-ego 50 something guys I know who never quite made it to the position they felt entitled to and blame everyone above them for that fact. The world is full of them.

[petitfour]

Gee, who is this ignorant reporter? Did Clarke move since the 2000 primary? He voted for McCain then in Virginia. Problem is, Virginia does not have voter registration by party. Oh well. Don't let the facts get in the way of a slanted story.

Should I describe myself as a RAT because I voted in the RAT primary? hahahahahahahahahaha Maybe I'll do that now.

I guess I could go on and on about the inaccuracies of this article, but I'll let somebody else do it. If Clarke was so good at getting things done, then why didn't he have a plan when President Bush took office?

[Asclepius]

... Clarke, who is single ...

What a shock.

[calcowgirl]

I haven't been following this closely, but I was just reading some old articles on Clarke. Has this stuff been posted? This guy sounds like quite the sleazy operator. Not quite the terrorism 'guru' I keep hearing about on the news.

The Man Who Protects America From Terrorism:[Biography]
Tim Weiner
New York Times
Feb 1, 1999. pg. A.3
ProQuest document ID: 38613865
Text Word Count 1423

Abstract (Article Summary)

Mr. Clarke inspires ferocious loyalty from friends and fierce enmity from foes inside the Government. He wins praise for getting things done in secret -- and criticism for exactly the same. At the National Security Council, where he landed in 1992 after losing his State Department job in a bitter battle over Israel's misuse of American military technology, he can operate without outside oversight so long as he has President Clinton's confidence.

The mission of protecting Americans from attack, whether by states or rogue groups, is ''almost the primary responsibility of the Government,'' Mr. Clarke says. He is trying to raise the fear of terrorism in the United States to the right level -- higher, not too high -- as he girds the nation against the possibility of an assault from nerve gas, bacteria and viruses, and from what he calls ''an electronic Pearl Harbor.''

Mr. Clarke has a reserved seat when Cabinet officers gather at the White House on national security issues. ''My name is on the table next to Madeleine Albright and Bill Cohen,'' the secretaries of State and Defense, Mr. Clarke said. His vote carries the weight of those cast by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of Central Intelligence.

And this from the full text article:

Under President Bush, Mr. Clarke served as Assistant Secretary of State for political and military affairs. In 1992, he was accused by the State Department's Inspector General of looking the other way as Israel transferred American military technology to China.

"There was an allegation that we hadn't investigated a huge body of evidence that the Israelis were involved in technology transfers," Mr. Clarke said. "In fact, we had investigated it. I knew more about it than anyone. We found one instance where it was true. The Israelis had taken aerial refueling technology we sold them and sold it to a Latin American country. We caught them, and they admitted they had done it."

He added: "The Administration wanted to put heat on the Israeli Government to create an atmosphere in which the incumbent Government might lose an election. The bottom line was I wasn't going to lie. I wasn't going to go along with an Administration strategy to pressure the Israeli Government."

Sherman Funk, the Inspector General who accused Mr. Clarke, remembered the case differently.

"He's wrong," said Mr. Funk, the State Department's Inspector General from 1987 to 1994. "He's being very disingenuous. Dick Clarke was unilaterally adopting a policy that was counter to the law and counter to the avowed policy of the Government. It was not up to him to make that determination. Almost all the people in his own office disagreed with him. In the end, he had to leave the State Department."

Mr. Clarke joined the National Security Council staff under President Bush. He was one of the only holdovers embraced by the Clinton Administration. After seven years, he has placed proteges in key diplomatic and intelligence positions, creating a network of loyalty and solidifying his power.

[solo gringo]

Can you believe where this country would be right now if clinton was still president and clarke was in charge of war on terror.They would invite OBL to do what he wanted to lord help us.