Clarke Challenges Rice To Reveal Secret Emails

The Guardian (UK) ^ | Suzanne Goldenberg/Chris McGreal

[blam]

Clarke challenges Rice to reveal secret emails

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington and Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Monday March 29, 2004
The Guardian (UK)

Richard Clarke, the former terrorism adviser whose revelations threaten to torpedo George Bush's re-election strategy, launched a counterattack yesterday at a White House that he said was determined to destroy him. In a riveting television performance, Mr Clarke called on his principal critic and former employer, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to release the entire record of their emails in the months up to the September 11 terror attacks to prove his contention that the White House did not then take the threat of al-Qaida seriously.

He also agreed to Republican demands to declassify testimony he gave to the Senate two years ago - to "prove" there were no inconsistencies. "Let's take all of my emails and all the memos I sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20 to September 11 and let's declassify all of them," Mr Clarke told NBC television.

Mr Clarke's bravura presentation surprised the Bush administration. The decision to stand his ground could also be destructive to Ms Rice. She has been under intense scrutiny for a week - largely for being the focus of Mr Clarke's charges that the Bush government did not see al-Qaida as a priority before September 11, but also because she refused to testify before the commission.

Yesterday, the commission's chairman, Thomas Kean, called for Ms Rice to testify in public. "We recognise there are arguments having to do with separation of powers. We think in a tragedy of this magnitude that those kind of legal arguments are probably overridden," he said. But he said he would not force the issue with a court order.

Even leading Republican figures are criticising Ms Rice's refusal to appear, saying it looked as if she had something to hide. "I think she'd be wise to testify," said Richard Perle, a former Pentagon adviser.

Further damage was inflicted yesterday in a Los Angeles Times report discrediting a prewar claim by the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had trucks capable of dispersing dangerous substances such as anthrax. The report claimed the information came from a single discredited source and reached US intelligence agents third-hand.

In Israel, meanwhile, a parliamentary committee investigating exaggerated prewar claims over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction concluded that western agencies had dealt in speculation not facts.

The committee said claims that Saddam was expanding his armoury were based on evaluations shared among intelligence agencies in Israel, the US, Britain and elsewhere, that reinforced "dubious interpretations" of the few facts available.

But the report released yesterday by the foreign affairs and defence committee said that while there was a "serious intelligence failure" there was no evidence of deliberate deception to build a false case.

[Atchafalaya]

Re: Tar Baby's, we haven't seen the best from the Dem's yet.
Gird your bladders!

[faithincowboys]

My big problem is that Clarke -- a "hardcore anti-terrorist"-- sat back and let the Gore Commission happen without making it public. And he advised Clinton not to take Osama from the Sudan. Clarke is an absolute nightmare. He should be held to account.

[blam]

"the big issue from this is trying to pin the blame for 9/11 on Rice and Bush."

This is part of their big plan. They will just keep making accusations about anything...their intent is to keep Bush and Company on the defense..and, they are doing a good job of it so far. How can Bush go on the offense or get his message out when all they have time to do is refute a non-stop flow of accusations?

[torchthemummy]

"He knows perfectly well that there is sensitive info in those emails that Condy can't release so the hue and cry will be...

What does she have to hide?"


Not only that, Condi is smart enough to know that emails are too vulnerable for many security reasons and therefore should be used in a very limited way.

Didn't I read recently that Clinton only sent one email in 8 years. I could be wrong but I seem to remember that story a few weeks ago.

[Ruth A.]

My goodness, you hit the nail on the head. The pictures of Clarke have looked so groomed, foppish and dandy--and yet familiar. Yes, he is the hated Dr. Smith (I never understood why they just didn't forget him somewhere).

[jocko12]

CONDI IF CLARKE WANT TO RELEASE THOSE EMAILS LET HIM AND HE WILL BE IN JAIL FOR A LONG TIME.

[GulliverSwift]

They should have just leaked the testimony out. The controversy was only prolonged by their calls for the transcripts.

[keithtoo]

– The Ballad of Richard Clarke

Once there was a singular man.
Who had the anti-terror master plan.
His name was trickie, Dickie Clarke.
He had the heart of a bureaucrat, so he was scared in the dark.

Find the terrorists, were his marching orders.
Spare no expense! Ignore all borders!
You’ll have the budget, you’ll lack no fees.
You can lob a few missiles at aspirin fact’ries.

You have the president’s signed endorsement.
To subject those devils to law enforcement.
Let subpoenas fly! Let summons’s wave!
We have nothing to lose and the world to save.

Be fierce as a lion and swift as an eagle!
But before you shoot, first run it through Legal.
Do not tire, neither sleep on your mission.
As long as we can get the UN’s permission.

This stout soul is none other than Richard Clarke.
Who has spent one score and ten years in the dark.
He chased our enemies through the desert sands.
Yet couldn’t find his own @ss with both hands.

They’re over there! He was heard to yell.
Lets chase those b@stards straight to hell.
He said they might attack our computers…
…or poison our rivers, or our tunnel commuters.

It is amazing then, and one has to wonder.
When lots of our people were blown asunder.
Were his skills not up to the task at hand.
When things blew up in land after land.

Yes things did happen to go astray.
When our hero was looking the other way.
But that would change when eyes turned toward.
Our hero. A new title should be his reward.

What, has our hero been demoted?
Has his excellent inertia not been noted?
This cannot be allowed to pass.
I’ll write a book and show their @ss.

[Atchafalaya]

Thats what the Clinton's did when heat seeker willey got in. I have never understood why W kept anyone even remotely tainted (touched, tainted is a better term) in any position other than pissoir engineer. That was a major screw up from the getgo; I guess trying to "be bipartison". Effem! Bush did a see come when he should done a come see and he is still paying for it to the swimmer (Victoria's Secret Beached Carrion).

[Cvengr]

I'm not the smartest of individuals, but I do recall how a good number of socialists here and abroad came out with distinctive positions in support of Hussein and Iraq, when for the past 10 years every socialist institution and those associated with the UN had every public policy being challenge by Iraq and Hussein.

I also follow how if there is indeed a threat of WMD being more available to smaller groupings of less powerful, politically recognized terrorists, that it would be in the socialist' interests to support any national and international gambit to squelch such terrorism.

So what these events of recent days really tells me without having to so much as to prove any undeniable statement, is that there are powers that be in the socialist community who have been behind the terrorist events from the very beginning.

These aren't loose cannons or isolated fanatical groups. There is a definite modus operendi within the international socialist groupings which not only condones the terrorism, but it strongly appears their gamesmanship is structured around supporting those who promote terrorism and have planted events for a long time in order to begin a sequence of predetermined plays.

I don't know all the players, but where before I may have considered some percentage of power players within the Democratic party to be merely wrapped up in a political power lust, and simply an opponent to things of former establishments, it now becomes much more obvious that a stong odious stench is rising from the Democratic socialist's camp.

The position of the Democrats to have tolerated let alone condone this entire issue surrounding Clarke is about to result in a enormous misfire. I suspect its cooking off at present and the American status quo won't tolerate nor even consider condoning any person associated with socialism to remain in the US in the very near future.

For all the human study of political science, I suspect socialists in this country might soon experience the real significance of political upheavals they so desperately relish. Although when it hits them, there may not be any institutions nor intuition left in the American people whose souls they have worked so hard to scar, to defend even what the socialists perceive as their natural rights.

[Godfollow]

That is, unfortunately, what GW gets for thinking he could walk into a viper's nest and make nice to the little snakes. He tried to show old fatboy Kennedy that he meant him no harm, only to have fatboy rip him apart like a sock puppet... If GW gets through this successfully, let's hope he has learned his lesson. The Dems are political jehadists and there is no changing that... just like the terrorists, you have to wipe them out or they will always bite you if they can.

[Robert_Paulson2]

impugne?

[marron]

This is spin-your-head-around breathtaking in its transparency. It shouldn't get any mileage at all, but they are riding this horse for all they've got.

Nothing at all happened to either Saddam or Osama over the entire 8 years of Clinton's presidency. This despite a series of attacks on highly symbolic targets that were also costly in human terms.

Both of those individuals and the powers they represent have been overthrown or driven into hiding. Bush-Rice did that. Clinton-Clarke did not. With nothing at all in their quivers they are making a very public attempt to prove the precise opposite of truth, to prove that inaction was action, and that the man who crushed the enemy was the one who did nothing.

They are doing this in full view of an entire nation that was witness to the actual events, and who must be convinced that what happened did not happen, and what they saw they did not see.

If you ever wanted to study how propaganda works, you could do no better than to study the present attacks on the Bush team.

[Robert_Paulson2]

if he gets through this, to HIM it will mean that being nice to the snakes, did not destroy him, but exposed their snakiness to SOME of us.

Bush LOST the popular vote.
He won where it counts, the electoral college.

But with the popular vote in this next election, if he gets more than his opponent, which I am still NOT convinced will be Kerry... he will not only believe snake petting did not harm him, but indeed making nice actually might have helped.

NOT that I AGREE... snakes should be killed when they are poisonous... but I am just guessing Bush won't "learn" anything like you or I would. The leopard cannot change it's spots and Bush believes "making nice" is part of his "Christian duty."

[upchuck]

Clarke is in this and doing this for one reason and one reason only. Can you spell M-O-N-E-Y? He got a huge advance, his book is selling well and this will all blow over in a week or so. What a shame congress had to waste their time on this scumbucket.

[YoSoy2]

I don't like this declassification thing.

I think Clarke has something up his sleeve.

[YoSoy2]

"Clarke is in this and doing this for one reason and one reason only. Can you spell M-O-N-E-Y? He got a huge advance, his book is selling well and this will all blow over in a week or so. What a shame congress had to waste their time on this scumbucket."

I agree Clarke is doing it all for the money. I also agree that it's a big waste of time and Clarke is best if ignored by Bush and his administration and concentrate on the relevant issues of getting reelected.

[eggman]

I think she's been pulling Clarke's strings all along. Either that, or Clarke's objective was to find a way to make the terrorists like us and Clinton thought that was a good idea. Needless to say, Bush had a better plan.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Either the Republicans are not doing enough, or they are doing too much. Odd, eh?


It's called the luxury of being the opposition. Or just plain politics.

The scariest part is that this is forcing Bush not to run on his success as President, but increasingly as the "how awful it would be to have John Kerry as President alternative". It worked against Gore, and as true as it may be, it may not work as the incumbent. Worrisome indeed.

[Gracey]

If this doesn't prove that Clarke is a DNC/Kerry operative, nothing will.

He already mentioned that he voted for Goron in 2000.