March, 2002 PBS Frontline interview with Clarke; calls Bush response to 9/11 "open minded".

PBS Frontline ^ | March 20, 2002 | PBS

[smonk]

Clarke mainly discusses Paul O'Neill, who had just left the administration. But there is this snippet:

Because one of the things that surprises a lot of the public, I think, is that immediately after Sept. 11, the administration knew exactly who had done it. Was that why?

No. On the day of Sept. 11, then the day or two following, we had a very open mind. CIA and FBI were asked, "See if it's Hezbollah. See if it's Hamas. Don't assume it's Al Qaeda. Don't just assume it's Al Qaeda." Frankly, there was absolutely not a shred of evidence that it was anybody else. The evidence that it was Al Qaeda began just to be massive within days after the attack.

[smonk]

at the time, PBS wondered how the administration knew that Al Qaeda was resposible for the atrocities of 9/11 "immediately". Clarke, in his own words, explains that GWB was being "open minded", which is merely another word for being "thorough".

[GeronL]

lol

[MamaLucci]

Good find. The more you research Clarke, the more you realize that he and his puppet-masters are convinced that the average american is a moron.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Poll needs some attention:

"Rate the 9/11 Commission so far"

Choices are:

Today's Poll:

Question: Rate the 9/11 Commission so far

	Useful to war on terror
	Partisan witch-hunt by Democrats
	Clarke is hero/whistle blower
	Clarke driven solely by his ego
	Shows desperation of Bush-haters
	Waste of time and money

[nopardons]

btt

[martin_fierro]

No. On the day of Sept. 11, then the day or two following, we had a very open mind. CIA and FBI were asked, "See if it's Hezbollah. See if it's Hamas. Don't assume it's Al Qaeda. Don't just assume it's Al Qaeda." Frankly, there was absolutely not a shred of evidence that it was anybody else. The evidence that it was Al Qaeda began just to be massive within days after the attack.

Ah, but the Bush administration made him say that, y'see.

[piasa]

tidbit on Ken Pollack, one of the folks who worked with Clarke at the NSC and who I think came out to spin alongside him.

MARCH 17, 1999 : (IRAQ NEWS COMMENTS ON IRAQ, KEN POLLACK & NSC : POLLACK HAS DESCRIBED REMOVING SADDAM HUSSEIN AS A 'FANTASY' - DOES THIS SIGNAL CLINTON ADMINISTRATION CHANGE IN IRAQ POLICY?) Ken Pollack is going to be doing for the NSC? And given that he's described removing Saddam Hussein as a fantasy, does that signal the administration is no longer committed to a change in regime in Iraq? - Iraq News , 17 March 1999

[piasa]

Pollack is also on the Council on Foreign relations.

[RichInOC]

...and the hits just keep onnnnn comin'....

[Avenger]

(Interviewer) If you look back on it now and you had one wish, you could have had one thing done, what would it have been?

(Clarke) Blow up the camps and take out their sanctuary. Eliminate their safe haven, eliminate their infrastructure. They would have been a hell of a lot less capable of recruiting people. Their whole "Come to Afghanistan where you'll be safe and you'll be trained," well, that wouldn't have worked if every time they got a camp together, it was blown up by the United States. That's the one thing that we recommended that didn't happen -- the one thing in retrospect I wish had happened.

---

Unfortunately Clinton, Clarke and the entire administration instead sat on their collective hands throughout the 90's while the aforementioned recruitment and training was taking place. By the time G.W. Bush entered the Whitehouse the plot and people were already in place and bombing camps in Afghanistan would not have stopped it. The obvious implication of Clarke's statement above is that the Clinton administration enabled 9/11 to happen by not stopping the recruitment and training of terrorist in Afghanistan.

[jigsaw]

Well-stated.

[dalebert]

bump