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Hardball Tonight: Clarke - 9/11 Might Have Been Prevented
MSNBC ^ | Updated: 3:35 p.m. ET March 31, 2004 | Alex Johnson

Posted on 03/31/2004 1:03:36 PM PST by ironman

NEW YORK - Richard Clarke, President Bush’s former chief counterterrorism adviser, said Wednesday that it was possible that he and his team could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks if the Bush administration had paid more attention ahead of time to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terror network.

Clarke’s comments, in an hourlong interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” were a departure from the testimony he gave last week before the independent commission investigating the attacks, when he answered no to the question of whether there was “the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11” even if everything he had called for had been implemented.

But Clarke told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that he hoped he and his team would have been able to take action to quash the attacks, which killed about 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, had the CIA and the FBI sufficiently coordinated the bits and pieces of information they had about the 19 Saudis who hijacked four planes and crashed them in the worst attack on U.S. soil.

Acknowledging that he was indulging in “20/20 hindsight,” Clarke said it was likely that he could have made a difference had he known that some of the hijackers were in the country ahead of time and had drawn suspicion. The full interview is scheduled to air today at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC-TV.

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...


TOPICS: Announcements; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bushknew; richardclarke
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To: Miss Marple
Yup!

And we should take our cue from the Arabs!

281 posted on 03/31/2004 4:39:24 PM PST by Cold Heat (Viet Nam Vet's are "NOT FONDA " John Kerry!)
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To: Timeout
Would someone PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME what the heck is wrong with thinking Saddam had something to do with al Queda...and thus perhaps with 9/11?!!!!

Apparently Clarke made a comment in his book about the OK Bombing and Saddam

Jayna Davis was on my local talk radio show this morning ....

I don't know how true it all is .. but she gave some very interesting information

she has a new book coming out on April 15th that ties Saddam, al Queda and the Ok Bombing


282 posted on 03/31/2004 4:39:57 PM PST by Mo1 (Do you want a president who injects poison into his skull for vanity?)
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To: Miss Marple
Clarke is the only person in the room who thought the President's anger was directed at Clarke. Sheesh. This man is a nutcase.
283 posted on 03/31/2004 4:40:19 PM PST by Darlin' ("I will not forget this wound to my country." President George W Bush, 20 Sept 2001)
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To: Miss Marple
The more I hear from him the more I think he loves the spotlight he is in and he is having orgasms over interviews like this.
284 posted on 03/31/2004 4:40:23 PM PST by eggman (Social Insecurity - Who will provide for the government when the government provides for all of us?)
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To: McGruff
Now the entire administration lacked analytical ability...even, according to this nut job, Kissinger lacked "the gift".
285 posted on 03/31/2004 4:40:32 PM PST by Right_in_Virginia
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To: wirestripper
Well, I LIKE Vulcans!

"Live long and prosper!"

286 posted on 03/31/2004 4:40:41 PM PST by Miss Marple
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To: redlipstick
Matthews is making up all king of crazy stuff and Clarke has to back paddle to keep from lying.
287 posted on 03/31/2004 4:40:51 PM PST by McGruff (If this Sept. 11th commission has so much work to do, why are they on TV every day?)
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To: BigSkyFreeper
There are NO questions about Clarke's eight-year tenure and what he did or did not do during the clinton administration. We do know that Clarke did NOT submit a plan re Al Qaida to the incoming Bush administration. Can you say INEPT...or was it his not-so-subtle version of sabotaging the new BUSH/Republican administration?
288 posted on 03/31/2004 4:41:38 PM PST by Carolinamom
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To: Mo1
There's also a new trial coming up for Terry Nichols that's going to have all kinds of alleged Middle East connections to OKC. Some of it approaches tinfoil hat territory, so the media will blow it ALL off.
289 posted on 03/31/2004 4:41:41 PM PST by Timeout (Down with Donks!)
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To: Steve_Seattle
THAT is where the failure was, but now it's all become politics.

But, it WAS politics, left-wing, anti-American ,Patty Schroeder/Frank Churc/John Kerry politics that lead to the FBI and CIA being barred by law from sharing information.Add to this witches' brew the knowledge that Democrat appointees magically become Senior Executive Service bureaucrats who uphold their masters' desires and you have the mix leading to 9/11.

290 posted on 03/31/2004 4:42:09 PM PST by gatorbait (Yesterday, today and tomorrow......The United States Army)
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To: BigSkyFreeper
Clarke, you start ripping Powell to shreds, and I'll B****slap you a-hole! You racist piece of crap!
291 posted on 03/31/2004 4:42:42 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper (Liberalism is Communism one drink at a time. - P.J. O'Rourke)
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To: Wolfstar
Someone on Chris-the-loudmouth's staff ought to clue him into the fact that Leslie Stahl, Tim Russert and Larry King, among many others, have already been there. By now Clarke is one very thoroughly used street whore and Chrissy is at the rear end of a very long line of media johns.





Oooooooooh, powerful comment.
I love it.



292 posted on 03/31/2004 4:42:44 PM PST by onyx (Kerry' s a Veteran, but so were Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh and Benedict Arnold.)
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To: BigSkyFreeper
Clarke, you start ripping Powell to shreds, and I'll B****slap you a-hole! You racist piece of crap!
293 posted on 03/31/2004 4:42:53 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper (Liberalism is Communism one drink at a time. - P.J. O'Rourke)
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To: Howlin
What channel is that on?

Are you sitting down?! The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on COMEDY CENTRAL....BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Clarke's so smarmy...not that there's anything wrong with used car salesmen, but Clarke makes them look like pretty reputable folk! Daily Show repeats at 10 pm Central. Get your bucket....
The Daily Show is a-okay; Clarke's just a 110% *ss.
294 posted on 03/31/2004 4:42:57 PM PST by hummingbird ("If it wasn't for the insomnia, I could have gotten some sleep!")
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To: McGruff
Matthews now saying that there were No cheering crowds in Iraq, and that there was no oil to pay expenses!

Matthews is a LIAR.

295 posted on 03/31/2004 4:42:59 PM PST by Miss Marple
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To: Wolfstar
Amen and Amen to that !
296 posted on 03/31/2004 4:43:23 PM PST by Darlin' ("I will not forget this wound to my country." President George W Bush, 20 Sept 2001)
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To: Miss Marple; Howlin
ALready we can see this is about his dislike of Condi.

A most astute observation. In my opinion, the true underlying motive for all this is Clarke's sexism and racism. A black woman demoted him. A conservative black woman, no less. Why the injustice of it all!

While I fully believe this to be true, it's also great fun to throw the Left's boogeymen back at them.

297 posted on 03/31/2004 4:43:41 PM PST by Wolfstar (Yo, "real" conservatives. Spain's election is clear. Jihadists are on Kerry's side. Are you?)
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To: Miss Marple
Why wouldn't President Bush be concerned about Iraq from the start? Hadn't Iraq spent the past eight years trying to shoot down a US plane and capture a US pilot in the "no fly zone"?

298 posted on 03/31/2004 4:43:43 PM PST by Right_in_Virginia
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To: Right_in_Virginia
Yes. Not to mention trying to assassinate Bush 41, funding terrists in the Middle East, and harboring a known bomber of the WTC in 93!!
299 posted on 03/31/2004 4:46:28 PM PST by Miss Marple
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To: Timeout
Some of it approaches tinfoil hat territory, so the media will blow it ALL off.

Yes .. I sure there will be tinfoil hat territories .. but some of her comments were interesting

300 posted on 03/31/2004 4:46:56 PM PST by Mo1 (Do you want a president who injects poison into his skull for vanity?)
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