Posted on 03/31/2004 1:03:36 PM PST by ironman
NEW YORK - Richard Clarke, President Bushs 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.
Clarkes comments, in an hourlong interview on MSNBCs 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 MSNBCs 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 ...
And so it seems to me that if that information had percolated up, if there had been an all-hands meeting at the White House with the cabinet, if they would have shaken the trees to find anything that they knew in this extraordinary threat environment, where we were hearing that something spectacular was going to happen.
Perhaps if their photographs had been put on television, if airports had been alerted, if the security measures that we might have put in place had been put in place, perhaps we could have interrupted 9/11.
Remember how the Clinton Administration held up releasing transition funds to the Bush team because of the Florida election results contest in court?
The Bush team lost at least a month of organizational time prior to being sworn in, and then was obstructed by Senate Democrats when Bush tried to put his team in place.
And then 9/11 happened.
-PJ
Clarke tried to avoid any direct conflict with the President. He also changed one assertionhe now feels the Commission could determine whether 911 could be prevented.
Clarke, between the lines, suggests that Tenets daily briefings with President Bush were insufficient compared to Clarkes briefings of President Clinton. This point underlies and is foreground for much of what Clarke experiences and believes. It was both a professional and narcissistic blow to no longer brief POTUS.
In some ways Clarke changes his role as political gadfly (even though he is) to one where he suggests that President Bush was not properly informed. Seemingly, he is searching for a way to reduce the conflict with the current Administration in every which way yet still imply, if only they had listened to him everything would have been much better.
The big point for both Mathews and Clarke is the immorality of the Iraq War. What both seem to believe is there is a neo-conservative cabal (Jewish and gentile Vulcans) who led us into war.
As a person on the primitive Protestant end of the religious continuum, I remain convinced that one of the benefits of this war was the reduction of the Iraq financially supported homicide/suicide bombers. That this is never mentioned by the RATS and others suggests they hesitate to betray their underlying conviction that not only does Israel not have a right to exist but it deserves all the murderous rage it receives. I can think of no other primary motive that continues and persists over time in explaining the minority view on this war.
As to Clarkes demeanor, he is a quick study and very controlled, but comes across as elitist and arrogant even though these are mistakenly assumed key personality characteristics that is explained by the Meyers/Briggs/Kiersey mastermind personality. I have described this personality elsewhere on other threads.. His personal and professional vulnerability is that he actually failed in 8 years to do what he set out to do. What is worse he spent inordinate time on Y2K and other issues involving cyber terrorism I do not think he can tolerate failure of any kind and his projection of omniscient capability is his biggest strength and, if penetrated, his biggest vulnerability.
People of his temperament are good at anticipating dangers but not consequences. Like the woman who knifed her boyfriend and was shocked when blood splattered over her clean floor, Clarke did not anticipate his political attacks would be met with political means.
I believe so, too. I also believe that it would have been criminally negligent for ANY sitting president not to take down Hussein after the anthrax attacks whether or not concrete proof of his regime's involvement could be found. The danger of a repeat and perhaps far more deadly bioweapons attack was just too acute in the immediate post-9/11 and post-anthrax attacks world.
NSC spokesman Sean McCormack, who was with Mr. Clarke in the White House Situation Room the day after the terrorist attacks, yesterday disputed several passages in Mr. Clarke's book describing the events that transpired in that room
Definitely. At most, he'd be a footnote somewhere. One thing the media and the Left/Dems can NEVER take away from George W. Bush and the key figures in his first term is their place in history. In the 9/11 aftermath, GWB attained an historical importance few figures ever achieve. Whether or not he's reelected, without question the decisions and actions he took in reaction to 9/11 have shaped the course of this new century.
Although few of us will be around at the end of this century to assess the outcome, one thing is certain: If Bush is reelected, the odds are vastly greater that the outcome will be beneficial for the U.S. and the world. If Kerry is elected, on the other hand, we may enter a new Dark Age. I do not say this lightly or with hyperbole.
I swear I will.
Unfortunately I'll probably not run into him in sunny AZ. By the looks of his pasty complexion it looks like he shuns the sun. Probably likes dark secret rooms...
Why didn't he know this? Wasn't it his job to know? Why hadn't he set up procedures to discover such things and coordinate all information? Didn't he schedule morning threat briefings?
THIS INCOMPETENT BOFFON IS PERSONABLY RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11.
I could have prevented 9/11 had my neutron laser network and crystal ball been not been rendered nonfunctional when the electric company cut off my electricity for nonpayment. Capitalist pigs are responsible for 9/11.
News reporters don't understand the obvious:
.
Could 9/11 have been prevented?
Of course! Anything is possible.
. .
Was there a govt failure?
4 planes down, World Trade Center gone, huge hole in Pentagon, and 3,000+ people dead. Yes, there was a failure.
.
.
However, these two facts are not tantamount to negligence on the part of the Bush Administration, as the media would like us to believe.
The media brains need to study some history - especially some Clinton history.
Ironically, the lefties want to return to the failed policies of the past. They want to emasculate our govt - CIA, Justice, FBI, Defense, State. And when the terrorists strike again, the lefties will all ask again - Was this preventable? Was there a govt failure?
I don't think the Plame "outing" was ever a criminal thing--that her name was given out to offer a reasonable explanation to reporters as to why on earth Joe Wilson of all people was sent to Niger.
Now, I do think it likely Clarke may have been one "in the know" who talked, but I don't think that aspect was criminal.
What was criminal was Wilson misrepresenting his trip and the anonymous CIA official leaking Wilson's version to the media before Wilson wrote his op-ed.
In sum, I don't think anybody is going to jail, nor ought to, for mentioning Plame since evidently everybody knew she worked at the CIA. But I do think Clarke as other legal issues that he might face.
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