Hardball Tonight: Clarke - 9/11 Might Have Been Prevented

MSNBC ^ | Updated: 3:35 p.m. ET March 31, 2004 | Alex Johnson

[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.

[dirtboy]

Dickie can't even keep his story straight over the course of a few days - but somehow has detailed recollections of the events around 9/11.

[RichInOC]

Man! This guy is a piece of work.

[commish]

Let this bozo keep on talking. he is just digging the hole DEEPER & DEEPER, and Condi's testimony is going to slam the lid on this yahoo's credibility forever!

At that point it will be time to tie Richard Clarke around Kerry's neck like an albatross.

[Howlin]

So, his remarks tonight are a departure from what he said last week, which, according to committee members, was a departure from what he told them in private.

Am I up to date?

[JulieRNR21]

The good news is that Chrissy's ratings are so low......very few will be listening to Clarke's lies!

BTW Clarke's publisher refuses to let him fo on any FoxNews show, O'Reilly reported last evening. Tells us alot about the agenda of Clarke/CBS/Viacom/Dems/Kerry......doesn't it?

[Howlin]

More "changes."

[eyespysomething]

So, his remarks tonight are a departure from what he said last week, which, according to committee members, was a departure from what he told them in private.

Am I up to date?

Almost. Add:

Which were a total departure from his WH briefing over a year ago.

[P8riot]

Like Will Rogers said, "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

[Howlin]

And the book? Where does the book fit into this?

We need a flow chart!

[Voltage]

Everyone loves a monday morning quarterback. The couch potato who could always throw the ball with accuracy. Yes, everyone loves a person like that!

[commish]

Ping

[Howlin]

Hehe........let's not forget to watch Hardball tonight!

[rocklobster11]

Here's a picture of Clarke as he was getting ready to foil the hijacker's plot

[Always Right]

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.

Gee, given the knowledge, I would have hoped anyone would have made a difference. The problem is, the so-called knowledge was speculation at best.

[Shermy]

Shermy - World War II Might Have Been Prevented

[cyncooper]

I'm going to have to miss at the very least the first half hour. Frankly, I'm surprised he made the appearance.

I want to look at today's WH press briefing transcript because Scott McClellan was asked by a reporter about the "perjury" charges and of course McClellan said another body, Congress, was looking at the record but he did affirm it was a serious charge. No minimizing from him.

[Political Junkie Too]

From this post by ravingnutter in another thread, it is clear that the Bush team hadn't all been in place because the Democrats in Congress were obstructing the confirmation of his nominees.

Insight often has reported on Clinton-era officials and Republican defectors who have tied Bush's national-security strategy in knots since the beginning of his presidency [see "Blinded Vigilance," Oct. 15, 2001; "Clinton Undead Haunting Pentagon," June 17, 2002; and "Democrats Subvert War Intelligence," Jan. 6-19]. Indeed, this magazine reported on Sept. 7, 2001, just four days before the terrorist attacks, that Clinton holdovers continued to run the U.S. intelligence community [see "Ground Down CIA Still in the Pit" at Insight online] without needed reforms to deal with post-Cold War threats such as international terrorism [see sidebar, p. 19]. Days after the carnage, even the president's most bellicose critics in Congress, including Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), were on CNN saying as publicly as they could that they were reconsidering their long-held positions that limited the fight against the terrorist enemy and piously alluding to the need to repeal a post-Watergate executive order banning assassinations abroad.

At that point the president's own defense and security team was still taking shape. His top NSC special assistant for intelligence programs, Mary K. Sturtevant, had been on the job only eight weeks before the 9/11 attacks. For months, Sen. Levin personally had held up the confirmation hearings of Bush's appointees who were to design the U.S. antiterrorism strategy - Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Programs J.D. Crouch and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter W. Rodman - refusing for apparently partisan purposes to allow them to take office until late July 2001. While Levin was holding up their appointments, the incoming Pentagon policy team had no legal or political authority to do their vital jobs - a fact that helps explain why it took eight months for the Bush administration to draw up a strategic operational plan to destroy al-Qaeda.

Making matters worse for the Pentagon leadership after 9/11 were the machinations of a network of senior Clinton political appointees who still held sensitive posts, including Peter F. Verga, Clinton's deputy undersecretary of defense for policy integration, which was a major intelligence post. Senior administration sources tell Insight that Verga made himself useful to the Rumsfeld team but beavered to curry favor at the top, in part by "sniping and playing bureaucratic games" to make life difficult for the incoming defense policy team. Even today the divisive Verga holds a senior homeland-security post at the Defense Department.

Insight

-PJ

[petercooper]

And I might have become a millionaire by 25 if I had only studied harder in school.

[TomGuy]

Clarke also stated in another interview (MTP with Tim Russert, IIRC) that he put his team on highest alert during the summer of 2001 for 6 weeks. Nothing happened, so he released them from highest alert status. That was apparently a week or two before 9-11-01.

Perhaps Clarke's tale is to CYA. It would seem that, if anyone deserved blame, it would be Clarke and his team for Clarke's removing their alert status too early.