Politicized intelligence . . .

The Washington Times ^ | 3/23/04 | By Mansoor Ijaz

[MNJohnnie]

LONDON.

[Gracey]

LONDON. - Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism czar for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, testifies today before the commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States. He is well-qualified to do so because few individuals over the last decade, inside or outside government, better understood the Islamic extremism threat in all its dimensions.

But rather than deliver a factual recounting and analysis of intelligence failures and politically charged antiterrorism policies that plagued his years as coordinator for counterterrorism operations, he has chosen to characterize the Bush White House as indifferent to the threat posed by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network prior to the September 11 attacks without consideration for the failures on his watch during the Clinton years. This is inaccurate and adds nothing to our understanding of how distant terrorists could plan and carry out such daring and effective attacks.

Mr. Clarke's premise that Bush national security officials neither understood nor cared to know anything about al Qaeda is simply untrue. I know because on multiple occasions from June until late August 2001, I personally briefed Stephen J. Hadley, deputy national security adviser to President Bush, and members of his South Asia, Near East and East Africa staff at the National Security Council on precisely what had gone wrong during the Clinton years to unearth the extent of the dangers posed by al Qaeda. Some of the briefings were in the presence of former members of the Clinton administration's national security team to ensure complete transparency.

Far from being disinterested, the Bush White House was eager to avoid making the same mistakes of the previous administration and wanted creative new inputs for how to combat al Qaeda's growing threat.

Mr. Clarke's role figured in two key areas of the debriefings - Sudan's offer to share terrorism data on al Qaeda and bin Laden in 1997, and a serious effort by senior members of the Abu Dhabi royal family to gain bin Laden's extradition from Afghanistan in early 2000.

· Fall 1997: Sudan's offer is accepted by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, then rejected by Mr. Clarke and Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger.

Sudan's president, Omar Hasan El Bashir, made an unconditional offer of counterterrorism assistance to the vice chairman of the September 11 Commission, then Rep. Lee Hamilton, Indiana Democrat, through my hands on April 19, 1997. Five months later on Sept. 28, 1997, after an exhaustive interagency review at the entrenched bureaucracy level of the U.S. government, Mrs. Albright announced the U.S. would send a high-level diplomatic team back to Khartoum to pressure its Islamic government to stop harboring Arab terrorists and to review Sudan data on terrorist groups operating from there.

As the re-engagement policy took shape, Susan E. Rice, incoming assistant secretary of state for East Africa, went to Mr. Clarke, made her anti-Sudan case and asked him to jointly approach Mr. Berger about the wisdom of Mrs. Albright's decision. Together, they recommended its reversal.The decision was overturned on Oct. 1, 1997.

Without Mr. Clarke's consent, Mr. Berger is unlikely to have gone along with such an early confrontation with the first woman to hold the highest post at Foggy Bottom.

U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by al Qaeda 10 months later. Files with detailed data on three of the embassy bombers were among the casualties of Mr. Clarke's decision to recommend missile attacks on an empty Khartoum pharmaceutical plant rather than get Sudan's data out almost a year earlier to begin unraveling al Qaeda's network.

To this day, neither Mr. Berger nor Mr. Clarke has explained to the American people why a deliberative decision of the U.S. government, made by interagency review, was overturned in such cavalier fashion by a small clique of Clinton advisers in the face of Sudan's unconditional April 1997 offer to cooperate on terrorism issues. If he was interested in facts, why did Mr. Clarke spurn the recommendations of his own intelligence and foreign policy institutions that the Sudanese offer be explored? Why did he not act on the Sudanese intelligence chief's direct approach to the FBI, of which he was aware, in early 1998 just prior to the final planning stages of the embassy bombings?

· Spring 2000: Abu Dhabi's offer to get bin Laden out of Afghanistan falls flat.

In late 1999, after a barrage of threats from al Qaeda's senior leadership against the Abu Dhabi royal family, a senior family member approached the Taliban foreign minister and Mullah Omar to discuss mechanisms for getting bin Laden out of Afghanistan. Mr. Clarke, who enjoyed close relations with the Abu Dhabi family, was brought into the loop early to prevent separation between Washington and Abu Dhabi on such a sensitive matter.

While Mr. Clarke was skeptical of the idea at first, he played ball long enough to understand the real intentions of the Taliban regime. Smart enough, except when the deal got real.

As the strategy started taking shape in earnest - a personal request from President Clinton to Sheikh Zayed, Abu Dhabi's ruler, seeking help to get bin Laden coupled with a $5 billion pan-Arab Afghan Development Fund that would be offered in return for bin Laden taking residence under house arrest in Abu Dhabi, with the possibility of extraditing him later to the United States - Mr. Clarke again scuttled the deal by opting instead for the militaristic solution. He pushed for armed CIA predator drones to hunt bin Laden in the remote mountains of northeastern Afghanistan.

Abu Dhabi was left with a black eye. The Taliban became even more aggressive in allowing al Qaeda to plan and carry out terrorist operations from Afghan soil. Another chance to capture the world's most notorious terrorist had been lost.

Mr. Clarke's selective memory serves no interest but his own agenda. He personifies the politicizing of intelligence by pointing fingers during the political high season for failures that not only occurred on his watch but also were due partly to his grand vision he would one day personally authorize a drone operation to kill bin Laden.

Mr. Clarke, as he testifies today, should remember he served at the pleasure of the American people. He was appointed to defend us against the very terrorists he repeatedly assessed inaccurately. A grateful nation recognizes the difficulty of his task but we ask that he stick to facts rather than inject vitriol and untruths into a debate that must yield answers to help protect our children in the future.

[Gracey]

Great find Johnnie. I wish this was on every headline in the country. I hear that Mansour Ijaz is speaking before the committee (of course behind closed doors so we can't hear him) sometime next monty, about some of this that he's written. He's been furious, since Clarke's testimony.

I formatted it for easy reading.

[Enduring Freedom]

Look again at the entire history of modern America.

Here's only a few examples:

The Nixon Watergate witchhunt with Hillary and Ben Veniste supporting the legal side of the 'Rats, the media's Washington Post's Woodward, CBS's Conkrite, Time Magazine, The New York Times, the mysterious Deep Throat (was this an early Jayson Blair technique of imaginary sources?);

The protests against the Vietnam War orchestrated by John Kerry;

The entire JFK myth as supported by the complicit Leftist media;

The Liberal Left's scams, now seen through the lens of the new millennium, reveal we have been lied to for decades.

[Glenn]

reveal we have been lied to for decades.

You are only lied to if you believe the lie.

[CyberAnt]

Actually, Monsoor was supposed to testify publically, but the commission changed its mind and changed it to private. Monsoor has asked that we protest the private hearing.

I find this interesting that the commission doesn't want Monsoor's testimony to be under oath. There are two reasons I can think of why they don't want this public. #1 - they don't want the general public to know about the 3 times bin Laden was offered and refused (by Mr. Clarke), and I think it might have something to do with the oath thing - not wanting Monsoor to have taken an oath about what he was saying. This way they can say if was just Monsoor's word against CLARKE's. Talk about your crooked, lying bunch.

[lainde]

Bttt

[lainde]

Bttt

[GailA]

btt

[OldFriend]

While Mr. Ijaz may be testifying behind closed doors, there is nothing to preclude him from speaking the truth in public. We can only hope and pray that he will be given a forum to speak to the American people.

[stocksthatgoup]

It is important that his testimony be public so that it is given the same measure of importance as Mr. Clarke's testimony.

[stocksthatgoup]

It is important that his testimony be public so that it is given the same measure of importance as Mr. Clarke's testimony.

[OldFriend]

Let's keep this article bumped to the top so that everyone gets to see it today......

[Vigilantcitizen]

Let's keep this article bumped to the top so that everyone gets to see it today.....

Bump.

[Vigilantcitizen]

Bttt.

[CGVet58]

Am wondering... is there any legal basis or requirement that compells Monsoor to testify privately? Could he not demand in public forum that his testimony be offered publicly? Could he not simply stand before the commissars, err... commission, declare his intent, then open the doors and invite the press in (so to speak) before returning to the witness stand?

On another tack, our grassroots communications to the commission demanding that Monsoor's testimony be held publicly should point out that - since his testimony will directly contradict Dickey Clarke's very public testimony which, by the way, conveniently lays the brunt of blame upon the current administration - their insistence to hold it in private when they have already held the testimony containing above allegations in public and which Monsoor's will completely debunk further serves to soil the integrity of said commission with the stain of partisanship.

Why, if us non-elite Americans didn't know any better, we would think that the commission wants to maximize the blame-Bush items and minimize/deflect all provable testimonies to the contrary.

CGVet58

[risk]

This will play right into our hands. A commission critical of the administration in charge during the 9/11 attacks is effectively a requirement of an open society. Without it, we would appear to be no better than a Maoist agrarian collective.

While certain members of the commission have had their agendas questioned by the Bush cabinet, they have had free rein to do what they wanted. Moreover, critical witnesses have had only mild criticism from the Bush administration. Yet all during this time, the people who were equally if not much more responsibile for our lack of preparedness have been casting the blame -- right in front of America's very eyes!

This is not going to play out the way the Democrats expect, and in the long run we will be safer because we had our passion for political correctness scruitinized and it came up wanting.

[Vigilantcitizen]

Bttt.

[MNJohnnie]

bttt

[CyberAnt]

I've never read the legislation that formed this commission. However, since I have seen the part about the picking of commissioners, I wouldn't be surprised to find out the commission can demand whichever they want - public or private; and it also wouldn't surprise me to find out a commissioner cannot be fired.