Posted on 09/18/2003 12:25:15 PM PDT by areafiftyone
Russert : By who? Who did that? GEN. CLARK: Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein. I said, ButIm willing to say it but whats your evidence? And I never got any evidence. And these were people who hadMiddle East think tanks and people like this and it was a lot of pressure to connect this and there were a lot of assumptions made. But I never personally saw the evidence and didnt talk to anybody who had the evidence to make that connection.
Later in July, in another television interview, he said: The call came from "a man from a Middle East think tank in Canada, the man who's the brother of a very close friend of mine in Belgium.
Just how "close" is this lady? Enquiring minds want to know...
"...He's very well connected to Israeli intelligence and he follows Middle Eastern events very closely."
Knows some guy in the Mossad who tolerates him. Closely reads DEBKA and the NYTimes. In other words, my money says he's another speculating blowhard, and gets paid for it. The f'in Saudis basically admited it was AQ by the evening of 9/11.
Good work by the reporter.
Was this from supernatural negative vibes honing in on his location or what? The point of Clark's statement is that HE FELT PRESSURE FROM THE WHITEHOUSE. He brought up the phone call to substantiate that he "felt" WH pressue.
Please explain what the man is talking about.
"GEN. CLARK: Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein. I said, ButIm willing to say it but whats your evidence? And I never got any evidence. And these were people who hadMiddle East think tanks and people like this and it was a lot of pressure to connect this and there were a lot of assumptions made. But I never personally saw the evidence and didnt talk to anybody who had the evidence to make that connection."
Peach, either you lie,
or you don't read carefully.
Clark says pressure came
from the White House and
people around the White House,
and then he relates
a phone call he got,
but he never says the call
came from the White House.
This is what you posted in post 31 .... I QUOTE....
Here is the transcript: "I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, `You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.'"
Where do you see "White House" in the above?
31 posted on 09/18/2003 3:48 PM EDT by GoOrdnance [
This alone won't do it, no. But if anyone's campaign is going to go down in flames due to scandals, it'll be Clark's. He's got a paper trail that's decades long, and much of it makes him look like an egotistical, dangerous fool. It's just a matter of time until it starts getting pulled out of dusty old filing cabinets and exposed to the light.
GEN. CLARK: Well, several things. First of all, all of us in the community who read intelligence believe that Saddam wanted these capabilities and he had some. We struck very hard in December of 98, did everything we knew, all of his facilities. I think it was an effective set of strikes. Tony Zinni commanded that, called Operation Desert Fox, and I think that set them back a long ways. But we never believed that that was the end of the problem. I think there was a certain amount of hype in the intelligence, and I think the information thats come out thus far does indicate that there was a sort of selective reading of the intelligence in the sense of sort of building a case.The last paragraph seems to indicate that since Clark was working for CNN at the time, the "White House" people called him at home and gave him talking points.
MR. RUSSERT: Hyped by whom?
GEN. CLARK: Well, I...
MR. RUSSERT: The CIA, or the president or vice president? Secretary of Defense, who?
GEN. CLARK: I think it was an effort to convince the American people to do something, and I think there was an immediate determination right after 9/11 that Saddam Hussein was one of the keys to winning the war on terror. Whether it was the need just to strike out or whether he was a linchpin in this, there was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001 starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein.
MR. RUSSERT: By who? Who did that?
GEN. CLARK: Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein. I said, ButIm willing to say it but whats your evidence? And I never got any evidence. And these were people who hadMiddle East think tanks and people like this and it was a lot of pressure to connect this and there were a lot of assumptions made. But I never personally saw the evidence and didnt talk to anybody who had the evidence to make that connection.
Does anyone have a different interpretation?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.