Ex-Aide Says Bush Doing 'Terrible Job" ( Disgruntled Ex-Employee Alert)

AP ^ | Sat, Mar 20, 2004 | TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

[tcuoohjohn]

WASHINGTON - Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the Bush administration of failing to recognize the al-Qaida threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and then manipulating America into war with Iraq (news - web sites) with dangerous consequences.

He accuses Bush of doing "a terrible job on the war against terrorism."

Clarke, who is expected to testify Tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, writes in a new book going on sale Monday that Bush and his Cabinet were preoccupied during the early months of his presidency with some of the same Cold War issues that had faced his father's administration.

"It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier," Clarke told CBS for an interview Sunday on its "60 Minutes" program.

CBS' corporate parent, Viacom Inc., owns Simon & Schuster, publisher for Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies."

Clarke acknowledges that, "there's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too." He said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) on Jan. 24, 2001, asking "urgently" for a Cabinet-level meeting "to deal with the impending al-Qaida attack." Months later, in April, Clarke met with deputy cabinet secretaries, and the conversation turned to Iraq.

"I'm sure I'll be criticized for lots of things, and I'm sure they'll launch their dogs on me," Clarke said. "But frankly I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something."

The Associated Press first reported in June 2002 that Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions.

The last of those two meetings occurred Sept. 4 as the security council put finishing touches on a proposed national security policy review for the president. That review was finished Sept. 10 and was awaiting Bush's approval when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

Almost immediately after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Clarke said the president asked him directly to find whether Iraq was involved in the suicide hijackings.

"Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said, 'Iraq did this,'" said Clarke, who told the president that U.S. intelligence agencies had never found a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida

[Steven W.]

Clarke doesn't even qualify as ex-employee - he's a propagandistic Clintonista left in the wings while Daschle and the DemoncRATs held up every conceivable Bush nomination, as long as possible, as their (DemoncRAT) retribution for Florida.

[newsmeat.com]

Not sure this is the right Richard Clarke (Arlington, VA), but if it is, it's no wonder he's criticizing Bush. He's given only to Dems!

Richard Clarke campaign contributions

[tcuoohjohn]

Now what gets me is we know Clarke is a liar. Why doesn't the White House just say so and deny his warning letter existed?

[tcuoohjohn]

THE Richard Clarke Lives in Chevy Chase , Maryland

[lainde]

Thanks for the clarification. I was sitting herere steaming...WHO is this Clymer!

[King Prout]

want to send your blood pressure through the roof?

[ironman]

"The U.S. has not been attacked since 9/11 under his watch"

Good list, but not quite right (biological/anthrax attacks followed).

[Trajan88]

Richard A. Clarke... a Monday morning limp wristed QB.

Trajan88

[Milligan]

Didn't Clark came up with an idea to use Sonic Boom against Lybia in 1986 and embarrassed Reagan Administration? Was Clark fired from the State Department around 1992? Why didn't Clark bring up the terrorism problem with the Clinton Administration and take real action? It sounds like sour grapes. Clark was pushed aside when 911 happen.

[archy]

want to send your blood pressure through the roof?

Looks to me like he may be right....or may just as easily be wrong. After the First year of WWII, we weren/t looking all that victorious either [07 DEC 1941 to December 1942] so it can be really hard to tell whether we're stalled at this point, or gathering momentum as we did back then, moving on to '43, and D-day in '44, and August in '45.

It's just too soon to tell. But Bush has at least done SOMETHING. It remains to be seen if it's enough yet, or if he's giving away Arizona and New Mexico to the Mexicans the way Carter gave away the Panama Canal.

We shall see.

[Reagan is King]

Good list, but not quite right (biological/anthrax attacks followed).

True, but we still don't know who sent them. That could have been a homegrown anarchist for all we know. Unless something has been discovered that I haven't heard about. I don't expect Bush to stop someone from mailing letters.

I certainly would have expected more bombings in America after the success the terrorists had on 9/11 so I'd say he's done a pretty good job, and hardly a "terrible job" as mentioned by the author.

[kiki p]

He's been around a while. From ABC news:

In the elder Bush's administration, Clarke was the Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs. In that capacity, he coordinated State Department support of Desert Storm and led efforts to create a post-war security architecture. Clarke was appointed to the National Security Council staff in 1992.

In the Reagan administration, Clarke was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence.

[The Wizard]

Richard Clarke Flashback: Clinton Dropped Ball on Bin Laden...there's the truth

[danamco]

Funny how he has waited 3 1/2 years for this story and it just happens to coincide with a book he has written and will be released next week......


Maybe he went to school with Paul O'Neil???

[Kaslin]

[CalKat]

Richard Clarke was actually a holdover from George HW Bush's administration, and Clinton kept him on.

[alloysteel]

About time this mole got retired, isn't it? Just about every Civil Service or "non-political" sub-Cabinet level appointee that was held over from the first Bush Administration through the regime of the "Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001" has proved to be a toady with sympathies for establishing a "New World Order", with the US being only one voice (if heard at all) in an unending uproar of incivility aimed at diminishing the influence of the US.

[kabar]

This is called chutzpah. Clarke has been the big antiterrorism guy for 30 years. The US was attacked throughout the 90's starting with WTC I in 1993, which was followed by Riyadh in 1995, Khobar towers, our embassies in East Africa, and the USS Cole in 2000.

Bush is in office for 230 days, which included a shorter than usual transition period due to the Dems trying to steal the election in Florida. It takes him months just to get his team in place, including just getting a new FBI director in September. The terrorists who carried out WTC II were already in place in the US before Bush was even sworn in.

So the guy who was the architect of the failed Clinton antiterrroism policy is now criticizing Bush for ignoriing terrorism. Unf'ing believable.

[dirtboy]

Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator ... accuses Bush of doing "a terrible job on the war against terrorism."

Clarke would have grounds to criticize Bush if he and the Clinton Administration had actually DONE any counterterrorism themselves. Instead, all we have here is the pot attempting to call the kettle black.

CBS' corporate parent, Viacom Inc., owns Simon & Schuster, publisher for Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies."

How's this for a conflict of interest? Viacom gave Hillary her large advance for her book. Viacom now wants to sell this book. And the best way for a book to sell ... is to generate enough controversy so that 60 Minutes (another Viacom enterprise) can shamelessly promote the book in the guise of news.