Ex-Aide Says Bush Doing 'Terrible Job'

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by cjcj:
Maybee GW didn`t trust Clarke? [demotion]

Maybe Dubya was just fixated on a War with Iraq, and didn't want to be bothered chasing terrorists around 3rd world countries....

 

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by feclnogn:
Sounds to me like he wanted a change.

Fecl, see claim number 3...

Claim vs. Fact


CLAIM #1: “Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to.” - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: Clarke sent a memo to Rice principals on 1/24/01 marked “urgent” asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending Al Qaeda attack. The White House acknowledges this, but says “principals did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat.” No meeting occurred until one week before 9/11. - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #2: “The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.” - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: If this is true, then why did the President and Vice President repeatedly claim Saddam Hussein was directly connected to 9/11? President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against “nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11.” Similarly, Vice President Cheney said on 9/14/03 that “It is not surprising that people make that connection” between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, and said “we don’t know” if there is a connection.

CLAIM #3: "[Clarke] was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cybersecurity side of things." - Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04

FACT: "Dick Clarke continued, in the Bush Administration, to be the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and the President's principle counterterrorism expert. He was expected to organize and attend all meetings of Principals and Deputies on terrorism. And he did." - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #4: “In June and July when the threat spikes were so high…we were at battle stations…The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11.” – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: “Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's ‘Strategic Plan’ from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism ‘the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.’” - Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #5: “The president launched an aggressive response after 9/11.” – National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04

FACT: “In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks.” – Washington Post, 3/22/04

CLAIM #6: "Well, [Clarke] wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff…” - Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/22/04

FACT: "The Government's interagency counterterrorism crisis management forum (the Counterterrorism Security Group, or "CSG") chaired by Dick Clarke met regularly, often daily, during the high threat period." - White House Press Release, 3/21/04

CLAIM #7: "[Bush] wanted a far more effective policy for trying to deal with [terrorism], and that process was in motion throughout the spring." - Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04

FACT: “Bush said [in May of 2001] that Cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and 'I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.' Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place.” - Washington Post, 1/20/02

 

[feclnogn]

Maybe Dubya was just fixated on a War with Iraq, and didn't want to be bothered chasing terrorists around 3rd world countries....

EG how do you arrive at this conclusion. Wishfull thinking? Blind Hatred? Or maybe you just like to spout off for the sake of hearing your head roar, or keyboads click???

Here is some quotes from the Clarke interview,

On the day of Sept. 11, then the day or two following, we had a very open mind.

"See if it's Hezbollah. See if it's Hamas. Don't assume it's Al Qaeda

The evidence that it was Al Qaeda began just to be massive within days after the attack.

At this point the Administation moved against Afganistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Iraq came later.


This guy is bitching about not being heard by the admin but in this interview he states that,

Shortly after the Bush administration came into office, we were asked to think about how we organized the White House for a number of issues, including cybersecurity, computer security, homeland security, and counterterrorism.

Shortly after This sounds like they were listening and gathering ideas.

JMO.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Posted by Fecl

This sounds like they were listening and gathering ideas.

Doesn't sound like it was "active" listening, and it doesn't sound like they wanted to "gather ideas", as they chose to ignore the information.

PRE-SEPTEMBER 11 - Reno Makes Counterterrorism DoJ's Top Priority
5/8/98 - Mission statement from internal FBI Strategic Plan dated 5/8/1998 in which the Tier One priority is counterterrorism [...]

4/6/00 - Official annual budget goals memo from Attorney General Janet Reno to department heads dated 4/6/2000 detailing how counterterrorism is her top priority for the Department of Justice. In the second paragraph, she states, "In the near term as well as the future, cybercrime and counterterrrorism are going to be the most challenging threats in the criminal justice area. Nowhere is the need for an up-to-date human and technical infrastructure more critical."

PRE-SEPTEMBER 11 - Ashcroft Shifts Direction Away From Counterterrorism

5/10/01 - Ashcroft New DoJ Budget Goals Memo: Official annual budget goals memo from Attorney General Ashcroft dated 5/10/2001 (directly compares to the 4/6/2000 Reno memo). Out of 7 strategic goals described, not one mentions counterterrorism, a serious departure from Reno.

8/9/01 - [...] Attorney General Ashcroft's new priorities for DoJ were highlighted. Specifically highlighted by Ashcroft are domestic violent crime and drug trafficking prevention. Item 1.3 entitled "Combat terrorist activities by developing maximum intelligence and investigative capability" is passed over [...]

Late August 2001 - [...] In this request, FBI specifically asks for, among other things, 54 translators to translate backlog of intelligence gathered (line 3 under Foreign Language Services, cost of $5.1 million), 248 counterterrorism agents and support staff (line 14 entitled CT field investigations, cost of $28 million), and 200 professional intelligence researchers (line 16, entitled Intelligence Production, at a cost of $20.8 million). FBI has repeatedly stated that it has a serious backlog of intelligence data it has gathered but simply does not have the staff to analyze or translate it into usable information. [...]

9/10/2001 - Official FY2003 Dept. of Justice Budget Request To White House: Official FY03 DoJ budget request from Attorney General Ashcroft to OMB Director Mitch Daniels, dated September 10, 2001. This document specifically highlights only the programs slated for above-baseline increases or below-baseline cuts [...] [T]his document shows that Ashcroft was planning to ignore the FBI's specific requests for more translators, counterintelligence agents and researchers, mentioned above. It additionally shows Ashcroft was trying to slash funding from counterterrorism and grants and other homeland defense programs before 9/11.

POST-SEPTEMBER 11: Ashcroft Still Ignores FBI Counterterrorism Requests

Post 9/11 - Budget Document Detailing OMB Rejection of FBI Counter-Terror Request: Internal document showing that FBI requested $1.499 billion for counterterrorism for the post-September 11 emergency supplemental but received just $530 million from the White House, despite serious counterterrorism needs.

 

[MarlandS]

Originally posted by ElkGunner:

Maybe Dubya was just fixated on a War with Iraq, and didn't want to be bothered chasing terrorists around 3rd world countries....


yeah he was so fixated it took him 2 years to go to Iraq

 

[pawclaws]

I don't have near enough information to make an informed decision on this one. I can tell you guys that I saw some of Clarke's interview via rerun and I got the impression that he wasn't speaking from the heart; rather, a script. If he came across in his presentations to the Bush Administration the same way I was reading his responses and offerings during the interview I can understand why he might have been ignored.

 

[Ten Bears]

I think the GUNNER has already bought the stinking book.

 

[pawclaws]

I think I'll wait until Disney and CBS make the movie and air it on Showtime!

 

[Ten Bears]

I'll wait for the PayPerView event.

 

[cjcj]

Well let me put it this way Gunner,Clarke has "since" shown he can not be trusted, [backstabber/turncoat etc,]

 

[JoseCuervo]

Originally posted by cjcj:
Well let me put it this way Gunner,Clarke has "since" shown he can not be trusted, [backstabber/turncoat etc,]

If you criticize Dubya, are you considered not trustworthy, and a backstabber? That is a chilling observation of our freedoms and the foundation of our government.

R.I.P. The United States Constitution... d. 2004

 

[JoseCuervo]

CJ,
Here is a bit more on your Turncoat theory.... Kinda funny how Dubya keeps hiring people who turn on him....

A must-read post about the Bush administration's silliest attack yet against Richard Clarke: he's friends with Rand Beers, who works for the Kerry campaign.

Beers, like Clarke, has a long and distinguished career fighting terrorism. He was good enough for Condi Rice to hire him in August 2002 to coordinate the National Security Council's counter-terrorism efforts.

And after just seven months on the job, he realized that the best way to fight terrorism was to get a new president to lead the fight. His choice? John Kerry.

As it is summed up,:

When you look at it, Beers' and Clarke's stories sound quite similar.

And the pattern suggests two possible theories.

The first is that President Bush has the odd misfortune of repeatedly hiring Democratic party stooges for key counter-terrorism assignments who stab him in the back as soon as they leave his employ.

The second is that anyone the president hires in a key counter-terrorism role who is not either a hidebound ideologue or a Bush loyalist gets so disgusted with the mismanagement and/or dishonesty that they eventually quit and then devote themselves to driving the president from office.

Which sounds more likely?

 

[Muledeer4me]

Maybe the biggest question we should ask ourself if WHO would Al-QAIDA LIKE TO SEE AS OUR PRESIDENT?
I'll bet it's not Bush either.

Elkgunner & Ithaca's anti-bush posting's only help me understand where they come from on there other post's.
It all runs along the same line's.
Elkgunner and Ithaca have to do everything they can to help get Bush out.

Bush and those that support him are more likly to vote for the things Ithaca and elkgunner hate.
War on those that want to harm us/private property rights/ranchers/public land access/freedom.
Go figure LOL its the same reason they hate those in charge in Idaho -Republican run state / backers of all that they want to see done away with.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Yeppers, I try and make people think, and see both sides of an issue. It is obvious that some are threatened with having to think about other sides of an issue.

That is funny to fall to the Al_quaida preferred president. Even the congressman from Oklahoma who made a similar stupid statement got distanced by the RNC/Dubya camp.

More food for thought...

Clarke Terrorism Charges...White House must head-off before it gets "outside the Beltway"
Summary: the 9/11 Commission has always been a high risk potential for the Bush Administration, hence the very careful limits put on official cooperation. Hearings this week, "bombshell" book by former WH staffer Richard Clarke, have high risk potential to change attitudes "outside The Beltway". Polls consistently show the public still puts "trust" in double digits for Bush over Kerry on terrorism war. So White House reacts quickly, and very very firmly, to anything resembling a credible criticism of Bush...see the deconstruction of ex-Treas. Sec. O'Neill, UN inspector Blix, and now Clarke. The White House's top terrorism expert going back to the Reagan Administration provides anecdotal and eye-witness testimony apparently corroborating many other sources that Iraq was THE fixation, at the expense of all else. VP Cheney's rebuttal that Clark "out of the loop" is confusing, if Clarke was given the terrorism oversight job by NSC chief Rice. This one will bear watching...the polls will tell the tale.

 

[danr55]

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to Dick Clarks American Grandstand.. It has no political implications and was not written to have any effect on the outcome of the Presidential election, but it just happened to be released 6 months before the election. (Coincidence?)

Most of the issues leveled at the Bush are directed at his failure to react to the proper intelligence on Al Queda and the terrorists activities that led to the Sept. 11 disasters in New York. Unfortunately, it makes no mention of the emmasculation of the intelligence gathering apparatus perpetrated by Komrade Klinton's (that's why the K) two prior administrations. So Mr. Bush didn't react to information that was not gathered by the intelligence operatives that were not there. Shame on him!

Bush was fixated on subduing a country who's leader had issued a kill contract on a US President, who was known to have used Chemical weapons on his own nation, that we had intelligence (however faulty) that indicated that this man had WMD including nuclear weapons, and he was wrong for that.

Faulty logic in my book. Hearings about who shot John or who didn't shoot John are related to politics as is this entire dog and pony show. I hope no one believes that there is any real content to any of this.

It's all part of the show.

 

[JoseCuervo]

DanR,

Maybe you should read up on the timeline, before you make you wild accusations.

How long did Dubya/White House delay the book, for their "review"? The timing was Dubya's problem....

 

[Nemont]

EG,
I wouldn't be ready to burn the Constitution just yet. As far as I have seen nobody is saying Richard Clarke doesn't have a right to be critical of Bush. No one is dragging him off and excuting him, they are questioning why he is one sided in his critisism. During the current 9/11 commission hearing I have not heard anyone from the prior administration saying "Bush is a liar" under oath regarding 9/11.
I think that Richard Clarke was a highly skilled, anti terrorism expert who wanted a job he didn't get. It appears to me that he had a problem convincing the people he worked for that what he was saying was important. It is not just the Bush White House. To lay it all at Bush's feet and say that he was fixated on Iraq simply is not true.

Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke had ordered his staff to review existing intelligence in relation to the bombing of the USS Cole. After that review, he and Michael Sheehan, the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, were convinced it was the work of Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon had on-the-shelf, regularly updated and detailed strike plans for bin Laden's training camps and strongholds in Afghanistan.

At a meeting with Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno, and other staffers, Clarke was the only one in favor of retaliation against bin Laden. Reno thought retaliation might violate international law and was therefore against it. Tenet wanted to more definitive proof that bin Laden was behind the attack, although he personally thought he was. Albright was concerned about the reaction of world opinion to a retaliation against Muslims, and the impact it would have in the final days of the Clinton Middle East peace process. Cohen, according to Clarke, did not consider the Cole attack "sufficient provocation" for a military retaliation. Michael Sheehan was particularly surprised that the Pentagon did not want to act. He told Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"

Instead of destroying bin Laden's terrorist infrastructure and capabilities, President Clinton phoned twice phoned the president of Yemen demanding better cooperation between the FBI and the Yemeni security services. If Clarke's plan had been implemented, al Qaeda's infrastructure would have been demolished and bin Laden might well have been killed. Sept. 11, 2001 might have been just another sunny day.

Paralysis by Analysis?
LINK

Why does Clarke save his harshest criticism for George W. Bush, when the Clinton administration's inaction made his tough promises appear to be empty threats?

Those old quotes raise some interesting questions about the Clarke of today. For example, despite Clarke's criticism of the Iraq invasion, he once thought the U.S. didn't need ironclad evidence of weapons of mass destruction to take military action against a threat. From the April 2, 2000 Post profile:

"We should have a very low barrier in terms of acting when there is a threat of weapons of mass destruction being used against American citizens," says Clarke. "We should not have a barrier of evidence that can be used in a court of law."
He compares the current threat of global terrorism with the situation faced by Western democracies in the period leading up to World War II, when appeasement carried the day. Imagine what would have happened, he says, had Winston Churchill come to power in Britain five years earlier and "aggressively gone after" Nazi Germany. Hitler would have been stopped, but in all likelihood, Clarke says, Churchill would have gone down in history "as a hawk, as someone who exaggerated the threat, who saber-rattled and did needless things."

Hawkish? Exaggerated? Hmm. Has that criticism been levied at any president recently?

LINK

Clarke Praised Bush in Resignation Letter

By JENNIFER LOVEN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House, seeking to cool criticism from a former top anti-terror adviser, said that Richard Clarke's resignation letter praised President Bush's ``courage, determination, calm and leadership'' on Sept. 11, 2001.

``It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months,'' said the Jan. 20, 2003, letter from Clarke to Bush. ``I will always remember the courage, determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th.''

``You had prescience in creating the position of Special Adviser to the President for Cyberspace Security and I urge you to maintain that role in the White House,'' Clarke wrote.

LINK

If he was so frustrated and so fed up why weren't his concerns voiced in his resignation letter? Why wasn't he shouting from the roof tops?

The question of who the terrorist would rather see in the White House is a relevant question. Look at Spain, what happens the next time a terror organization decides it needs to influence an election?

If I have learned anything in my life it is that there is always two sides to every story. I am not saying Clarke is 100% wrong but he also doesn't appear to 100% correct either. If he could not get any action, against Al Qaeda, after the USS Cole was bombed why does he think he could action by writing an urgent memo.

Just my observation but it appears EG that you have become enraged lately even bitter. You used to be a little more reasoned in you posts. Again just my observation.

Nemont

 

[JoseCuervo]

Nemont,

Enraged/bitter? Nahhh, ..... I am still reasoned, or at least try and see both sides of the issues. Afterall, I am still undecided who I will vote for...

Wasn't Clarke effective enough in convincing Clinton and others to take the Millenium attacks seriously, and prevent them?

[ 03-24-2004, 21:24: Message edited by: ElkGunner ]

 

[Nemont]

EG,

At lest you make me laugh. I don't think that there is a person on Moosie site who doesn't know who you are voting for.

I understand frustration so will give you a pass.

What Millenium attacks did they stop?

Nemont

P.S. and I thought I was most articulate

 

[JoseCuervo]

All of them that didn't happen....