It Begins: Clarke goes public with allegations of terror mishandling

[minty_green]

@Tuckerfan

Hindsight is 20/20. If Clarke was so concerned that Bush & Co. weren’t taking the whole terrorism business seriously (and I am so not making the claim that they were), then why is Clarke just now speaking out?

@flickster

As for Clark’s credibility, I don’t have any evidence to dispute his claims. However, the timing certainly makes one suspect. He could have easily come forward 2 years ago and would have been taken much more seriously.

As rjung referenced above, you guys really need to pay more attention to current affairs. Clarke DID come forward two years ago. Time magazine. August 2, 2002. Mucho grande big news at the time.

[E-Sabbath]

Heck, check out this thread from just before the weekend.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=245375&page=1&pp=50

None of this is even vaugely new. It was just ignored before.

[theR]

But why is he selling a book just now?!?!?

He may have told everyone the important stuff before, but why wait until now for a book?!?!?

I mean, now he is going to actually make money on a book about US policy by selling it right before an election rather than making a fraction of the money selling it at another time! That proves that his stories can’t possibly be true!!!111

I mean, he should have had the book out right after he left his job in public service. Two years! Jesus, anyone that takes more than a few months to write a book, find a publisher, agree to a contract, and then make the publisher release the book well away from election time, must be a lying weasel. There is no reason to give this book any merit.

And anyone trying to sell a book full of truths must be an idiot, so at the least he is an idiot or a liar.

[Apos]

Here’s a bit more documentary evidence about administration rebuttal claims that the administration put a higher priority on fighting terrorism than the Clinton adminstration, or that they tried to raise terror-fighting funds.

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=39039

In fact, they apparently cut funds even AFTER 9/11 on the FBI.

This was an amusing sequence:

flickster: He could have easily come forward 2 years ago and would have been taken much more seriously.

minty: As rjung referenced above, you guys really need to pay more attention to current affairs. Clarke DID come forward two years ago. Time magazine. August 2, 2002. Mucho grande big news at the time.

theR: But why is he selling a book just now?!?!?

::rolleyes::

[elucidator]

First off, let me emphasize: the “timing” of the books release makes no difference whatever. Mr. Clark’s motivation is irrelevent, whether he is a self-serving scoundrel seeking only to boost his books sales, or a bitter patriot trying to wake up his fellow citizens, the only thing that matters is: is he tellling the truth?

In an effort to undermine Mr. Clark’s credibility, some are suggesting he was bitter about being demoted from a Cabinet level position to a staff level. But that in itself is rather telling, isn’t it? Raising to Cabinet level is a time honored way to signify, if nothing else, the gravity with which the WH (of whatever stripe) regards the issue at hand. Conversely, removing that issue from Cabinet level importance must necessarily indicate that the issue is not considered to be as important. Is there another interpretation?

The trouble for the Bushiviks is not so much the scandal, the acolytes of the Shining One will not be swayed, an excuse will be found. Perhaps attaching the French honorific Mssr. will suffice, as in Mssr. Kerry (very droll, by the way, guys, your wit never ceases to…well, it never ceases…)

The trouble is that even the dullest member of the committee investigating 9/11 has his research all done for him. He need only cite a specific instance in the book and ask, simply, “Is this true?”. Dates of meetings, for instance, are documented. If, as it is averred, Mr. Clark did not get a face to face meeting with GeeDubya despite strenuous effort, that is a matter of public record.

Anyone know? Is GeeDubya already scheduled for his “visit” with the Committee? Would anyone be astounded if that cordial little chat might need be postponed due to some crucial matter of national security?

[blowero]

@Apos

No, I don’t think it’s necessarily true that Iraq itself made us less safe by inciting more anti-American sentiment. Plenty of Arabs understand that Saddam was awful, and those that nevertheless think American influence is horrible and must be fought wouldn’t need Iraq to prove that too them: they already had Afghanistan as an example. But then, unlike Clarke, I don’t know much about the subject or how it could/has played in the Middle East among key groups.

I dunno, Apos. Clarke sounded pretty convincing on 60 Minutes last night. He made the point that Osama’s whole shtick was predicting that the U.S. was going to invade and occupy an oil-rich country. He is of the opinion that by invading Iraq, since they had nothing to do with 9/11, we played right into Osama’s hands. I’m sure Afghanistan didn’t help, but I don’t think that was the same animal at all. Clarke’s credentials are pretty impressive; if anyone understands the dynamics of terrorism, it would be him.

[Apos]

In addition to the source 60 minutes says they have corraberating Clarke’s account about the rush to attack Iraq after 9/11, there is this:

Corroboration of Clarke's account

Whatever else you say about Clarke, it’s hard to argue that he wasn’t early and outspoken about the threat of terrorism and its state sponsors.

[rjung]

@elucidator

Is GeeDubya already scheduled for his “visit” with the Committee? Would anyone be astounded if that cordial little chat might need be postponed due to some crucial matter of national security?

Not sure, but apparently Ms. Condolezza Rice isn’t willing to face the 9/11 panel after all.

Speaking of Ms. Rice, several folks have noted that she’s contradicted herself in the editorial slam she wrote today against Richard Clarke:

Once advised that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11, the president told his National Security Council on Sept. 17 that Iraq was not on the agenda and that the initial U.S. response to Sept. 11 would be to target al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
–Condolezza Rice, Washington Post, 3/22/2004

So, yes, there are contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. We know that Saddam Hussein has a long history with terrorism in general. And there are some al Qaeda personnel who found refuge in Baghdad … There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented … no one is trying to make an argument at this point that Saddam Hussein somehow had operational control of what happened on September 11th, so we don’t want to push this too far.
–Condolezza Rice, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 9/25/2002

And in a related vein, the Milwaukee Channel has brief excerpts from the book with Clarke’s description of various Administration members:

President Bush: Clarke blames Bush for doing a “terrible job” fighting terrorism. Says “the critique of him as a dumb, lazy rich kid was somewhat off the mark,” but that Bush looks for “the simple solution, the bumper-sticker description of the problem.”

Vice President Dick Cheney: Clarke describes Cheney as quiet and calm but radically conservative. Says Cheney believes U.S. could handle Iraq alone and “everyone else is just more trouble than they are worth.” Blames Cheney for failing to speak out about the threat of al-Qaida during senior White House meetings.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: Clarke quotes him as saying during an April 2001 meeting, “I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden,” and telling Clarke, “You give bin Laden too much credit.”

[elucidator]

Mr. Cheney, it appears, is on the counter-attack, bravely facing hardball questioning by the paragon of non-partisan reportage, Mr. Rush Limbaugh. Comments here excerpted from Mr. Josh Marshalls website Talking Points Memo, without which no citizen can hope to be informed.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

To paraphrase, Mr. Cheney attempts to portray Mr. Clarke as not being “in the loop”, since he was shunted off from the “real” counter-terrorism effort over into clucking about the internet’s vulnerability to Islamic hackers. Trouble is, Mr. Clarke was not so displaced until after 9/11. Ooopsy!

So Cheney’s claim is that Clarke “wasn’t in the loop … on a lot of this stuff.”

Consider what that means.

Clarke, as we’ve said, was the counter-terrorism coordinator at NSC. That means he ran the inter-agency process on terrorism issues. Cheney says Clarke wasn’t in the loop; but that means that he actually ran the loop.

If he was out of the loop on the central points of what the White House was doing on terrorism that means there was a complete breakdown of the interagency process.

Saying Clarke was out of the loop is less a defense of the administration than an indictment of it.

And Ms. Rice invokes “executive privilege”? The ghost of Nixon chuckles in the background.

What did the President know? When did he know it? Or does he even know it now?

[iamme99]

The 60 minute interview is available here: Link

An excerpt:
Does Clarke think that Iraq, the Middle East and the world is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power?

“I think the world would be better off if a number of leaders around the world were out of power. The question is what price should the United States pay,” says Clarke. “The price we paid was very, very high, and we’re still paying that price for doing it.”

“Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, 'America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country. He had been saying this. This is part of his propaganda,” adds Clarke.

“So what did we do after 9/11? We invade an oil-rich and occupy an oil-rich Arab country which was doing nothing to threaten us. In other words, we stepped right into bin Laden’s propaganda. And the result of that is that al Qaeda and organizations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda have been greatly strengthened.”

When Clarke worked for Mr. Clinton, he was known as the terrorism czar. When Mr. Bush came into office, though remaining at the White House, Clarke was stripped of his Cabinet-level rank.

Stahl said to Clarke, “They demoted you. Aren’t you open to charges that this is all sour grapes, because they demoted you and reduced your leverage, your power in the White House?”

Clarke’s answer: “Frankly, if I had been so upset that the National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism had been downgraded from a Cabinet level position to a staff level position, if that had bothered me enough, I would have quit. I didn’t quit.”

Until two years later, after 30 years in government service.

A senior White House official told 60 Minutes he thinks the Clarke book is an audition for a job in the Kerry campaign.

“I’m an independent. I’m not working for the Kerry campaign,” says Clarke. “I have worked for Ronald Reagan. I have worked for George Bush the first, I have worked for George Bush the second. I’m not participating in this campaign, but I am putting facts out that I think people ought to know.”

As to the question raised about why release the book now, it’s a simple marketing decision. You are going to make the most sales when the issue you are writing about is in the news. There might not be any news and therefore might be a lot less sales if he waited to say after the election to release the book.

[flickster]

Does CBS (via Viacom) have a vested interest in how well this book sells? Is it of concern? Should they have disclosed that in their 60 Minutes segment? Did the segment basically serve as an infomercial? If so, in today’s corporate conglomerate configurations how should journalist avoid the question of impropiety?

[elucidator]

Who gives a rat’s ass? Some guy on Crossfire tried the same sort of approach, saying that it showed that Clarke was “disloyal” to GeeDubya. It was nothing more than an attempt to change the focus of discussion.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: it makes absolutely no difference to me what Mr. Clarke’s motives are. I don’t care if he’s trying to make money. I don’t care if he thinks it will get him laid. I don’t care if he did it because GeeDubya nicknamed him “Poopy-pants”. One question, and one question only: Is it true?

[John_Mace]

I think it’s hard to find fault with Clarke about the timing of his book’s release. The guy wrote a book and had it published in a timeframe that makes sense, giving when he left his government job. Besides, if he really want to time the book’s release to influence the election, it would’ve been published in October.

I’m wondering, however, how much blame Clarke takes on himself for not preventing Al Qaeda from becoming what it was in Sept 2001. He’s the guy who was in the anti-terrorism job the longest of any senior government official. But I don’t really find this effort to try blame someone (either Clinton or Bush) for the attacks on 9/11 to be constructive. And I don’t think many Americans, except for the most partisan Dems, will buy into the idea that Bush is to blame for the attacks either. Let Clarke testify before the various committees investigating this issue, and let’s make some sturctural changes as needed.

[rjung]

@John Mace

I’m wondering, however, how much blame Clarke takes on himself for not preventing Al Qaeda from becoming what it was in Sept 2001. He’s the guy who was in the anti-terrorism job the longest of any senior government official.

If the information in the book is similar to what’s already been published (Time magazine, Al Fanken, etc.), the biggest thing you can blame on Clarke would be that he didn’t push the al Qaeda terrorism threat hard enough against the Iraq-obsessed Bush Administration.

@John Mace

But I don’t really find this effort to try blame someone (either Clinton or Bush) for the attacks on 9/11 to be constructive.

Why not? Bush is running for re-election on his strengths in fighting terrorism; if Clarke’s allegations are true – that Bush was asleep at the wheel from 1/20/01 to 9/10/01 – that’s a damn convincing argument not to keep him in the White House for four more years.

@John Mace

And I don’t think many Americans, except for the most partisan Dems, will buy into the idea that Bush is to blame for the attacks either.

Depends on what you mean by “to blame.” I don’t think anyone truly believes Bush was responsible for planning or ignoring the planned attacks of 9/11, but I think you can convince a fair number of folks that Bush was de-emphasizing terrorism in general when he first took office.

[Tuckerfan]

@minty green

As rjung referenced above, you guys really need to pay more attention to current affairs. Clarke DID come forward two years ago. Time magazine. August 2, 2002. Mucho grande big news at the time.

So what’s he been doing the rest of the time? Think about it, if someone had handed you hard evidence in January 2001 of what was going to happen on 9/11, would you go to the media, let them scream about it for a little while, and then when something shifted it off the front page (with the Bush Administration doing nothing to prevent 9/11 from happening) simply bide your time until 9/11 or the '04 election? I seriously doubt it.

If I were a government official and I knew that the current administration was ignoring an issue as important as the threat of a 9/11 attack, I’d be unstoppable in my efforts to raise public awareness, I’d even violate the law and turn over classified documents proving my point to the media . We’re dealing with people’s lives, here, and while there’s some excuse for keeping mum prior to 9/11, after 9/11, there’s no excuse for not using whatever means necessary to bitchslap either the American public or the current administration into taking the matter seriously.

[RTFirefly]

I thought I’d go ahead and print the entire Center for American Progress press release for everyone’s benefit:

(mods - please note that this is a press release, which means they want it to be reprinted elsewhere)

In the wake of Richard Clarke’s well-supported assertions that the Bush Administration neglected counterterrorism in the face of repeated terror warnings before 9/11, the Bush Administration has launched a frantic misinformation campaign – often contradicting itself in the process.

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.” By comparison, Cheney in 2001 formally convened his Energy Task Force at least 10 separate times, meeting at least 6 times with Enron energy executives.
– Washington Post, 1/20/02 , GAO Report, 8/22/03, AP, 1/8/02

CLAIM #8: All the chatter [before 9/11] was of an attack, a potential al Qaeda attack overseas.
– Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, 3/22/04

FACT: Page 204 of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 noted that “In May 2001, the intelligence community obtained a report that Bin Laden supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States” to “carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives.” The report “was included in an intelligence report for senior government officials in August [2001].” In the same month, the Pentagon “acquired and shared with other elements of the Intelligence Community information suggesting that seven persons associated with Bin Laden had departed various locations for Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.”
[Joint Congressional Report, 12/02]

Links to original sources are available at the link above.

[manhattan]

@Tuckerfan

Think about it, if someone had handed you hard evidence in January 2001 of what was going to happen on 9/11…

Heh. That’s the almost-amusing-in-its-surreality aspect of all of this. I’m not aware that Clarke is alleging that the Bush administration or its predecessors or anyone else had specific information about the 9-11 attacks, but that Bush and his administration failed to take the generalized warnings about al Qaeda sufficiently seriously.

Let’s suppose, as a thought experiment, that Bush had taken it very seriously – as seriously prior to 9-11 as he did afterward. What kinds of things might he have done? Well, a pre-emtive invasion of Afghanistan seems like a pretty good idea in hindsight. Any of the persons in this thread sound likely to have supported that? We’ve done a preemptive invasion since then – do a quick census and you’ll get your answer. Hell, at least one contributor to this thread opposed invading Afghanistan after 9-11! It’s true – you could look it up!

So let’s not go that far. How about air marshalls? Or maybe extending some of the provisions of existing RICO and financial-crime legislation to suspected terrorists? The very same complainers would have screamed about that! In fact, they are now – it’s called the USA PATRIOT Act.

Please.

Monday morning quarterbacking is bad enough when done by people who didn’t yell out their calls for the plays before the game. It’s just pathetic when done by those who called for a punt and are now complaining that the long completion isn’t yet a touchdown.

[RTFirefly]

A timeline, from another Center for American Progress press release:

PRE-SEPTEMBER 11 - Reno Makes Counterterrorism DoJ’s Top Priority

5/8/98 – FBI Strategic Plan: Mission statement from internal FBI Strategic Plan dated 5/8/1998 in which the Tier One priority is counterterrorism. This document clearly proves that the FBI under the previous Administration was making counterterrorism its highest priority. As the document states “Foreign intelligence, terrorist, and criminal activities that directly threaten the national or economic security…To succeed we must develop and implement a proactive, nationally directed program.”

4/6/00 – DoJ Budget Goals Memo: 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 – Internal Draft of New Ashcroft DoJ Strategic Plan: Internal draft dated 8/9/2001 of DoJ’s plans to revamp the official DoJ Strategic Plan strategic in which Attorney General Ashcroft’s new priorities for DoJ were highlighted in yellow (because of color constraints with PDF, the items with black boxes were the ones actually highlighted). As it says, highlighted items equal the specific goals of the new Attorney General. 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. After September 11, Ashcroft quickly amended his plans for DoJ’s reorganization. The final strategic mission, which was released in November looks starkly different than Ashcroft’s pre-September 11 draft. (to see this reversal, you can compare “stragicplan.pdf” attached to this email with the final strategic mission that is found on the web at http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/mps/strategic2001-2006/chapter2.pdf).

Late August 2001 – Internal FBI FY2003 Budget Request to Ashcroft: Internal FBI FY03 budget request to DoJ dated roughly late August 2002 (FBI submits its request to DoJ, DoJ adjusts and sends a request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which then puts it into the final budget). This is not FBI’s total request - but only the areas where FBI is specifically requesting increases over the previous year’s baseline. 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. On page 29 of the PDF, Ashcroft outlines the programs he is trying to cut. Comparing this document to FBI’s request to DoJ, it shows that Ashcroft ignored FBI’s anti-terrorism requests (detailed in this internal FBI document). More specifically, this 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.

So, who was ‘soft on terrorism’ again?

[OneYogini]

Okay, so can anyone point to any quote in the OP that suggests a “Great Debate”?? Everyone is commenting on the content of the OP but where is/what is the debate?

[Squink]

@Tuckerfan

while there’s some excuse for keeping mum prior to 9/11, after 9/11, there’s no excuse for not using whatever means necessary to bitchslap either the American public or the current administration into taking the matter seriously.

This rather begs the question of whether the Bush administration needed a bitchslapping after 9/11, and if so why.
The white house’s efforts to limit the FBI’s counterterrorism efforts AFTER 9/11

The document, dated Oct. 12, 2001, shows that the FBI requested $1.5 billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts with the creation of 2,024 positions. But the White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, working within the White House limits, cut the FBI’s request for items such as computer networking and foreign language intercepts by half, cut a cyber-security request by three quarters and eliminated entirely a request for “collaborative capabilities.”

suggests that such a bitchslapping was needed, which leaves wondering as to why it was needed, especially if the administration was as closely focused on terrorism prior to 9/11 as they claim.

Having supposedly redoubled their intelligence efforts after 9/11, we find ourselves occupying Iraq, no connection to bin Laden, no WMD’s in sight, and this is also the fault of bad intelligence? Occam’s razor comes down strongly on the side of Clarke here.