What ruins Clark’s credibility for me is the fact that he told the commissioners that early on in the Bush administration he told the president: " … and I said, well, you know, we’ve had this strategy ready … ahh … since before you were inaugurated. I showed it to you. You have the paperwork. We can have a meeting on the strategy anytime you want."
But, he is on record as saying in 2002, “I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush Administration.”
Sometimes it can be a fine line between “they didn’t pay enough attention to my idea for fighting terrorism” and “they didn’t pay enough attention to fighting terrorism”.
Without the context for the second quote (a link would be lovely) the second quote could be read as saying that the paperwork was given to the new administration, which scrapped it and started over. That seems to be supported here where Clarke is quoting as reporting numerous conversations about Clinton-era plans to “roll back” Al-Q which were dismissed in favor of developing a strategy of “eliminating” it. I don’t think it’s easily characterized as a lie on Clarke’s part.
If you watch a replay of Clarke’s testimony yesterday, you will hear the explanation for this. Governor Thompson questioned Clarke about this apparent discrepancy and several others. The alleged discrepancies came from a press background briefing given in August 2002 following a Time magazine article which said the Bush administration sat on the Clinton plan.
Clarke was asked to highlight the positives of what the Bush team did on terrorism. The bottom line is that he did what he was told and “spun” the facts as only the Bush Whitehouse can do. He made a number of statements that while technically true, left out context and dates. See a “plan” wasn’t passed from Clinton to Bush because it was a “strategy”. He points out a number of new initiatives which were implemented by Bush. He failed to note that the “new” initiatives had been sitting around for months waiting to be presented to the Principles meeting. They were implemented after 9-11.
So basically, he was doing what he was told to do by the Bush team and he did it well. Clarke says that he has done the same for other presidents.
Yes, he lied in 2002, because his boss, the president, told him to spin the issue to the press. And he has ADMITTED as much. How does this “ruin” his credibility? If Bush were to admit that he allowed the “yellowcake” reference to remain in his State of the Union address when it was already known to be bogus, I would find him more credible, not less. Sometimes credibility is about admitting past deceptions.
You have to ask yourself which is more likely:
Clarke knew that Bush had sidelined the al Qaeda issue, but spun the issue to the press in 2002 because he was loyal to the administration, was asked to do so, and it was his job to do so… or
Clarke was completely satisfied with the Bush administration’s response to the al Qaeda threat, but suddenly decided to toss 30 years of service in the toilet, leak an entirely fabricated story to Time Magazine with intricate details about how he had formulated an al Qaeda plan (complete with fake memos and corroboration from other Clinton and Bush officials), solely because he planned to resign a couple years later, write a book of outright lies, and make a bundle of money.
That’s a pretty weak opinion piece. So Clarke has been more aggressive on TV than in his book. Maybe that’s because the WH attack dogs came after him before his book was even in bookstores. Maybe he got pissed off. I wouldn’t blame him.
I don’t understand you at all. We are not discussing the moral rectitude of Clarke. We are discussing his veracity. According to your own suggestion here he has changed his story somewhat in response to attacks by the Bush people, which means that anything he is saying now is less than fully reliable. But once you grant that, the door is open to question his book as well - there’s a lot of motivations out there for his to have stretched his story even then (my earlier post on the subject contains but one of many). Once a person is shown to have shaded the truth for personal reasons, you really have to take his credibility down a few notches.
Yeah, no shit. Talk about splitting hairs. The author makes an issue of the fact that in Clarke’s book, Bush spoke “testily”, but in Clarke’s interview account, Bush “pointed his finger”. Good God - why…Clarke’s story is falling apart like a house of cards; how could he fail to mention the crucial finger pointing issue in his book?:rolleyes:
The other issue is at least a little more noteworthy, although it’s hardly news. 60 Minutes already pointed it out. Clarke said his memo was returned with the words “Wrong answer”, when actually the words were “Please update and resubmit.” Yeah, Clarke didn’t remember the exact words, but the meaning is certainly similar. Hardly an Earth-shattering revelation.
I guess I don’t blame Bush-supporters for trying to smear Clarke, but they’re gonna have to do a little better than that.
It is frequently easier to ridicule things than to make sound counter-arguments, especially if you distort things as you have. The reason nuances of tone are important here is because Clarke’s story is based on them. He is not claiming, for example, that Bush told him outright that he was to find a connection between Iraq and 9/11 - he infers this from the tone of Bush’s remarks and actions on the subject. So the overall picture that Clarke tries to portray of Bush & Co. is important, and this is different in several ways - not one as you imply - from book to interview.
“Please update” literally means nothing more than to incorporate some recent information or required changes. You are making the assumption that this means “include an Iraq link”. Apparently Clarke is trying to give this impression. But this is not at all conclusive - it could mean anything. By contrast, “wrong answer” clearly means that there is some predetermined answer that Clarke was required to include. By changing the language from one to the other, Clarke is changing an ambiguous statement into a conclusively negative one. The fact that people such as yourself are already inclined to believe the worst possible interpretation does not excuse the lack of veracity.
How do you know that the author of this article is a Bush supporter? I think your assumption is telling.
Have you an alternative interpretation to offer, Izzy? And what might that be? We have it from a number of sources, including Mr. O’Neill, that the Bushiviks were fixated on Iraq from a very early date. Unless you are suggesting a conspiracy amongst registered Republican’s to bring down the President?
We have as well Mr. Woodward’s act of journalistic fellation Bush at War, which also outlines a very early determination on Mr. Bush’s part to hold Saddam responsible for something…if not 9/11, something equally heinous.
Now, if Mr. Clarke didn’t tell GeeDubya that Saddam was responsible, and George Tenet didn’t say it, who did? Otherwise, we are pretty much left to believe that GeeDubya had a determination to “get” Saddam regardless of circumstances, evidence or lack thereof. Which is to say, no one told him so, he already believed it and was simply looking for confirmation. Failing to find confirmation, he went ahead and believed it anyway!
Given Mr. Clarke’s position as Counterterrorism “czar”, wouldn’t we expect that the had the most “updated” information available? And would he not have already forwarded such to his boss? If you accept this as plausible, you must be forced to the conclusion that GeeDubya wanted a different interpretation, since a request for more recent information was pretty much meaningless.
Exactly. Like WMD. Which is in fact what they said. No need to go hunting for anything else. Unless you are looking to portray Bush in a negative light. But I wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of that.
This is all assuming that Bush did in fact make a determination that Saddam was responsible. Doesn’t seem to have happened, as far as I can see. Perhaps you know otherwise. Fill us in.
Presumably he was told to conduct further analysis and to incorporate the results. I’m not sure what field you work in, but I think it is pretty common in many fields for a boss to say, upon receiving a report “have you looked into such-and-such angle? Look into it and incorporate the results into the report”. This does not necessarily imply that there was a predetermined desired answer. “Wrong answer” does. So it is a significant change.
I think Mr. Clarke is either a fool, naive, or a lying grandstander.
Mr. Clarke is correct- there were many precautions that could have been taken in order to prevent 9-11. Many of them were taken in the immediate aftermath thereof.
However, Mr. Clarke’s brilliant foresight is only matched by his absolute lack of political vision. We should have done something about Afghanistan before 9-11, certainly. But even after 9-11, people were marching in the streets chanting “No blood for oil!” and screaming that any action we took against a regime that hid and supported a group that killed 3000 Americans was really just a front for a massive oil pipeline Bush wanted to make himself rich. I can pull out the threads on that, if you’d like.
So Mr. Clarke’s contention is that President Bush failed us by not implementing his strategy. That he should have pushed this country into conflict with Afghanistan, when this country had to be dragged kicking and screaming into stopping goddamned genocide in the Balkans. That he should have implemented massive laws to restrict personal freedom that even after 9-11, the fight against is a big selling point for the Democrats. And Bush should have done all of this on spec, on Clarke’s assurance that terrorism was The Next Big Thing. I seem to recall that at the time Clarke was making this point, newspapers and this MB were all talking about China and the growing New Cold War.
Mr. Clarke was right. That doesn’t mean that it was sensible to listen to him, or to follow his plan.
I also find it amazingly hypocritical for Democrats and liberals who fight tooth and nail against what Clarke initially recommended to now take Bush to task for not having done it earlier. Not merely hypocritical- sickening. You sicken me.
Iraq and Afghanistan are different countries, Mr. Corrado, although for one remaining so “sickeningly” (your word) faithful to the party line, the repetition of the confusion spread deliberately by the administration isn’t surprising… The protests against the Iraq war were based on many things, but one was, if you’ll recall honestly, that it was a *distraction * from the campaign against Al Qaeda, not part of it. Another was that it would make the terrorism problem worse by radicalizing locals. Another was that the true motivations for the Iraq war appeared to be more oil-related.
You also object that “we should have done something” about Afghanistan. “We” most certainly did, even if it wasn’t enough, except that it was simply dismissed as “wagging the dog” by those of you who were too fascinated by blowjobs.
You observe next
But, while pointing out in effect that Clarke was right, you *object * to his complaining about not being taken seriously? Are you high? Terrorism is indeed The Next Big Thing. Those who failed to take him seriously about all of what you say were wrong. Those of you who still, puppyishly, support them are wrong. Now get over it.
Thanks for the opportunity to fight your ignorance on that point. It’s why we’re here. Or is it simple dishonesty? You’re “sickened”, you whine? Look in the fucking mirror. A lot of good people are dead in large part because of people like you, yet you live on to keep bitching about the truth.
Meanwhile, back to the OP, President Bush tells us yet again that, as a bear, he shits in the woods:
Bush Defends His Actions in War on Terror
Richard Clarke also shits in the woods. John Kerry’s turds are as woodsy as the president’s, hell, anyone in the US government would have used every resource, every asset, every power at their command to thwart the attacks of 9/11. What’s the point of repeating that over and over again if not to direct discussion away from what actually went wrong prior to 9/11?
Unwillingness to learn from one’s mistakes is a sign of weak leadership.
There is nothing here to argue against - only absurd hair-splitting, as I said.
NONE of the “several ways” indicated in that article are significant. If you have an important point you want to make - then MAKE it. Don’t just attack me.
I’m not sure what you’re looking for. Clarke is saying that Bush stonewalled him. Do you want him to produce a memo from Bush saying “Dear Dick Clarke, I am stonewalling you on al Qaeda - signed George W. Bush.”? Now, if Clarke’s entire case hinged on the exact wording on that one memo that was returned to him, then you’d have a good point. But it simply doesn’t hinge on that. Nor does it hinge on whether Bush pointed his finger or not. If you’re making the case that Clarke is some sort of pathological liar, and he invented this thing out of whole cloth, you really are going to need more than some little nitpicky details.
And of course, if it’s all a lie, then Paul O’Neill is in on the lie also. Exactly HOW MANY ex-White House insiders saying that Bush put al Qaeda on the back burner in favor of Iraq would it take before you might consider that it’s true?
IF Clarke were basing his whole experience as Bush’s advisor on the wording of that one note, you would have a point. But you are making a mountain out of a molehill. Clarke paraphrased it as “wrong answer”, when it actually said “update and resubmit”. “Update and resubmit” sounds exactly like the kind of double-speak that the Bush Administration loves to use, e.g. “We said ‘grave and gathering’, not ‘imminent’” Was the note a way to subtly tell Clark to change his answer? Clark says yes; the White House says no. Maybe Clark just misremembered it; are you honestly contending that that invalidates his ENTIRE BOOK? Give me a break.
The assumption is yours. I did not say the author was a Bush supporter. I meant that Bush-supporters (such as yourself) are pointing to that article as supposed evidence that completely discredits Clarke, which is utter nonsense.
So, I ask, what? What sign do you see that Bush gives a shit about anti-war protestors?
Yes, there were people protesting the war in Afghanistan. There will always be people protesting every single possible military action taken. And while they shouldn’t be ignored, their views should be considered in proportion to their numbers.
I know that locally we had a good two dozen people protesting the war in Afghanistan. That doesn’t hold a candle to the multiple downtown-filling protests of the war in Iraq.
But even if pre-9/11 Bush were terrified that oh gosh, a war might be PROTESTED, that still doesn’t excuse him. Was the only option that Clarke had on tap “Invade Afghanistan?”
I think not. Why, then, do you focus on arguably the most extreme of the suggested actions to crack down on terrorism?
Well, gee, and you’re a poopyhead. Is that how we play this? Or do we discuss issues instead?
Oh, please! The protests of the attack on Afghanistan were a smattering at best. I remember news clips showing 20 or 30 people standing around holding signs. There will always be somebody who will protest; I have no doubt there were even protesters to the U.S.'s entry into WWII after Pearl Harbor. No, the world was pretty much behind Bush at that point; it took a lot more work for Bush to alienate the whole planet.
Actually, Clarke’s plan was NOT an outright invasion of Afghanistan, it was to systematically roll-back al Qaeda cells. Bush was the one who wanted it to be a more outright war, but even then, he only gave lip-service to the idea and did absolutely nothing to put it into effect.
Yes, that splash of ad-hominem sauce tops off your bullshit salad quite nicely.
