Which Richard Clarke is lying?
Clarke then . . .
Excerpts from the August 2002 press briefing by Richard A. Clarke:
<font size=4>
RICHARD CLARKE: There was no plan on al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration ... In January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. [They] decided to ... vigorously pursue the existing policy [and] ... initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years.
In their first meeting [the principles] changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding [for covert action against al Qaeda] five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance. [They] then changed the strategy from one of rollback with al Qaeda ... to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda.
QUESTION: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002] Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against ... the foreign policy?
CLARKE: I think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with [the] terrorism issue ... There was never a plan [in the Clinton administration].
QUESTION: What was the problem? Why was it so difficult for the Clinton administration to make decisions on those issues?
CLARKE: Because they were tough issues. One of the big problems was that Pakistan at the time was aiding the other side, was aiding the Taliban. In the spring [of 2001], the Bush administration ... began to change Pakistani policy. We began to offer carrots, which made it possible for the Pakistanis ... [to] join us and to break away from the Taliban. So that's really how it started.
QUESTION: Had the Clinton administration ... prepared for a call for the use of ground forces, special operations forces in any way?
CLARKE: There was never a plan in the Clinton administration to use ground forces. The military was asked at a couple of points ... to think about it. And they always came back and said it was not a good idea. There was never a plan to do that.
QUESTION: You're saying ... there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office?
CLARKE: You got it ...The other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the rollback strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the [policy] from one of rollback to one of elimination.
<font size=3>
washingtontimes.com.
<font size=4>
. . . and Clarke now
Excerpts from Mr. Clarke's testimony on Wednesday:
RICHARD CLARKE: My view was that this administration, while it listened to me, either didn't believe me that there was an urgent problem or was unprepared to act as though there were an urgent problem.
SLADE GORTON: In August of 1998, did you recommend a longer-lasting military response, or just precisely the one that, in fact, took place?
MR. CLARKE: I recommended a series of rolling attacks against the infrastructure in Afghanistan. Every time they would rebuild it, I would propose that we blow it up again.
MR. GORTON: And the goal of that plan was to roll back al Qaeda over a period of three to five years, reducing it eventually to a rump group, like other terrorist organizations around the world?
MR. CLARKE: Our goal was to do that to eliminate it as a threat to the United States ... The CIA said if they got all the resources they needed, that might be possible over the course of three years at the earliest.
MR. CLARKE Had we a more robust intelligence capability in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we might have recognized the existence of al Qaeda relatively soon after it came into existence. And if we had a proactive intelligence covert action program ... then we might have been able to nip it in the bud.
JAMES R. THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, as we sit here this
afternoon, we have your book and we have your press
briefing of August 2002. Which is true?
MR. CLARKE: Time magazine ... implied that the Bush
administration hadn't worked on that plan ... I was asked
by several people in senior levels of the Bush White House
to do a press backgrounder to try to explain that set of
facts in a way that minimized criticism of the
administration.
MR. THOMPSON: Well, let's take a look, then, at your press
briefing, because I don't want to engage in semantic
games ... Are you saying to me that you were asked to make
an untrue case to the press and the public and that you
went ahead and did it?
MR. CLARKE: No, sir.
MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, in this background briefing ...
for the press in August of 2002, you intended to mislead
the press, did you not?
MR. CLARKE: No ... No one in the Bush White House asked me
to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have
said them.
MR. THOMPSON: But what it suggests to me is that there is
one standard -- one standard of candor and morality for
White House special assistants and another standard of
candor and morality for the rest of America. I don't get
that.
<font size=5>
MR. CLARKE: I don't think it's a question of morality at
all. I think it's a question of politics.
<font size=3>
washingtontimes.com. |
