Good rebuttal of the "60 minutes" interview by "Ranting Profs."
RICHARD CLARKE: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
By Cori Dauber
Well, that Richard Clarke story left me with more questions than answers. It certainly was incendiary, and if the point was to make it look as if the President and his team was virtually negligent on the issue of terrorism, almost brought September 11th on, then Clarke, with 60 Minutes collusion, succeeded.
But so much of what he said just didn't quite jive with what's already in the public record. For example, he complains that he asked for a Cabinet level meeting within days of the Inaugural and didn't get it until September 4th. But we know that it was between the 4th and the 10th that a complete plan for dealing with al Queda was finalized for the President's signature. So it may be that he wasn't given a meeting -- but clearly somebody was having meetings on the question of terrorism.
He says that the FBI knew that two members of the hijacking teams were in the country in July. It may be that the CIA knew in July, but they didn't tell the FBI until two weeks before the attack, which set off a frantic search. That's been one of the key indictments of the way the two agencies worked (or didn't, as the case may be) together prior to September 11th.
Most bizarrely (and this brings me to the elephant in the room, which I'll explain in a bit) he asserts that intelligence "chatter" prior to New Year's, 1999 put the Clinton team on "battle stations," which is how the plot to bomb LAX was broken. That is patently absurd. It was the combination of a very alert, very good Border Patrol Agent on the Canadian border and a very nervous, very incompetent would-be terrorist. When she didn't like his looks, his nervousness, his general demeanour and started questioning him aggressively he broke and ran for it. And that point they grabbed him, searched his car and found the explosives in it.
The elephant in the room? Dick Clarke was Clinton's "terrorism czar." He goes on and on and on about how he warned the Bushies that al Queda was an urgent threat, but they didn't do enough. Why doesn't Leslie Stahl, if she's such a tough, good interviewer, ever ask him what he thinks about the Clinton team's record? Why was the cancer of al Queda allowed to grow under Clarke's watch? Now, you could say, and not unreasonably, that Bush's performance is relevant, urgently so, while Clinton's isn't, because Clinton isn't running for anything. True. Except that Clinton's record on terrorism is essentially Dick Clarke's record on terrorism. And his credibility on this question is partly his expertise and partly this notion that he was a voice crying in the wilderness.
If his charges against this President are to be taken as credible, and not partisan, then we need to know where that voice was for the previous eight years.
Too bad CBS couldn't see past the sizzle of a provocative interview to help us out with that information. They make a pass at it by asking him straight up whether he's shilling for Kerry, since he's apparently teaching with one of Kerry's foreign policy advisors. But I think my question gets at the issue in a more useful way then simply asking the man, "hey, are you doing this because you're a hack?"
He's obviously filled with rage. Is it rage because the issue was ignored? Or because he was shut out of the loop as the plan for dealing with al Queda moved forward?
I'll tell you after I've read the book. But this one sided interview, designed to be as incendiary as possible, not to get at the truth, doesn't answer any questions, it raises them. |
