Assertions have been made, and denied, that Bush, Rice and others in the administration were more concerned about missile defense than terrorism.
This speech of the national security advisor's that wasn't given but was written to be given on 9/11 and is lying in a file is said to advocate missile defense as a more urgent priority than the al Qaeda threat. A good way to show that al Q was on the administrations mind to some degree, however slight, would be to release the text of the speech.
The 9/11 commission wanted Clark's papers, memoranda, emails, everything, after the WH made selective releases. Clark says fine, release them all, don't cherry pick, release everything. The WH has declined.
I can understand the feeling the WH might have that quoting one speech could be like cherry picking. But they have the right to release any other speeches or papers or transcripts showing that they weren't ignoring Clark's warnings, so the cherry picking complaint isn't persuasive to me.
I imagine that that speech had something to do with national security, don't you? Maybe we don't have a right to know what was on the national security advisor's mind before 9/11? That's a position. |
