Clarke's PBS Interview Shows Bush Focused on Terrorism
By Jeff Gannon
March 25, 2004
Former national counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke testified before the 9/11 commission Wednesday to repeat claims made in his book "Against All Enemies." He began his remarks with an apology to families of 9/11 victims saying, "Your government failed you."
Clarke stated that terrorism was "an important issue but not an urgent issue" for the Bush administration before the attacks in New York and Washington, DC but that "fighting terrorism in general and fighting al Qaeda, in particular, was an extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton administration. Certainly, there was no higher priority."
Clarke expressed frustration with the Bush administration's approach to terrorism.
"My view was that this administration didn't listen to me -- either didn't believe me that there was an urgent problem or was unprepared to act as if there was an urgent problem," Clarke said.
But both his testimony and the content of his book are contradicted by statements he made in a background briefing he gave to reporters in 2002.
When confronted about the discrepancies, Clarke said, "When you're on the staff of the president of the United States, you try to make his policies look as good as possible."
Clarke added, "I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done and minimize the negative aspects of what the administration had done."
John Lehman, former Navy secretary under President Reagan, told Clarke that he had a "real credibility problem," and called the witness "an active partisan selling a book."
The White House has been battling Clarke since he appeared on the CBS newsmagazine program "60 Minutes."
National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice said, "He needs to get his story straight."
Presidential Press Secretary Scott McClellan reviewed a transcript of Clarke's 2002 statements during the daily briefing.
McClellan noted that Clarke had said, "Immediately upon coming into office, this President directed the administration to provide -- or to pursue a comprehensive strategy to eliminate al Qaeda, not roll it back. And that process began very early on."
McClellan pointed out that on Tuesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to one part of the policy, which was active engagement with Pakistan.
It was demonstrated by a February 16, 2001 letter from President Bush to President Musharraf that said, "We should work together to address Afghanistan's many problems. The most pressing of these is terrorism, and it inhibits progress on all other issues. The continued presence of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization is a direct threat to the United States and its interests that must be addressed."
Talon News has discovered a transcript of an interview Clarke gave to PBS in March of 2002 during which he said, "Shortly after the Bush administration came into office, we were asked to think about how we organized the White House for a number of issues, including cybersecurity, computer security, homeland security, and counterterrorism."
This statement supports the Bush administration's assertion that it was developing a comprehensive plan to deal with a variety of threats.
A reporter suggested that Clarke's "demotion" reflected a lower level of attention and concern about terrorism than the previous administration.
McClellan refuted that statement when he said, "I think he made a suggestion that maybe it had Cabinet rank, and that wasn't the case. That was clearly not the case."
Clarke said in the same PBS interview, "I was asked for my advice, and I proposed that the counterterrorism responsibility be broken off to be a separate job. ... I wanted to start working on cybersecurity, which I think is terribly important. That was later approved by the President."
The Press Secretary listed several points where Clarke's previous statements contradict his most recent assertions.
In 2002 Clarke said, "There was no plan on al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration."
At the time, Clarke also disputed that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998, noting that "many issues remained on the table."
Clarke also said, "The Bush administration decided mid January -- to do two things, one, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings."
He added, "The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided. So point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, decided in principle in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy, and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action fivefold to go after al Qaeda."
McClellan declared, "Dick Clarke, in his own words, provides a point-by-point rebuttal of what he now asserts. This shatters the cornerstone of Mr. Clarke's assertions."
"This goes directly to Mr. Clarke's credibility. And I think he has some questions to answer," McClellan said. "You cannot square Dick Clarke's new assertions with his past words. That's very clear."
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