To: steve harris who wrote (232935 ) 5/15/2005 6:25:44 PM From: tejek Respond to Richard Clarke was one of your poster childs for 9/11 hate against Bush. Now he's not credible? Try quality posts instead of quantity ted, they won't come back to discredit you.... "Recently, however, Richard Clarke, the former head of anti-terrorism at the National Security Council, gave some answers while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on terrorism. "I do recall the State Department coming to us that week [after September 11]," Clarke testified,Now, what I recall is that I asked for flight manifests of everyone on board and all of those names need to be directly and individually vetted by the FBI before they were allowed to leave the country. And I also wanted the FBI to sign off even on the concept of Saudis being allowed to leave the country. And as I recall, all of that was done. It is true that members of the bin Laden family were among those who left. We knew that at the time. I can't say much more in open session, but it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House." "What Clarke could not testify to was the thoroughness with which the FBI questioned the departing Saudis. Last year, National Review reported that the FBI conducted brief, day-of-departure interviews with the Saudis -- in the words of an FBI spokesman, "at the airport, as they were about to leave." Experts interviewed by National Review called the FBI's actions "highly unusual" given the fact that those departing were actually members of Osama bin Laden's family. "They [the FBI] could not have done a thorough and complete interview," said John L. Martin, the former head of internal security at the Justice Department." findarticles.com
