Former "Terrorism Czar" speaks out against Bush

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Source: CBS NEWS OMG WTF BIAS

 

In the article, Richard Clarke, former chief of terrorism for Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II until he resigned two years ago, asserts (among other things) that his requests to focus on al Queda and bin Laden before 9/11 were ignored in favor of action against "Iraqi terrorism against the United States". Given that Clarke resigned (i.e. he wasn't fired) and has been a public servant for 30 years, this could spell much more trouble than the Paul O'Neill accusations (which were effectively dismissed as sour grapes). Considering Bush is running on National Security, this could be a serious dent in Bush's re-election campaign.

 

But hey, that might just be me. After all, I'm an EVIL LIBERAL PARTISAN LOL WHO WANTS TO BRING DOWN DA BUSH!

 

So, thoughts?

[Guest thebigjig]

Source: CBS NEWS OMG WTF BIAS

 

In the article, Richard Clarke, former chief of terrorism for Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II until he resigned two years ago, asserts (among other things) that his requests to focus on al Queda and bin Laden before 9/11 were ignored in favor of action against "Iraqi terrorism against the United States". Given that Clarke resigned (i.e. he wasn't fired) and has been a public servant for 30 years, this could spell much more trouble than the Paul O'Neill accusations (which were effectively dismissed as sour grapes). Considering Bush is running on National Security, this could be a serious dent in Bush's re-election campaign.

 

But hey, that might just be me. After all, I'm an EVIL LIBERAL PARTISAN LOL WHO WANTS TO BRING DOWN DA BUSH!

 

So, thoughts?

Oh what does he know! He ONLY served with four presidents... and is an expert in his field! I say it's bullshit!

 

 

hippy liberal scum...

 

 

Of course, color me NOT shocked... this is old news to me

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

It's old news for everyone who read the Franken book as well.

[Guest thebigjig]

It's old news for everyone who read the Franken book as well.

lol I mark... for Operation: Ignore

[NoCalMike 0]

Yeah what does this obvious DISGRUNTULED, ANGRY, BACKSTABBING, VENGENCE SEEKING, LIBERAL, PINKO, COMMIE, DIAPER DOPER BABY know about this subject, He is SOOOOOOO FULL OF SHIT. I am so not impressed. Bush/Cheney '04, it's the war on terrorism, stupid!

[Art Sandusky 0]

Man, the partisanship in here has reached the level of self-parody on both sides. Kinda funny, actually.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

He also blamed Clinton, so I don't see what your point is. Face it, EVERYBODY screwed up in the years before 9/11.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

He also blamed Clinton, so I don't see what your point is.  Face it, EVERYBODY screwed up in the years before 9/11.

Where? Hell, he PRAISED Clinton for going to "battle stations" when similar chatter was picked up in '99.

Edited March 21, 2004 by Tyler McClelland

[Guest thebigjig]

He also blamed Clinton, so I don't see what your point is. Face it, EVERYBODY screwed up in the years before 9/11.

Yes, but Clinton is not the president at the moment... he cannot be held accountable. And the point is that Bush is RUNNING on this issue making it his sole issue... he cant run on anything else, and when his record is in question, it must be pointed out

[Guest Jimbo]

Who's watching 60 Minutes right now?

 

the bit where Clark recalled how Rumsfeld had immediatly said "let's bomb Iraq", and Clark said that Osama wa sin Afghanistan, to which Rumsfeld repsonded "There's not enough good targets there, let's bomb Iraq, there's more there" was so mind-numblingly stupid. I first thought that was ridiculously funny, but now I want to cry. Dear God that's fucked up.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Hadley was hurting at the point where she told him that two independant sources, one witness, confirmed the Bush-Clark meeting. Hadley stumbled all over his words and said "Well, I stand by my position."

 

This could be very bad for Bush.

[Guest thebigjig]

let us pray...

[NoCalMike 0]

It is all unraveling. Hopefully americans will fire the liar in november.

[NoCalMike 0]

Hadley was hurting at the point where she told him that two independant sources, one witness, confirmed the Bush-Clark meeting. Hadley stumbled all over his words and said "Well, I stand by my position."

 

This could be very bad for Bush.

it really depends. I mean it took a lot of lying, misleading, and media manipulation to get americans behind the Iraq war in the first place, so it may take just as much uncovering of the truth to bring people back.

[BX 0]

This is so very strange.

 

Over a dozen responses, and not of them from the usual suspects. I'd think they'd be all over the chance to pretend this is irrelevant bullshit.

 

So very strange indeed.

[Vern Gagne 0]

It's old news for everyone who read the Franken book as well.

Yes, because Clinton did such a wonderful job fighting the war on terror.

[Guest MikeSC]

This is so very strange.

 

Over a dozen responses, and not of them from the usual suspects. I'd think they'd be all over the chance to pretend this is irrelevant bullshit.

 

So very strange indeed.

Well, there is this:

Richard Clarke's Legacy of Miscalculation

The outgoing cybersecurity czar will be remembered for his steadfast belief in the danger of Internet attacks, even while genuine threats developed elsewhere.

By George Smith Feb 17 2003 01:38AM PT 

 

The retirement of Richard Clarke is appropriate to the reality of the war on terror. Years ago, Clarke bet his national security career on the idea that electronic war was going to be real war. He lost, because as al Qaeda and Iraq have shown, real action is still of the blood and guts kind.

 

In happier times prior to 9/11, Clarke -- as Bill Clinton's counter-terror point man in the National Security Council -- devoted great effort to convincing national movers and shakers that cyberattack was the coming thing. While ostensibly involved in preparations for bioterrorism and trying to sound alarms about Osama bin Laden, Clarke was most often seen in the news predicting ways in which electronic attacks were going to change everything and rewrite the calculus of conflict.

 

September 11 spoiled the fun, though, and electronic attack was shoved onto the back-burner in favor of special operations men calling in B-52 precision air strikes on Taliban losers. One-hundred fifty-thousand U.S. soldiers on station outside Iraq make it perfectly clear that cyberspace is only a trivial distraction.

 

Saddam will not be brought down by people stealing his e-mail or his generals being spammed with exhortations to surrender.

 

Clarke's career in subsequent presidential administrations was a barometer of the recession of the belief that cyberspace would be a front effector in national security affairs. After being part of the NSC, Clarke was dismissed to Special Advisor for Cyberspace Security on October 9th in a ceremony led by National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and new homeland security guru Tom Ridge. If it was an advance, it was one to the rear -- a pure demotion.

Saddam will not be brought down by people stealing his e-mail or his generals being spammed with exhortations to surrender.

Instead of combating terrorists, Clarke would be left to wrestle with corporate America over computer security, a match he would lose by pinfall. Ridding the world of bad guys and ensuring homeland safety was a job for CIA wet affairsmen, the FBI, the heavy bomb wing out of Whiteman Air Force Base -- anyone but marshals in cyberspace.

 

Information "Sharing" and Cruise Missiles

The Slammer virus gave Clarke one last mild hurrah with the media. But nationally, Slammer was a minor inconvenience compared to relentless cold weather in the east and the call up of the reserves.

 

But with his retirement, Clarke's career accomplishments should be noted.

 

In 1986, as a State Department bureaucrat with pull, he came up with a plan to battle terrorism and subvert Muammar Qaddafi by having SR-71s produce sonic booms over Libya. This was to be accompanied by rafts washing onto the sands of Tripoli, the aim of which was to create the illusion of a coming attack. When this nonsense was revealed, it created embarrassment for the Reagan administration and was buried.

 

In 1998, according to the New Republic, Clarke "played a key role in the Clinton administration's misguided retaliation for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which targeted bin Laden's terrorist camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan." The pharmaceutical factory was, apparently, just a pharmaceutical factory, and we now know how impressed bin Laden was by cruise missiles that miss.

 

Trying his hand in cyberspace, Clarke's most lasting contribution is probably the new corporate exemption in the Freedom of Information Act. Originally designed to immunize companies against the theoretical malicious use of FOIA by competitors, journalists and other so-called miscreants interested in ferreting out cyber-vulnerabilities, it was suggested well before the war on terror as a measure that would increase corporate cooperation with Uncle Sam. Clarke labored and lobbied diligently from the NSC for this amendment to existing law, law which he frequently referred to as an "impediment" to information sharing.

 

While the exemption would inexplicably not pass during the Clinton administration, Clarke and other like-minded souls kept pushing for it. Finally, the national nervous breakdown that resulted from the collapse of the World Trade Center reframed the exemption as a grand idea, and it was embraced by legislators, who even expanded it to give a get-out-of-FOIA-free card to all of corporate America, not just those involved with the cyber-infrastructure. It passed into law as part of the legislation forming the Department of Homeland Security.

 

However, as with many allegedly bright ideas originally pushed by Richard Clarke, it came with thorns no one had anticipated.

 

In a January 17 confirmation hearing for Clarke's boss, Tom Ridge, Senator Carl Levin protested that the exemption's language needed to be clarified. "We are denying the public unclassified information in the current law which should not be denied to the public," he said as reported in the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News.

 

"That means that you could get information that, for instance, a company is leaking material into a river that you could not turn over to the EPA," Levin continued. "If that company was the source of the information, you could not even turn it over to another agency."

 

"It certainly wasn't the intent, I'm sure, of those who advocated the Freedom of Information Act exemption to give wrongdoers protection or to protect illegal activity," replied Ridge while adding he would work to remedy the problem.

 

Thanks for everything, Mr. Clarke.

 

George Smith is a Senior Fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, a defense affairs think tank and public information group. He also edits the Crypt Newsletter and has written extensively on viruses, the genesis of techno-legends and the impact of both on society. 

http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/143

-=Mike

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Oh, so that refutes the allegations.

 

Uh, okay.

[Vern Gagne 0]

Joe Lieberman is denying Donald Rumseld ever made these comments.

[NoCalMike 0]

I did see the interview during the West Coast feed of 60 minutes.

 

Wow.

 

It would seem to be pretty damaging to the president who before this interview was already having his credibility question, however I feel that this will just present another oppurtunity for people to take sides, rather then examine the facts.

[Guest MikeSC]

I did see the interview during the West Coast feed of 60 minutes.

 

Wow.

 

It would seem to be pretty damaging to the president who before this interview was already having his credibility question, however I feel that this will just present another oppurtunity for people to take sides, rather then examine the facts.

You mean like YOU did?

-=Mike

Or did you not say "It is all unraveling. Hopefully americans will fire the liar in november."

[Guest Cerebus]

I know some about Clarke but not too much, but this "stovepiping" thing that Clarke claims is a motif coming out of a number of disgruntled intel agents. That being said, however, it shouldn't shock anyone that this is coming about 6 months from the election and if yo usaw the interview remember that Stahl commented that there was rage in the book and in the interview towards Bush II. I havn't read the book, but from what I see I think it's essentially true but probably with a number of exaggerations.

[Vyce 0]

Oh, so that refutes the allegations.

 

Uh, okay.

Even several prominent Democrats are coming out to defend Bush against what are becoming apparent are several telling inaccuracies in Clark's book.

 

And then there are, of course, the reports that Clark was "disgruntled" at not being given a more prominent position within the NSA....

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I'll let you all know what I think in a few hours once Rush talks about it...

[Guest MikeSC]

Oh, so that refutes the allegations.

 

Uh, okay.

Even several prominent Democrats are coming out to defend Bush against what are becoming apparent are several telling inaccuracies in Clark's book.

 

And then there are, of course, the reports that Clark was "disgruntled" at not being given a more prominent position within the NSA....

Shh!

 

They're true, darn it. A disgruntled ex-employee SAID so!

-=Mike

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

So a disgruntled ex-employee is saying bad things about his ex-employer?

 

Next thing you know you'll tell me John Kerry served *sticks mic out to the crowd.*

 

I find it funny when a thread like this is made and nobody from the "Conservative Brigade" responds right away then posts will arise like "OMG none of the Bush faithful are responding to this -- we win..."

[Guest MikeSC]

So a disgruntled ex-employee is saying bad things about his ex-employer?

 

Next thing you know you'll tell me John Kerry served *sticks mic out to the crowd.*

 

I find it funny when a thread like this is made and nobody from the "Conservative Brigade" responds right away then posts will arise like "OMG none of the Bush faithful are responding to this -- we win..."

And when DEMOCRATS publicly question the guy, it doesn't matter since Bush is such a liar.

-=Mike

[Guest MikeSC]

BTW, somebody did respond to some of the charges:

by Condoleeza Rice

 

The al Qaeda terrorist network posed a threat to the United States for almost a decade before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Throughout that period -- during the eight years of the Clinton administration and the first eight months of the Bush administration prior to Sept. 11 -- the U.S. government worked hard to counter the al Qaeda threat.

 

During the transition, President-elect Bush's national security team was briefed on the Clinton administration's efforts to deal with al Qaeda. The seriousness of the threat was well understood by the president and his national security principals. In response to my request for a presidential initiative, the counterterrorism team, which we had held over from the Clinton administration, suggested several ideas, some of which had been around since 1998 but had not been adopted. No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration.

 

We adopted several of these ideas. We committed more funding to counterterrorism and intelligence efforts. We increased efforts to go after al Qaeda's finances. We increased American support for anti-terror activities in Uzbekistan.

 

We pushed hard to arm the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle so we could target terrorists with greater precision. But the Predator was designed to conduct surveillance, not carry weapons. Arming it presented many technical challenges and required extensive testing. Military and intelligence officials agreed that the armed Predator was simply not ready for deployment before the fall of 2001. In any case, the Predator was not a silver bullet that could have destroyed al Qaeda or stopped Sept. 11.

 

We also considered a modest spring 2001 increase in funding for the Northern Alliance. At that time, the Northern Alliance was clearly not going to sweep across Afghanistan and dispose of al Qaeda. It had been battered by defeat and held less than 10 percent of the country. Only the addition of American air power, with U.S. special forces and intelligence officers on the ground, allowed the Northern Alliance its historic military advances in late 2001. We folded this idea into our broader strategy of arming tribes throughout Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban.

 

Let us be clear. Even their most ardent advocates did not contend that these ideas, even taken together, would have destroyed al Qaeda. We judged that the collection of ideas presented to us were insufficient for the strategy President Bush sought. The president wanted more than a laundry list of ideas simply to contain al Qaeda or "roll back" the threat. Once in office, we quickly began crafting a comprehensive new strategy to "eliminate" the al Qaeda network. The president wanted more than occasional, retaliatory cruise missile strikes. He told me he was "tired of swatting flies."

 

Through the spring and summer of 2001, the national security team developed a strategy to eliminate al Qaeda -- which was expected to take years. Our strategy marshaled all elements of national power to take down the network, not just respond to individual attacks with law enforcement measures. Our plan called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, ground forces and other targets -- taking the fight to the enemy where he lived. It focused on the crucial link between al Qaeda and the Taliban. We would attempt to compel the Taliban to stop giving al Qaeda sanctuary -- and if it refused, we would have sufficient military options to remove the Taliban regime. The strategy focused on the key role of Pakistan in this effort and the need to get Pakistan to drop its support of the Taliban. This became the first major foreign-policy strategy document of the Bush administration -- not Iraq, not the ABM Treaty, but eliminating al Qaeda.

 

Before Sept. 11, we closely monitored threats to our nation. President Bush revived the practice of meeting with the director of the CIA every day -- meetings that I attended. And I personally met with George Tenet regularly and frequently reviewed aspects of the counterterror effort.

 

Through the summer increasing intelligence "chatter" focused almost exclusively on potential attacks overseas. Nonetheless, we asked for any indication of domestic threats and directed our counterterrorism team to coordinate with domestic agencies to adopt protective measures. The FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration alerted airlines, airports and local authorities, warning of potential attacks on Americans.

 

Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack airplanes to try to free U.S.-held terrorists. The FAA even issued a warning to airlines and aviation security personnel that "the potential for a terrorist operation, such as an airline hijacking to free terrorists incarcerated in the United States, remains a concern."

 

We now know that the real threat had been in the United States since at least 1999. The plot to attack New York and Washington had been hatching for nearly two years. According to the FBI, by June 2001 16 of the 19 hijackers were already here. Even if we had known exactly where Osama bin Laden was, and the armed Predator had been available to strike him, the Sept. 11 hijackers almost certainly would have carried out their plan. So, too, if the Northern Alliance had somehow managed to topple the Taliban, the Sept. 11 hijackers were here in America -- not in Afghanistan.

 

President Bush has acted swiftly to unify and streamline our efforts to secure the American homeland. He has transformed the FBI into an agency dedicated to catching terrorists and preventing future attacks. The president and Congress, through the USA Patriot Act, have broken down the legal and bureaucratic walls that prior to Sept. 11 hampered intelligence and law enforcement agencies from collecting and sharing vital threat information. Those who now argue for rolling back the Patriot Act's changes invite us to forget the important lesson we learned on Sept. 11.

 

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the president, like all Americans, wanted to know who was responsible. It would have been irresponsible not to ask a question about all possible links, including to Iraq -- a nation that had supported terrorism and had tried to kill a former president. Once advised that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11, the president told his National Security Council on Sept. 17 that Iraq was not on the agenda and that the initial U.S. response to Sept. 11 would be to target al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

 

Because of President Bush's vision and leadership, our nation is safer. We have won battles in the war on terror, but the war is far from over. However long it takes, this great nation will prevail.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Mar21.html

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

How the hell does being a "disgruntled former employee" result from someone resigning because he was so disgusted with the administration? He wasn't fired, like say, Paul O'Neill. Come up with a better defense.

 

Even several prominent Democrats are coming out to defend Bush against what are becoming apparent are several telling inaccuracies in Clark's book.

 

Source? Holy Joe doesn't count.

 

Joe Lieberman is denying Donald Rumseld ever made these comments.

 

How the hell would Holy Joe know? He's not a freaking cabinet member.

 

And then there are, of course, the reports that Clark was "disgruntled" at not being given a more prominent position within the NSA....

 

Where are these reports?

Edited March 22, 2004 by Tyler McClelland

[Guest MikeSC]

How the hell does being a "disgruntled former employee" result from someone resigning because he was so disgusted with the administration? He wasn't fired, like say, Paul O'Neill. Come up with a better defense.

 

Even several prominent Democrats are coming out to defend Bush against what are becoming apparent are several telling inaccuracies in Clark's book.

 

Source? Holy Joe doesn't count.

 

Joe Lieberman is denying Donald Rumseld ever made these comments.

 

How the hell would Holy Joe know? He's not a freaking cabinet member.

 

And then there are, of course, the reports that Clark was "disgruntled" at not being given a more prominent position within the NSA....

 

Where are these reports?

Already been posted.

 

By me, no less.

-=Mike