US envoy says Clarke terror claims are false

[hedgetrimmer]

~SNIP~

By Katherine Butler
25 March 2004


The Bush administration has moved to discredit claims by the former counter-terrorism aide Richard Clarke that the President ignored warnings about the threat posed by al-Qa'ida prior to 11 September 2001.

Writing today in The Independent, William Farish, the US ambassador in London, rejects the allegations. "Clarke's interviews may lead one to conclude his advice was ignored. This is simply untrue," he says. In fact, the ambassador claims, Mr Clarke requested to brief the President only once, in June 2001, "And then he asked to brief the President not on al-Qa'ida, but cyber-security."

President Bush was aware from the outset of the threat posed by al-Qa'ida, Mr Farish says. Immediately after taking office, the administration's national security team started to develop a strategy "to destroy" the network. Mr Clarke, by contrast, claims the ambassador, advocated no action to address al-Qa'ida's presence within the United States. Mr Farish adds that it would have been "irresponsible" not to consider the possibility of Iraqi involvement in the 11 September attacks.

... no more, sorry mods thats the article ...

link: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=504798

[BigBigBear]

1. If I "started to develop a strategy"

at the office to do actual work, I'd be fired.

I'm still waiting for these gutless clowns to name one thing they actually did to a) respond to the threat as described by Clarke and Berger or b)respond to the warnings that flooded in during the spring and summer.

They are turning this into a "he did, he did not, he did, he did not" game.

Someone prove Clarke wrong by showing us security warnings, FISA requests, surveillence, analysis of foreign warnings - anything they actually did. One f-ing thing.

Or...shut up and take your damn medicine.

[daleo]

2. Perhaps he should testify, under oath

Like Clarke did.

[bpilgrim]

3. this is gonna be a HUGE problem for blair

not to mention * :evilgrin:

peace

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Farish. You all know where he's coming from, right?

The Farish-Bush connection goes waaaay back. Old, old Bush family friend:


When George Bush was elected vice president in 1980, Texas mystery man William Stamps Farish III took over management of all of George Bush's personal wealth in a "blind trust." Known as one of the richest men in Texas, Will Farish keeps his business affairs under the most intense secrecy. Only the source of his immense wealth is known, not its employment.

...

President Bush can count on Farish not to betray the violent secrets surrounding the Bush family money. For Farish's own family fortune was made in the same Hitler project, in a nightmarish partnership with George Bush's father.

On March 25, 1942, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold announced that William Stamps Farish (grandfather of the President'smoney manager) had pleaded "no contest" to charges of criminal conspiracy with the Nazis. Farish was the principal manager of a worldwide cartel between STANDARD OIL CO. of NEW JERSEY and the I.G. FARBEN concern. The merged enterprise HAD OPENED the Auschwitz slave labor camp on June 14, 1940, to produce artificial rubber and gasoline from coal. The Hitler government supplied political opponents and Jews as the slaves, who were worked to near death and then murdered.

...

The Bush-Farish axis started George Bush's career. After his 1948 graduation from Yale (and the Skull and Bones secret society), George Bush flew down to Texas on a corporate jet and was employed by his father's DRESSER INDUSTRIES. In a couple of years he got help from his uncle, George Walker, Jr., and Farish's British banker friends, to set him up in the oil property speculation business. Soon thereafter, George Bush founded the ZAPATA Oil Company, which put oil drilling rigs into certain locations of great strategic interest to the Anglo-American intelligence community. <"Zapata" was allegedly a code word used by these same mega-bankers describing the first Communist Revolution which they had financially backed -- as they had done with the Nazi's themselves. - Wol.>

Twenty-five-year-old Will Farish was personal aide to Zapata chairman George Bush in Bush's unsuccessful 1964 campaign for Senate. Farish used "that Auschwitz money" to back George Bush financially, investing in Zapata. When Bush was elected to Congress in 1966, Farish joined the Zapata board.

http://www.beyondweird.com/ufos/Bruce_Walton_The_Underground_Nazi_Invasion_12.html

[sandnsea]

8. No I didn't

But now I do. Thanks. These people are beyond evil.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

10. Bingo...

... I was going to dig that same info up, but you beat me to it! Self serving jerks.

[Judi Lynn]

16. The more you learn about these guys, the worse they sound.

People used to point fingers at the father of John F. Kennedy, remember?

Oh, he was a real fiend, selling liquor during Prohibition! Oh, yeah: an arch-villain.

I'd like to hear what the same people have to say about these right-wing fascist opportunists.

[legin]

17. an interesting bit

"Will Farish has long been Bush's closest friend and confidante. He is
also the unique private host to Britain's Queen Elizabeth: Farish owns
and boards the studs which mate with the Queen's mares. That is her
public rationale when she comes to America and stays in Farish's
house. It is a vital link in the mind of our Anglophile President."

I've been told that all the Queen really cares about is her horses, and not a lot else.

[DulceDecorum]

5. Don't believe these self-serving allegations against Mr Bush's policies

After the 11 September attacks, the President sought to determine who was responsible. Given Iraq's past record of terror, including an attempt by Iraqi intelligence to kill a former US President, it would have been irresponsible not to consider this possibility. However, when the Director of Central Intelligence told the President that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attack, the President advised his principal national security advisors on 17 September that Iraq was not on the agenda, and that the initial US response to 11 September would be to target al-Qa'ida and its parasitic host, the Taliban, in Afghanistan.

Given these facts, and all that has been written on the subject, can anyone give credence to the suggestion that President Bush didn't take seriously the threat of terrorism?

Groucho Marx was once quoted as saying, "Who are you going to believe? Me or your own eyes?" A glance at President Bush's statements, and his actions, clearly demonstrates that he has given more attention to the threat of terrorism - and done more to defeat it - than any other president. One may like and support President Bush's policies, or take issue with them - but the President's record on terrorism is clear and convincing.
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=504757

[daleo]

6. Why did he quit Afghanistan before the job was done?

Why invade Iraq when he knew they had nothing to do with it, and OBL was still at large?

Why read "The Pet Goat" while the attack was on?
Why take a month off (August) when there were all kinds of warnings being made by intelligence agencies, in the U.S. and around the world?
Why were planes scrambled so late?

And so on.

[leesa]

20. Finish what job? Were there still some Afghans who had nothing to do with

9-11 still alive? You would think they would all have the decency to die when we want some sort of revenge. Why were we bombing Afghanistan?

[Diogenes2]

7. What nonsense!

The entire statement you quote begins "After September 11..." We're talking about BEFORE September 11, Doofus! Bush has done more than ANYONE ELSE to defeat terrorism? This is the purest bullshit.

[0007]

14. According to the terror expert, Richard Clarke, Bill Clinton

[Media_Lies_Daily]

9. Holy cow...

...you're joking, right?

"One may like and support President Bush's policies, or take issue with them - but the President's record on terrorism is clear and convincing."

Clear and convincing in what way?

[Tom Kitten]

11. the President's record on terrorism is clear and convincing

what again is President Bush's policy on terrorism? "Oh yeah we're against it...Terror terror terror! Be afraid! Be very afraid as we launch an unprecedented aggressive war against a country that had little to do with the war on terror and now they do have terror attacks there but it was part of our flypaper strategy, eh? (Nod nod, wink wink)" Clear perhaps but not at all convincing...Get a clue...the terrorists who bombed Madrid, and Istanbul, and Bali, etc....they're not in Iraq but are still out there...Like Nixon bombing Cambodia, we've just succeeded in opening a new front for even more misery than existed before...And meanwhile how have our efforts in Iraq done anything to help the war against terror?

[xchrom]

15. as convincing as the bombings

in spain, bali, saudi arabia, etc.
the failure of bushco's attempt to deal with terrorism is self evident.
but perhaps another wtc is what it takes to convince you.
and what is the one solid action they took to warn, pre-empt or anything else you'd care to think of that might have prevented or even cut the loss of life prior to 9-11?
bushco is CONVICTED by their own lack of action and the actions they have taken.

[radfringe]

12. funny about discrediting critics

O'Neill, Clarke, Wilson and others are being portrayed as "disgruntled"

Journalists and columnists writing books/articles that are critical of bush* are just "partisan"

and the rest of us that have issues about bush* are just plain "unpatriotic"

[Guaranteed]

13. This is total garbage. Look:

It's kind of long, but, read this whole thing. Directly from the transcript:

ROEMER: OK. With my 15 minutes, let's move into the Bush administration.

On January 25th, we've seen a memo that you've written to Dr. Rice urgently asking for a principals' review of al Qaeda. You include helping the Northern Alliance, covert aid, significant new '02 budget authority to help fight al Qaeda and a response to the USS Cole. You attach to this document both the Delenda Plan of 1998 and a strategy paper from December 2000.

Do you get a response to this urgent request for a principals meeting on these? And how does this affect your time frame for dealing with these important issues?

CLARKE: I did get a response, and the response was that in the Bush administration I should, and my committee, counterterrorism security group, should report to the deputies committee, which is a sub-Cabinet level committee, and not to the principals and that, therefore, it was inappropriate for me to be asking for a principals' meeting. Instead, there would be a deputies meeting.

ROEMER: So does this slow the process down to go to the deputies rather than to the principals or a small group as you had previously done?

CLARKE: It slowed it down enormously, by months. First of all, the deputies committee didn't meet urgently in January or February.

Then when the deputies committee did meet, it took the issue of al Qaeda as part of a cluster of policy issues, including nuclear proliferation in South Asia, democratization in Pakistan, how to treat the various problems, including narcotics and other problems in Afghanistan, and launched on a series of deputies meetings extending over several months to address al Qaeda in the context of all of those inter-related issues.

ROEMER: So as the Bush administration is carefully considering from bottom up a full review of fighting terrorism, what happens to these individual items like a response to the USS Cole, flying the Predator? Why aren't these decided in a shorter time frame as they're also going through a larger policy review of how this policy affects Pakistan and other countries -- important considerations, but why can't you do both?

CLARKE: The deputies committee, its chairman, Mr. Hadley, and others thought that all these issues were sufficiently inter-related, that they should be taken up as a set of issues, and pieces of them should not be broken off.

ROEMER: Did you agree with that?

CLARKE: No, I didn't agree with much of that.

ROEMER: Were you frustrated by this process?

CLARKE: I was sufficiently frustrated that I asked to be reassigned.

ROEMER: When was this?

CLARKE: Probably May or June. Certainly no later than June.

And there was agreement in that time frame, in the May or June time frame, that my request would be honored and I would be reassigned on the 1st of October to a new position to deal with cybersecurity, a position that I requested be created.

ROEMER: So you're saying that the frustration got to a high enough level that it wasn't your portfolio, it wasn't doing a lot of things at the same time, it was that you weren't getting fast enough action on what you were requesting?

CLARKE: That's right.

My view was that this administration, while it listened to me, didn't either believe me that there was an urgent problem or was unprepared to act as though there were an urgent problem.

And I thought, if the administration doesn't believe its national coordinator for counterterrorism when he says there's an urgent problem and if it's unprepared to act as though there's an urgent problem, then probably I should get another job.

I thought cybersecurity was and I still think cyber security is an extraordinary important issue for which this country is very underprepared. And I thought perhaps I could make a contribution if I worked full time on that issue.

ROEMER: You then wrote a memo on September 4th to Dr. Rice expressing some of these frustrations several months later, if you say the time frame is May or June when you decided to resign. A memo comes out that we have seen on September the 4th. You are blunt in blasting DOD for not willingly using the force and the power. You blast the CIA for blocking Predator. You urge policy-makers to imagine a day after hundreds of Americans lay dead at home or abroad after a terrorist attack and ask themselves what else they could have done. You write this on September the 4th, seven days before September 11th.

CLARKE: That's right.

ROEMER: What else could have been done, Mr. Clarke?

CLARKE: Well, all of the things that we recommended in the plan or strategy -- there's a lot of debate about whether it's a plan or a strategy or a series of options.

ROEMER: Well, let's say, Mr. Clarke -- I think this is a fair question -- let's say that you asked to brief the president of the United States on counterterrorism.

CLARKE: Yes.

ROEMER: Did you ask that?

CLARKE: I asked for a series of briefings on the issues in my portfolio, including counterterrorism and cybersecurity.

ROEMER: Did you get that request?

CLARKE: I did. I was given an opportunity to brief on cybersecurity in June. I was told I could brief the president on terrorism after this policy development process was complete and we had the principals meeting and the draft national security policy decision that had been approved by the deputies committee.


------------------------------------------

Clarke told them MORE than once that terror was a very serious threat to the US, and while he asked to brief the president on counterterrorism they didn't give him the opportunity for THAT, but for cybersecurity.

[htuttle]

18. Huh. I guess they can't haul James Baker out like they usually do...

...Since he's currently representing the Saudi royal family against the 9/11 families in a reparations lawsuit.

[74dodgedart]

19. The most important thing that Clarke is saying is that Iraq had nothing to

do with the WOT.... IMHO

[Moderator]

21. locking

in the attempt to consolidate this stuff. discuss here -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=442628