A New Folk Hero( Richard Clarke)

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A New Folk Hero
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10149



John F. Lehman, the former secretary of the Navy, probably wishes he hadn't asked Richard Clarke about Iraq today. By doing so, he helped Clarke emerge as a new folk hero. Lehman also increased the chances that historians will view Clarke's devastating critique of Bush's terrorism and Iraq agenda as the beginning of the end of the Bush administration.

The forum for all this was Richard Clarke's testimony in front of the bipartisan commission investigating terrorism and September 11. Clarke, of course, is the giant-killer and tell-all author whose recent release, Against All Enemies, blew the roof off of President Bush's claim to be a war president.

Until Lehman's question, Clarke hadn't mentioned Iraq, though he'd quietly and effectively ripped President Bush to shreds for his failure to take terrorism seriously. "The Bush administration considered terrorism an important issue but not an urgent issue," said Clarke. "George Tenet and I tried very hard to create a sense of urgency. I don't think it was ever treated that way."

So Lehman, acting like a hatchet man for the White House, which has launched an all-out assault on Clarke, took him on—but on Iraq. In all your 15 hours of classified testimony to the commission before today, he asked, why didn't you say that you felt the president was so wrong about Iraq and the link to terrorism? Clarke was ready. "No one asked me what I thought about the president's invasion of Iraq," said Clarke, matter-of-factly. "By invading Iraq, the president has greatly undermined the war on terrorism."