Clarke book excerpts - Former terrorism adviser describes top U.S. officia

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/03/21/national1950EST0581.DTL

<snip>

* President Bush: Clarke blames Bush for doing a "terrible job" fighting terrorism. Says "the critique of him as a dumb, lazy rich kid was somewhat off the mark," but that Bush looks for "the simple solution, the bumper-sticker description of the problem."

* President Clinton: Clarke says he was "beyond mad" over Clinton's lack of discretion that led to his impeachment, but generally praises Clinton as a charismatic, sharp thinker who couldn't get CIA, Pentagon and FBI to deal with terrorism issues. Says Clinton's approval of missile attacks against Iraq over the assassination attempt during Bush's father's presidency deterred Saddam Hussein from future terrorism against America.

* Vice President Dick Cheney: Clarke describes Cheney as quiet and calm but radically conservative. Says Cheney believes U.S. could handle Iraq alone and "everyone else is just more trouble than they are worth." Blames Cheney for failing to speak out about the threat of al-Qaida during senior White House meetings.

* CIA Director George Tenet: Clarke says Tenet "was as much concerned with the threat of al-Qaida as anyone in the government prior to September 11" but was struggling with internal rebuilding at the CIA. Tenet is quoted as saying in June 2001, "It's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one." Says Tenet and Clarke jointly scrapped a doomed plan to capture bin Laden in 1996 at the heavily guarded Tarnak farm in Afghanistan. Clarke complains regularly about failures by CIA to insert spies effectively into Afghanistan and Somalia.

* National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice: Clarke says Rice, who effectively demoted Clarke after Bush's election, has "a closer relationship with the second President Bush than any of her predecessors had with the presidents they reported to." Says she "looked skeptical" when Clarke briefed her early in 2001 about al-Qaida threats.

[aquart]

1. "Closer"?

What a couple.

[lindashaw]

2. Clarke's appearance on "Sixty Minutes" was good. People will

be hard pressed to ignore this man.

[yardwork]

3. I hope that most Americans aren't as clueless

as Leslie Stahl appeared to be during the interview. Is she really incredibly dense and uninformed, or was that just an act?

[chookie]

4. Do they think we don't remember Jan-Sept 2001?

I commented on the weird emphasis that they had set the military on during this time. It seemed kinds weird -- given that we seemed to be facing terror threats -- that smirky the chimp was testing new Star Wars missiles and advocating renewing that program.

There was very little mention of terrorism, other than smirky appointing Unka Dick and his buddy Joe Albaugh to head the new counter-terror squad in May 2001. No one seems to know what these guys did during this period, if anything.

And if smirky was so resolute fighting Al Qaeda pre-Sept 11, why did he let Ashcroft cut spending to FBI counter-terror program? Lousis Freeh quit over that little disagreement, as he, like Clarke, was aware of the Al Qaeda threat and couldn't believe it that these shitheads were doing nothing about it.

I believe Clarke. I believe that the evidence out there demonstrates that Bush simply missed the ball during this period -- that *for some reason* terrorism did not receive attention. I am not at all satisfied by Hadley's denial. He, after all, has to save his neck, and his precious monkey prince's ass.