Very Interesting Conason interview with Clarke

[jmags]

In this interview, Richard Clarke answers some of the crap thrown his way by the Bush admin the past two days, and gives a bit more insight into the administration's workings.

snip:
Q: The vice president commented that there was "no great success in dealing with terrorists" during the 1990s, when you were serving under President Clinton. He asked, "What were they doing?"

A: It's possible that the vice president has spent so little time studying the terrorist phenomenon that he doesn't know about the successes in the 1990s. There were many. The Clinton administration stopped Iraqi terrorism against the United States, through military intervention. It stopped Iranian terrorism against the United States, through covert action. It stopped the al-Qaida attempt to have a dominant influence in Bosnia. It stopped the terrorist attacks at the millennium. It stopped many other terrorist attacks, including on the U.S. embassy in Albania. And it began a lethal covert action program against al-Qaida; it also launched military strikes against al-Qaida. Maybe the vice president was so busy running Halliburton at the time that he didn't notice.

Q: Why did they keep you on, if they were so uninterested in what you were focused on? And then why did they downgrade your position?

A: They said, in so many words, at the time, that they didn't have anyone in their Republican coterie of people that came in with Bush, who had an expertise in this area who wanted the job. And they actually said they found the job a little strange -- since it wasn't there when they had been in power before.

Q: Dr. Rice said that.

A: Yes, Dr. Rice said that. And the first thing they asked was for me to look at taking some of the responsibilities, with regard to domestic security and cyber-security, and spinning them off so that they were no longer part of the National Security Council.

Q: Is it true that you're a registered Republican, as someone told me yesterday?

A: Well, I vote in Virginia, and you can't register as a Republican or a Democrat in Virginia. The only way that anybody ever knows your party affiliation in Virginia is when you vote in a primary, because you have to ask for either a Republican or a Democratic ballot. And in the year 2000, I voted in the Republican presidential primary. That's the only record in the state of Virginia of my interest or allegiance.

Q: Will you tell me whom you voted for in the Republican presidential primary in Virginia in 2000?

A: Yeah, I voted for John McCain.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/24/clarke/index1.html

[Skip Intro]

1. Damn - can't wait for him to be on Larry King tonight

(and read about it here - no cable)

Hope he relates this to the tv masses:

"It's possible that the vice president has spent so little time studying the terrorist phenomenon that he doesn't know about the successes in the 1990s. There were many. The Clinton administration stopped Iraqi terrorism against the United States, through military intervention. It stopped Iranian terrorism against the United States, through covert action. It stopped the al-Qaida attempt to have a dominant influence in Bosnia. It stopped the terrorist attacks at the millennium. It stopped many other terrorist attacks, including on the U.S. embassy in Albania. And it began a lethal covert action program against al-Qaida; it also launched military strikes against al-Qaida. Maybe the vice president was so busy running Halliburton at the time that he didn't notice."

I cannot imagine what this summer is going to be like.

[Bozita]

2. Clarke will be on the Mike Webb Show on Wednesday night