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This was forwarded to me by a friend who seems to be on a personal crusade to dissuade Democrats from being enchanted by Gen. Clark. Please no flames...I am just curious what Clark supporters think.
>Wesley Clark's Imaginary Friend
>Does Wesley Clark have an imaginary friend? The retired NATO >commander and possible Democratic presidential candidate has been >muttering darkly for several months that opportunists in the White >House seized September 11 as a pretext to take out Saddam Hussein. >Clark maintains that he received a call at home the afternoon of >September 11, 2001, urging him to say on CNN that the attacks on >the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were connected to Iraq. But >Clark has now provided three versions of this story, and they don't >add up.
>Version One: On "Meet the Press" on June 15 of this year, Clark >asserted that intelligence about the Iraqi threat had been >hyped. "Hyped by whom?" asked moderator Tim Russert.
>CLARK: "I think it was an effort to convince the American people to >do something, and I think there was an immediate determination >right after 9/11 that Saddam Hussein was one of the keys to winning >the war on terror. Whether it was the need just to strike out or >whether he was a linchpin in this, there was a concerted effort >during the fall of 2001 starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 >and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein."
>RUSSERT: "By who? Who did that?"
>CLARK: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people >around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on >9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You've got >to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This >has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing >to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence. >And these were people who had--Middle East think tanks and people >like this, and it was a lot of pressure to connect this and there >were a lot of assumptions made. But I never personally saw the >evidence and didn't talk to anybody who had the evidence to make >that connection."
>That was an astonishing accusation of corruption in the White >House, and unsurprisingly it caught the eye of several astute >observers. Sean Hannity followed up two weeks later on >Fox's "Hannity and Colmes": Referring to the Russert transcript >above, Hannity said of the call, "I think you owe it to the >American people to tell us who."
>Version Two: Clark replied, "It came from many different sources, >Sean."
>HANNITY: "Who? Who?"
>CLARK : "And I personally got a call from a fellow in Canada who is >part of a Middle Eastern think tank who gets inside intelligence >information. He called me on 9/11."
>HANNITY: "That's not the answer. Who in the White House?"
>CLARK: "I'm not going to go into those sources."
>New York Times columnist Paul Krugman also understood that Clark >was playing with live political ammunition, and he wrote a July 15 >column attacking the White House and headlined, "Pattern of >Corruption."
>"Gen. Wesley Clark says that he received calls on Sept. 11 >from 'people around the White House' urging him to link that >assault to Saddam Hussein," wrote Krugman.
>Last week, rather belatedly, the New York Times published a July 18 >letter from Clark purporting to "correct" the record.
>Version Three: "I would like to correct any possible >misunderstanding of my remarks on 'Meet the Press' quoted in Paul >Krugman's July 15 column, about 'people around the White House' >seeking to link Sept. 11 to Saddam Hussein," Clark wrote to the >Times.
>"I received a call from a Middle East think tank outside the >country, asking me to link 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. No one from the >White House asked me to link Saddam Hussein to Sept. 11. >Subsequently, I learned that there was much discussion inside the >administration in the days immediately after Sept. 11 trying to use >9/11 to go after Saddam Hussein.
>"In other words, there were many people, inside and outside the >government, who tried to link Saddam Hussein to Sept. 11."
>In other words, and let's have a show of hands here: How many of >you believe Gen. Clark really got that call?
>If you read version three carefully, you will see that Clark has >now exonerated the White House of his most serious accusation. Much >as he wants to put a sinister spin on the matter, all Clark is >saying is that the White House was more sensitive to the Iraqi >threat after 9/11.
>That leaves the question of the call. It's true that journalists >protect sources all the time. But there are also times when a >source deserves to be burned, and this is one of them. We're not >talking about a normal journalist-source relationship here. We're >talking about someone who urged the former supreme allied commander >of NATO to go on national TV on 9/11 and assert a provocative >untruth.
>What conceivable reason can Clark have for protecting this joker? >This is not someone he called for information. This is someone who >called him--who wanted to use Clark--to plant a phony story. And >why is this grossly irresponsible "fellow in Canada who is part of >a Middle Eastern think tank" privy to "inside intelligence >information"? You would think Clark has a positive duty to expose >the man. But that assumes he exists.
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