On investigating 9/11 and intelligence:
MATTHEWS: Why did this administration build the case for war with Iraq after 9/11? What do you think was their motive?
CLARK: I think it’s-you know, we really need to ask that question, and we really should have a set of hearings and demand that the administration produce the answers. I don’t know.
I mean, I wasn’t in on the councils of state. It’s speculation. But I’ll speculate. There were some people who believe that it was essential to just have a strong show of U.S. force. There were others who believed I guess that you couldn’t expect to be successful against Osama bin Laden so you had to take down somebody that you could be successful against. There were some who believed in this greater geostrategic vision that you could kind of sweep through the Middle East, clean up these old, worn out, former Soviet client states, knock them off, get into democracy, and have it all set so the next peer competitor that came down would have to face.
And there were even those who made the argument that the real way to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians was to go after Saddam Hussein. This was the sort of road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad argument. There was a whole variety...
MATTHEWS: But not one of those motives was openly expressed by this administration.
CLARK: No. And you know, what was expressed was a sort of least common denominator, let’s go after the weapons of mass destruction. We’ve already got a U.N. mandate to use against Saddam Hussein. He’s probably in violation of it.
But I had seen some of that intelligence. Several members here in the audience have seen that intelligence. I always believed that he had withheld something from the inspectors. I mean, he’s a cunning guy. And there was no reason to think that he wouldn’t have tried to keep some material.
MATTHEWS: What do you think of the vice president’s story, there’s a story in “Newsweek” this week, it just broke today, the vice president’s office was developing intel to justify the war outside the CIA, outside defense intelligence. They had their own sources in the Iraqi National Congress and they were pushing this stuff right through the office there. If you had a vice president, if you got elected, are you going to allow a vice president to have a separate intelligence operation, a separate operation to justify a war?
CLARK: Absolutely not.
On the issue of whether the Saudis warned Bush pre-9/11:
*MATTHEWS: Sir, during the past week, Governor Dean has discussed information being leaked to the Internet by conspiracy theorist that the president was tipped off by Saudis to 9/11 yet did nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you think of Governor Dean’s comments?
CLARK: Well, I wouldn’t make comments like that, because I think when you’ve been on the inside of the intelligence community and national leadership, you recognize that’s just a very, very, very low likelihood of ever having happened. I mean, it just doesn’t work that way.
Source:
Hardball TranscriptSo, Clark believes 9.11 should be investigated. He does not believe the Saudis warned Bush. This does not say he doesn't think Bush knew, but that he doesn't think the Saudis were the ones to tell Bush, if he knew. I wish Matthews would have allowed a fuller answer, but he switched the subject to General Schwarzkopf (as if we hadn't heard enough of that one). Anyway, whether Clark believes there was a 9.11 conspiracy in terms of a warning to Bush, I don't know. It sounds like he doesn't. What he does believe is there was a conspiracy within the Bush Administration to capitalize on 9.11 to take the war on terror From Afghanistan to Iraq, just because they always wanted to.
*Something skipped in the transcript here - it was the unidentified female who asked the question. (on edit)
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
