http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/administration/whbriefing/
*White House Reels From Insider Expose*
by Dam Froomkin
The Washington Post
Monday, Mar 22, 2004
<<The White House is in massive damage control mode today after another
searing, book-length indictment from a former insider.
Richard A. Clarke, Bush's former counterterrorism director, says that
the Bush White House failed to take the al Qaeda threat seriously before
Sept. 11, 2001, and by Sept. 12 was trying to pin the attack on Iraq.
Barton Gellman writes in The Washington Post: "For Clarke, then in his
10th year as a top White House official, that day marked the transition
from neglect to folly in the Bush administration's stewardship of war
with Islamic extremists. His account -- in 'Against All Enemies,' which
reaches bookstores today, and in interviews accompanying publication --
is the first detailed portrait of the Bush administration's wartime
performance by a major participant. Acknowledged by foes and friends as
a leading figure among career national security officials, Clarke served
more than two years in the Bush White House after holding senior posts
under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He
resigned 13 months ago yesterday. . . .
"The president, he said, 'failed to act prior to September 11 on the
threat from al Qaeda despite repeated warnings and then harvested a
political windfall for taking obvious yet insufficient steps after the
attacks.' The rapid shift of focus to Saddam Hussein, Clarke writes,
'launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the
fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide.' "
The charges go right to the heart of Bush's reelection campaign as a war
president whose vision and leadership have made the country safer.
The first salvo of Clarke's media tour came last night, on 60 Minutes.
CBSNEWS.com has a full report on the segment, and a video excerpt.
Here's Joie Chen summing up the interview -- and the White House
response -- on the CBS Evening News.
Clarke was also on Good Morning America today, where host Charlie Gibson
noted that Clarke is an ABC News consultant.
"Well, the president wanted us to look to see if Iraq was involved,"
Clarke said. "Now, the White House is trying to say he very calmly asked
me to do due diligence and see who might have done it, to look at all
the possibilities. That wasn't it. And the White House is also saying
maybe the meeting didn't take place. And there are witnesses who have
said the meeting took place," Clarke said.
"The president in a very intimidating way left us, me and my staff, with
the clear indication that he wanted us to come back with the word there
was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11 because they had been planning to do
something about Iraq from before the time they came into office."
Clarke says: "I think they had a plan from day one they wanted to do
something about Iraq. While the World Trade Center was still smoldering,
while they were still digging bodies out, people in the White House were
thinking: 'Ah! This gives us the opportunity we have been looking for to
go after Iraq.' . . .
"U.S. soldiers went to their death in Iraq, thinking that they were
avenging 9/11, when Iraq had nothing to do with it. . . . They died for
the president's own agenda which had nothing do with war on terrorism.
In fact, by going into Iraq, the president has made the war on terrorism
that much harder."
Gibson asked how Clarke felt about turning around and attacking his
former colleagues.
"It pains me to do it," Clarke said. "It pains me to have Condoleezza
Rice and others mad at me. But I think the American people needed to
know the facts and they weren't out. Now they are."
<snip>
Only the Beginning
The release of Clarke's memoir comes just a day before public testimony
begins before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11
attacks.
Among those called to testify: Clarke himself, along with former
secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright, former defense secretary
William S. Cohen and former national security adviser Samuel R. Berger.
Philip Shenon wrote in Saturday's New York Times: "Senior Clinton
administration officials called to testify next week before the
independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks say they are
prepared to detail how they repeatedly warned their Bush administration
counterparts in late 2000 that Al Qaeda posed the worst security threat
facing the nation -- and how the new administration was slow to act."
And in this morning's Wall Street Journal, Scot J. Paltrow writes about
how the commission is trying to fill the gaps and inconsistencies in the
government account about what actually happened on Sept. 11.
"Among other things, the commission is examining such questions as how
long Mr. Bush remained in a Florida classroom just after the World Trade
Center strikes, whether there really was a threat to Air Force One that
day, how effectively American fighter jets reacted to the attacks, and
who activated the national-emergency-response plan."
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who famously whispered in the
president's ear, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under
attack," has previously said that Bush left the Florida classroom he was
sitting in within seconds.
"But uncut videotape of the classroom visit obtained from the local
cable-TV station director who shot it, and interviews with the teacher
and principal, show that Mr. Bush remained in the classroom not for mere
seconds, but for at least seven additional minutes. He followed along
for five minutes as children read aloud a story about a pet goat. Then
he stayed for at least another two minutes, asking the children
questions and explaining to Ms. Rigell that he would have to leave more
quickly than planned."
Paltrow writes: "Both Republican and Democratic commissioners have said
they are focusing closely on what happened next -- and whether mere
minutes could have affected the outcome on Sept. 11. The panel's
investigators are looking at questions such as the timeliness of
presidential orders about intercepting the jet that at 9:37 a.m. plowed
into the Pentagon."
Paltrow also writes that Bush could not have been telling the truth when
he told a town-hall meeting in December, 2001: "I was sitting outside
the classroom, waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower --
the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly myself, and I said, 'Well,
there's one terrible pilot.' "
There was no such video until late that night, and the TV wasn't even
plugged in, Paltrow writes.
Echoes of O'Neill
Clarke's memoir recall another insider's attack on the White House, the
subject of my very first White House Briefing column back in January.
In former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's tell-all book (penned, in
his case, by Ron Suskind), O'Neill famously described Bush as disengaged
("like a blind man in a room full of deaf people") and managed by his
staff (encircled by "a Praetorian guard").
Clarke writes that in his experience, Bush's description by critics as
"a dumb, lazy rich kid" is "somewhat off the mark." He says that Bush
has "a results-oriented mind, but he looked for the simple solution, the
bumper sticker description of the problem."
And One More Thing
Dana Milbank writes in today's Washington Post: "In the early days after
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly
two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI,
an internal administration budget document shows." >>
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