Richard Clarke - Against All Enemies

[Error 404]

Quote from ARogueTrader:

Nice Teeth!!!!

The Republicans don't believe in health care? Maybe they don't believe in health. Or hygiene. This woman doesn't have a few grand to get her teeth capped?

Hell, I need a prescription for Decadron after just looking at that picture!!!

Peace,
RS

 

[max401]

Let's point the finger at the person who is actually responsible:

Mr. Clarke has been involved in the fight against terrorism for the past decade. As 9-11 demonstrates, that decade was a period of growing peril, and unanswered attack, against the United States.

Mr. Clarke asserts that the United States could have stopped terrorism if only the three President's he served had better listened to his advice.

When Mr. Clarke was at the height of his influence as terrorism czar in the Clinton Administration, the United States saw:

first attack on the World Trade Center;

attack on a U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia;

attack on two U.S. embassies in Africa;

attack on the USS Cole;

the planning and implementation for the 9-11 attack.

The only common denominator throughout these 10 years of unanswered attacks was:

Richard Clarke, himself,

a consideration that is clearly driving his effort to point fingers and shift blame.

After 10 years of policies that failed to decisively confront and eliminate the threat from Al Qaeda, Mr. Clarke now suggests that in its first seven months in office the Bush Administration is to blame

paraphrased from a speech by Sen. Bill Frist

 

[max401]

...press interview Mr. Clarke gave in August of 2002.

CLARKE: ...from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course [of] five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda.

QUESTION: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?

CLARKE: All of that's correct.

back to Sen. Firth's speech:

...in the August of 2002 interview I just referred to, Mr. Clarke gave a thorough account of the Bush Administration's active policy against Al Qaeda. Mr. Clarke now explains away that media performance by suggesting that he was simply telling lies in an interview as a loyal Administration official.

A loyal Administration official? Does Mr. Clarke understand the gravity of the issues being reviewed by the 9-11 Commission and the gravity of the charges he has made? If, in the summer of 2001, he saw the threat from Al Qaeda as grave as he now says it was, and if he found the response of the Administration as inadequate as he now says it was, why did he wait until the Sunday, March 21, 2004 to make his concerns known?

There is not a single public record of Mr. Clarke making any objection whatsoever in the period leading up to or following the 9-11 attacks. No threat to resign. No public protest. No plea to the President, the Congress, or the public, to heed the advice he now says was ignored. Mr. President, if Mr. Clarke held his tongue because he was "loyal", then shame on him for putting politics above principle. But if he has manufactured these charges for profit and political gain, he is a shame to this government.

 

[dddooo]

Quote from max401:

Let's point the finger at the person who is actually responsible:

The only common denominator throughout these 10 years of unanswered attacks was:

Richard Clarke, himself,

Yeah, you wish. Like FBI, CIA, Pentagon, Congress, Senate and a bunch of other government orgranizations were not common denominator. Everybody knows that he was the biggest hawk in the government as far as fighting terrorism is concerned and constantly recommended more aggressive military responses.

But it's really not the point, it's not about Clarke. I do not know him, I do not care about him and have no interest in his fate, his views and his motives. It's about the administration.

He is a highly qualified professional and he testified under oath, that the administration was inept before 9/11 and was wrong to go to Iraq after 9/11.

Untill he's charged with purjury and convicted, or at least until Kindasleezy Rice testifies under oath to refute his testimony, until either of these two things happen - he is the one telling the truth and she is lying through her teeth.

 

[Error 404]

Quote from dddooo:

he is the one telling the truth and she is lying through her teeth

Sheesh....my nausea was just subsiding and you had to mention her teeth again?

How about a little MERCY?

Appalachia goes to Pennsylvania Ave.

YUCK!!!!:eek: :eek: :eek:

Peace,
RS

 

[waggie945]

The biggest attack on American soil in which over 3,000 men, women, and children died and our very own National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice refuses to testify in public.

She shows up on every TV show known to mankind, and will even be appearing on "60 Minutes" this coming Sunday night, yet she refuses to testify under oath in public.

I call that a moral shame.

 

[ARogueTrader]

Kerry challenges Bush to prosecute Clarke if former anti-terrorism advisor lied - CBS

Fri Mar 26, 6:51 PM ET Add U.S. National - AFP to My Yahoo!

NEW YORK (AFP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) challenged President George W. Bush (news - web sites) to prosecute former national security aide Richard Clarke if they can show that he lied about terrorism policy.

"My challenge to the Bush administration would be, if (Clarke) is not believable and they have reason to show it, then prosecute him for perjury because he is under oath, Kerry told CBS's MarketWatch.

"They have a perfect right to do that," said Kerry.

Republicans in Congress want to declassify testimony Clarke gave before Congress in 2002 that they claim is at odds with accounts critical of the administration in the aide's recently published book.

Clarke, a counter-terrorism advisor to three presidents, published a book this week entitled "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," in which he claims the Bush administration failed to heed warnings of the September 11, 2001 attacks and then focused its attention on Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) rather than al-Qaeda.

He repeated the allegations under oath in testimony before a congressional committee.

The charges prompted an aggressive response from the White House, amid apparent concerns that they could undermine the president's re-election bid in November.

 

[ARogueTrader]

How do you beat a perjury rap?

Don't testify under oath in the first place.

Quote from waggie945:

The biggest attack on American soil in which over 3,000 men, women, and children died and our very own National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice refuses to testify in public.

She shows up on every TV show known to mankind, and will even be appearing on "60 Minutes" this coming Sunday night, yet she refuses to testify under oath in public.

I call that a moral shame.

 

[waggie945]

My guess is that George Bush had no option but to keep George Tenet on as Director of the CIA, because George Tenet had warned Bush repeatedly, for months and months before September 11th, that something very bad was about to happen.

On August 6th, 2001 there was a briefing . . .
The title of the briefing was, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US," and that briefing had the word "Hijacking" in it.

In September, Bush had to make a decision. Is it feasible to let go of Tenet, whose agency flubbed the greatest tragedy since Pearl Harbor, an event which the CIA was originally created to specifically avoid by Harry Truman back in 1947? And the answer was no, because Director Tenet knows how much about what Bush knew, and Bush didn't know what to do about it. That's the bottom line.

Bush was well-briefed. Before he went off to Texas to chop wood for a month like Reagan did in California, he was told all these things. And yet he didn't even have the presence of mind to convene his National Security Council and say, " Ok guys, we have all of these reports, what are we gonna do about it?"

Instead, he just went off to Texas to chop wood.

 

[max401]

Quote from waggie945:

On August 6th, 2001 there was a briefing . . .
The title of the briefing was, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US," and that briefing had the word "Hijacking" in it.

Are you kidding? Kerry was warned about security lapses at his home state's major airport, the one the two WTC planes flew out of, well in advance... and he did zippy.