We Report, You Decide...More on Clarke
From Time Magazine:Perhaps Clarke's most explosive charge is that on Sept. 12, President Bush instructed him to look into the possibility that Iraq had a hand in the hijackings. Here's how Clarke recounted the meeting on 60 Minutes: "The President dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this'.....the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said, 'Iraq did this.'" After Clarke protested that "there's no connection," Bush came back to him and said "Iraq, Saddam — find out if there's a connection." Clarke says Bush made the point "in a very intimidating way." The next day, interviewed on PBS' The NewsHour, Clarke sexed up the story even more. "What happened was the President, with his finger in my face, saying, 'Iraq, a memo on Iraq and al-Qaeda, a memo on Iraq and the attacks.' Very vigorous, very intimidating." Several interviewers pushed Clarke on this point, asking whether it was all that surprising that the President would want him to investigate all possible perpetrators of the attacks. Clarke responded, "It would have been irresponsible for the president not to come to me and say, Dick, I don't want you to assume it was al-Qaeda. I'd like you to look at every possibility to see if maybe it was al-Qaeda with somebody else, in a very calm way, with all possibilities open. That's not what happened."From PBS:
How does this square with the account of the same meeting provided in Clarke's book? In that version, Clarke finds the President wandering alone in the Situation Room on Sept. 12, "looking like he wanted something to do." Clarke writes that Bush "grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room" — an impetuous move, perhaps, but hardly the image that Clarke depicted on television, of the President dragging in unwitting staffers by their shirt-collars. The Bush in these pages sounds more ruminative than intimidating: "I know you have a lot to do and all, but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way." When Clarke responds by saying that "al-Qaeda did this," Bush says, "I know, I know, but see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred....." Again Clarke protests, after which Bush says "testily," "Look into Iraq, Saddam."
Nowhere do we see the President pointing fingers at or even sounding particularly "vigorous" toward Clarke and his deputies. Despite Clarke's contention that Bush wanted proof of Iraqi involvement at any cost, it's just as possible that Bush wanted Clark to find disculpatory evidence in order to discredit the idea peddled by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Baghdad had a hand in 9/11. In the aftermath of 9/11, Bush rejected Wolfowitz's attempts to make Iraq the first front in the war on terror. And if the President of the United States spoke "testily " 24 hours after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, well, can you blame him?
RICHARD CLARKE: What it was, was not a meeting, but the president wandering through the Situation Room, which is an operations center, and then pulling me and my staff into the conference room, shutting the door and saying very explicitly that he wanted me to give him a memo about Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.
Now, the White House says, "No, no, no. It wasn't that. He was asking look at all possibilities. Look at Iran. Look at Iraq. Look at anybody who might have been linked to it. Do due diligence."
Margaret, it wasn't that way. It wasn't a calm, rational discussion in which he said, "Look under every rock and do due diligence." It was a very intimidating message which said, "Iraq. Give me a memo about Iraq and 9/11."
Matt's Chat
Clarke can't seem to make up his mind on how to "script" this "event." I dunno what to make of this guy... I think that part of Clarke's problem is the people who are pulling out the stops to defend him. Think of it like the foreign leaders that endoresed Kerry over the last couple of weeks...only, more organized.Mark's Remarks
Mr. Clarke, plain and simple, is a disgruntled office seeker. He cannot live with the idea that on his watch as terrorism dude 9/11 happened, or that he was inept in getting Clinton's admin to do something. Dick Morris on O'Reilly last night said that he wrote a speech where Clinton would do an Axis of Evil naming, but it was taken out by the NSC at the request of: Dick Clarke. Wow.....Mr. Morris said Clarke and others were afraid of diplomatic fallout.
Mr. Clarke just cannot get his story straight. He seems to change his story depending on the interview. He sounds an awful lot like he is auditioning for John Kerry. More nuancing. More b.s.
Clarke was praising of Bush until he did not get the job of Homeland Security chief that went to Tom Ridge, and then he tried to for Dept. Secretary, and the Bush team said no. Then he went on the attack. It is quite simple....Clarke is getting his political revenge, he has decided to throw responsibility and integrity to the wind to make money and a name for himself, and to assauge his own guilt at 9/11. Shameful he is doing it, even more shameful that dupes like Bob Kerrey are buying it.
