Bush ignored the al-Qa'ida threat before 11 September

Iraq Forum

Richard Clarke, who served 4 presidents, including Reagan, says:

Bush ignored threat from Al Qaeda pre 9/11.

After 9/11 Bush then ignores intelligence telling him that Saddam had nothing to do it but Bush insists a connection is needed so they can bomb Iraq. And the date 9/12.

So who's lying?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world...sp?story=503721

clark is just trying to sell a book. i see how you inserted "including Reagan" just to say "see! SEE! if he served under Reagan he must be a right wing conservative." and for a right wing conservative to criticize Bush, it must be the truth. clark is no right winger and also served under clinton. he wanted a job in the new homeland security dept. but was denied. now he's just sour and wants to sell his book and make a little money. he was probably the kid that got picked last but hit first in dodge ball.

So, he made this stuff up to sell a book? This is a guy that worked in intelligence for Reagen, Bush snr, Clinton and George W himself, and now you think he is willing to come out with the most outrageous lies because he's sour and wants to sell a book??

I've got to say you guys take some convincing. Of course in your world, Bush can't lie (despite no WMD and Al Qaeda connections) and of course Bush isn't doing anything as important as - selling a book!?

h@ts
those people, Lark, Curley and the rest, they will only believe themselves, nothing else, and I am quite sure if G W Bush appear on TV and say "I was wrong" they will not believe him also

If Clark was only trying to 'sell a book', why did he wait until now to write one? Why did he resign from a post at which he worked dilligently for almost two decades and under 4 different administrations? Give me a break. I know the truth hurts, but keep in mind, Bush is not the only one Clark is critizising, hes just the only one being talked about right now. I can't believe this isnt a major topic of discussion at INReview, its dissapointing and slightly scary. How can we, those who pretend we are interested in politics and government, not be spamming the posts with discussion about these 9-11 hearings and Dick Clark? Its one of the most important happenings in national politics since that terrorist attack almost three years ago.

Great point Charles!
If Bush was ignoring terrorism why didn't Clarke speak up before 9/11. In fact, everything he said before 9/11 compliments bush on his positions regarding terrorism, now he has done a complete about face right in the middle of an election year ... seems a little fishy to me, especially considering his best friend is running John Kerry's campaign.
And after everything he has said, he never went as far to say that 9/11 could have been prevented even if Bush had done everything Clarke supposedly wanted. If 9/11 couldn't have been prevented regardless, isn't this whole issue moot? And if the whole issue is moot, then why is it still being talked about? Because it is being used to defame Bush and try to blame him for the 9/11 attacks ... it's so funny we are blaming everybody but the terrorists.

Just for the record:

RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.

Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office — issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years.

And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda.

The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies — and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals.

Over the course of the summer — last point — they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance.

And then changed the strategy 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. That is in fact the timeline.

QUESTION: When was that presented to the president?

CLARKE: Well, the president was briefed throughout this process.

QUESTION: But when was the final September 4 document? (interrupted) Was that presented to the president?

CLARKE: The document went to the president on September 10, I think.

QUESTION: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002] Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against the — general animus against the foreign policy?

CLARKE: I think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with terrorism issue. This is the one issue where the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesn't sound like animus against uh the previous team to me.

JIM ANGLE: 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.

ANGLE: OK.

QUESTION: Are you saying now that there was not only a plan per se, presented by the transition team, but that it was nothing proactive that they had suggested?

CLARKE: Well, what I'm saying is, there are two things presented. One, what the existing strategy had been. And two, a series of issues — like aiding the Northern Alliance, changing Pakistan policy, changing Uzbek policy — that they had been unable to come to um, any new conclusions, um, from '98 on.

QUESTION: Was all of that from '98 on or was some of it ...

CLARKE: All of those issues were on the table from '98 on.

ANGLE: When in '98 were those presented?

CLARKE: In October of '98.

QUESTION: In response to the Embassy bombing?

CLARKE: Right, which was in September.

QUESTION: Were all of those issues part of alleged plan that was late December and the Clinton team decided not to pursue because it was too close to ...

CLARKE: There was never a plan, Andrea. What there was was these two things: One, a description of the existing strategy, which included a description of the threat. And two, those things which had been looked at over the course of two years, and which were still on the table.

QUESTION: So there was nothing that developed, no documents or no new plan of any sort?

CLARKE: There was no new plan.

QUESTION: No new strategy — I mean, I don't want to get into a semantics ...

CLARKE: Plan, strategy — there was no, nothing new.

QUESTION: 'Til late December, developing ...

CLARKE: What happened at the end of December was that the Clinton administration NSC principals committee met and once again looked at the strategy, and once again looked at the issues that they had brought, decided in the past to add to the strategy. But they did not at that point make any recommendations.

QUESTIONS: Had those issues evolved at all from October of '98 'til December of 2000?

CLARKE: Had they evolved? Um, not appreciably.

ANGLE: What was the problem? Why was it so difficult for the Clinton administration to make decisions on those issues?

CLARKE: Because they were tough issues. You know, take, for example, aiding the Northern Alliance. Um, people in the Northern Alliance had a, sort of bad track record. There were questions about the government, there were questions about drug-running, there was questions about whether or not in fact they would use the additional aid to go after Al Qaeda or not. Uh, and how would you stage a major new push in Uzbekistan or somebody else or Pakistan to cooperate?

One of the big problems was that Pakistan at the time was aiding the other side, was aiding the Taliban. And so, this would put, if we started aiding the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, this would have put us directly in opposition to the Pakistani government. These are not easy decisions.

ANGLE: And none of that really changed until we were attacked and then it was ...

CLARKE: No, that's not true. In the spring, the Bush administration changed — began to change Pakistani policy, um, by a dialogue that said we would be willing to lift sanctions. So we began to offer carrots, which made it possible for the Pakistanis, I think, to begin to realize that they could go down another path, which was to join us and to break away from the Taliban. So that's really how it started.

QUESTION: Had the Clinton administration in any of its work on this issue, in any of the findings or anything else, prepared for a call for the use of ground forces, special operations forces in any way? What did the Bush administration do with that if they had?

CLARKE: There was never a plan in the Clinton administration to use ground forces. The military was asked at a couple of points in the Clinton administration to think about it. Um, and they always came back and said it was not a good idea. There was never a plan to do that.

(Break in briefing details as reporters and Clarke go back and forth on how to source quotes from this backgrounder.)

ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no — one, there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office?

CLARKE: You got it. That's right.

QUESTION: It was not put into an action plan until September 4, signed off by the principals?

CLARKE: That's right.

QUESTION: I want to add though, that NSPD — the actual work on it began in early April.

CLARKE: There was a lot of in the first three NSPDs that were being worked in parallel.

ANGLE: Now the five-fold increase for the money in covert operations against Al Qaeda — did that actually go into effect when it was decided or was that a decision that happened in the next budget year or something?

CLARKE: Well, it was gonna go into effect in October, which was the next budget year, so it was a month away.

QUESTION: That actually got into the intelligence budget?

CLARKE: Yes it did.

QUESTION: Just to clarify, did that come up in April or later?

CLARKE: No, it came up in April and it was approved in principle and then went through the summer. And you know, the other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the rollback strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the NSPD from one of rollback to one of elimination.

QUESTION: Well can you clarify something? I've been told that he gave that direction at the end of May. Is that not correct?

CLARKE: No, it was March.

QUESTION: The elimination of Al Qaeda, get back to ground troops — now we haven't completely done that even with a substantial number of ground troops in Afghanistan. Was there, was the Bush administration contemplating without the provocation of September 11th moving troops into Afghanistan prior to that to go after Al Qaeda?

CLARKE: I can not try to speculate on that point. I don't know what we would have done.

QUESTION: In your judgment, is it possible to eliminate Al Qaeda without putting troops on the ground?

CLARKE: Uh, yeah, I think it was. I think it was. If we'd had Pakistani, Uzbek and Northern Alliance assistance.

Let's see, Richard Clark says UNDER OATH that it wasn't Bush's priority. And Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condaliza Rice, Richard Armitage and the Chariman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testify UNDER OATH that it was a priority.

Hmmmm, I tend to believe the ones that were not discruntled and are not try to sell a book. Oh and how would he know, he was not part of the high level meetings at the White House, he wasn't even in with the next level meetings. He attended meetings 3 levels down.

The trick is getting Condoleezza to testify UNDER OATH. However Clark,s motives could be construed as a publicity stunt, however it doesn’t automatically make it unfeasible.

Look, there was a serious breakdown concerning the events of 9/11. It should never have happened the way it did and someone dropped the ball. Let’s wait till the smoke clears before we simply dismiss these allegations shall we? If it’s true, then unlike Iraq, we’ll find the proof there.

I watched the Hearing, and it seemed like they were concentrating a lot on the pervious administration more than the current administration. I am kind of getting the idea that no matter what we could have done, it wasn't going to stop 9/11.

There is or was a lot of bureaucracy that prevented the right information from getting to the right people. This has been around for a long time possibly going back to the Nixon or Carter era. Maybe even further. One thing is that the CIA and the Defence Department are not allowed to operate in the US. Another thing is when you have supervisors that don't take reports from the field seriously and/or not sharing information.

I agree we need to hear what the 9/11 commission has to say and what their recommendations are.

Why do I call it a breakdown? Well it's painfully obvious Charles hence the results of 9/11.

The "system" did not work as it was designed to, there were too many passe' attitudes concerning terrorist info and subsequently it wasn't passed up through the right channels. Bush did not give it the weight it should have been given but neither did anyone else in his cabinet.

I for one don't think it's stupid to find out how this happened. It can reduce the chances of success in the future. As far as the French is concerned, it has become the replacement for baseball as bashing the French seems to be the national passtime.

I think it's funny how we tend to ignore others while we contend with our own issues. It was arrogance just like the arrogance you display in these forums that helped with the success of 9/11. No one would dare do this to the mighty US.

Listen word of advice. Get over yourself Chuck as America needs to. Bush has weakened any credibility we had in his process of exacting revenge. If I say there is a sucker among these forums, you are the poster boy for it considering you've fallen for all the rhetoric coming out of the Bush came hook, line, and sinker.

Charles it would be almost criminal if Bush didn’t take steps to sure up the securities of this nation after such an event like 9/11 even if the current system we now have in place was in effect pre-9/11.

I believe we ignored the telling signs, signs we would most certainly not ignore today. No one believe, me included, that any of those terrorist orgs had the nerve to commit such a brazen act against the US on our soils. The repercussions would be devastating and the world braced for US retaliation afterward because they knew it would be severe. The US has never had to deal with this type of threat on our own soils and this has caused some irrationality in our psychies in my opinion.

Also you have to remember something. It is much harder for terrorist to strike in the US because of the huge gulfs impeding their access here. How does one so readily gain access to explosives in the US without raising suspicions? And how does such a people transport them to the US stealthily without detection?

Explosives in the Europe and Middle Eastern continents are available on the black market by the tons and moving them back and forth is much easier than doing that here in the US. This is exactly why they came up with weapons/airplanes that are already here in the US because they had no other means to make such a statement. They don’t want to blow up a supermarket, that wouldn’t make a big enough statement.

Indeed we are at war. I don’t think no one has denied this. However I think we should eliminate the problem or at least alleviate it with direct action against those most obvious threat to global peace, Al Qaeda. I think they took full advantage of our lax attitude but they will NOT get another chance to take advantage.

Will an attack happen here in the future? Unfortunately we both agree that this is highly likely but it will not happen at the expense of a cavalier attitude we possessed prior to 9/11.

I doubt the terrorist cared who the President was at the time they commited their horrible act.

FBI was warned of Sept 11 Hijacker

Sorry for the bad link above

I think you miss quoted me Chuck. I said “even” if the current system we now haave in place was in effect. I say this because I don’t believe we adapted the proper attitude towards Al Qaeda and other terrorist’s abilities to strike us in our homeland.

Fine. We did not consider ourselves "at war" even though the homeland, and the same target in fact, had been attacked in 1993 by Al Quaeda.

If there were gross errors that could be attributed to specific people or agencies, then they should be held accountable. Personally I think the whole thing has been politicized. Attributing the failure to predict and stop 9/11 to the Bush administration is pure politics and not beneficial to establishing root causes. I think most of this should have been done in private. There is nothing wrong with exposing systemic weaknesses and working to address them. Describing them in detail in public might not be in our best interests. Publishing a summary of the commission's conclusions would be more reasonable. Spilt milk I suppose.

Good morning Charles

I don’t think they were taken seriously and therefore watch wasn’t diligent as it should have been. There is no reason for a man with terrorist ties to Al Qaeda be allowed to roam around this country for 3 yrs prior to 9/11 only to discover he was one of the hijackers.

I do believe there were attempts to watch what they perceived as threats however and the system in place should have detected such a menace and have it eliminated as a threat.

quote:

Wasn't a Y2K bomb plot thwarted only because an immigration officer at an overcrowded border crossing happened to be paying close attention? I've seen those borders. Thousands of people per day. While its not quite an automated toll booth, you have to expect people to get through. Cheers to that lady!

I haven’t heard about that particular incident so I cannot comment fairly on it. But withstanding your position as accurate, of course there are thousands that cross the borders of this country. However upon examination it was determined that these particular 9/11 hijackers came across from Canada, empty handed might I add. In order for them to do the damage they’ve done, they used instruments of doom already present here before they crossed.

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The difference is that before 9/11 we were far more constrained in our polite requests for cooperation. After 9/11 we had a much freer hand. Many just got out of the way, the others we just ignored. Remember - you are either with us or against us? Ah - how people cringed... and still do!

I agree, people are still cringing to this day because of that comment. However they cringe because of the potential recipe for disaster made by one who wields so much military might. And like you have said, those that don’t agree with us, we’ll simply ignore. However then we will turn around and ask them for help after we’ve done the damage.

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The rush to place blame on individuals might make some people feel better, but I think it is counterproductive to the investigation itself……This could distort the overall picture.

However this should not impede the process of finding the truth. Interestingly enough you bring up another position I’ve been asserting.

In the rush to blame, America has accepted a course of action without evidence. This has distorted the over all picture in which I believe the weight of counter-productivity outweighed the reasons given by this administration for invading. But I slightly digress.

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Doing it in public is some sort of catharsis that might make some of us feel better - but doesn't necessarily serve the public good.

I agree.

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To be specific, the allegation that Bush is responsible in part for 9/11 is similar to holding him accountable for the dot com bubble, over capacity, and capital destruction that occurred.

Charles I think that is stretching it a bit here. The security of this nation is the direct responsibility of the President. Corporate America is responsible for the dot com bubble burst. As the one in whom the bucks stops, it is their responsibility to see that these are properly tended to.

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Liberals would argue that its illegal for the government to target individuals based upon nationality or ethnic origin. I'm sure ACLU lawyers are chomping at the bit to defendpeople against profiling. I strongly support profiling as a means to target our resources more effectively. That does not mean I savor police brutality, etc., etc.

There are always exceptions to every rule. However when we draw those lines they can become very blurred in the process and has a potential for harm.

We know that Middle Eastern individuals that are illegally in this country, it cannot not be considered unjustified keeping tabs on such an individual. Especially since it came with warnings this particular guy had ties to Al Qaeda. To simply dismiss this on the basis of profiling is absurd. This isn’t the same as legal citizens driving down the highway being singled out because of race or gender.

quote:

I don't know what happened, and I'm pretty sure you don't either.

To be exact, no we don’t. However this is the court of public opinion here right Charles?

However I’d like you to see this.

” LONDON - The United States ignored a clear warning in July last year from the emissary of a Taliban leader that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network was planning a major attack on U.S. soil, the Independent newspaper said on Saturday.”

Source

” A Moroccan agent who infiltrated Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda movement warned his country and the United States that the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington were being prepared,…..

Secret agent Hassan Dabou, 35, told his superiors several weeks before the attacks that al-Qaeda was setting up "large scale operations in New York in the summer or autumn of 2001,”

Source

The United States was warned of impending September 11 terrorist attacks by an Iranian spy, but ignored him, German secret service agents testified yesterday in the trial of an alleged al-Qaida terrorist.”

Source

There’s more here Charles but for the sake of space I won’t post it. My point is simply this. To have a conspiracy of this magnitude it is virtually unrealistic that details wouldn’t leak out. It seems as if everyone knew but the US. In fact I was watching Dan Rather last evening and he was talking about this investigation and how prior to 9/11 the US had put missile batteries around certain cities because they got wind of this information too. They just didn’t take it serious enough to do a thorough follow up on it.

Now I don’t draw my conclusion from one broadcast of news but I weigh it against other info and common sense. It highly seems unlikely that an event of this magnitude can simply go undetected by our foreign (CIA) and domestic(FBI) services and our sitting current president.

quote:

Sure - let's jail the FBI guy because he was busy on a murder or kidnapping investigation.

I’m curious Charles. Who do you think is responsible for such an event? You think it’s just one of those things or something? To assume that we had no foreknowledge of this event before it took place in my opinion isn’t realistic in approach. This was a major, major blunder and we need to find out what happened so it never does again.

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there is always a trade off between efficient and focused use of power, and an increased threat of abuse of that power. Lucky for you you live in the US. We should be prepared to make sacrifices for the public good.

Careful here Charles. This is how communism got started.

This is a very fine line here and it needs policing. I think this is what many people opposed to it in its current form are saying.

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They are spending their energies on something big rather than going after the easy pickins. I would think asymetrical warfare might have different rules, but perhaps they would prefer to kill their enemy rather than just annoy him. Most terrorists are just happy with annoy.

I think they know the more they strike the harder it will be to commit the next as the US will become even more diligent in preventing such acts. They don’t want to make us scratch, they want to make us lose a limb. Maybe that approach is bad for them but healthier for us. Let’s just hope they don’t have a successful change of strategy.

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Saddam was a real nasty baddie of their ilk (but personally worse) but paid the price by ignoring UNSC. Unfortunately the UNSC balked. The world community did not leverage its combined resources to send a clear message. But people should have still gotton the message that if US perceives a direct threat, we won't ask permission, and we won't wait for it to become "imminent." Everyone blamed Bush because he didn'tprove Saddam was an imminent threat. If you actually read the original materials his point was that once the threat becomes imminent its too late.

The problem with this approach Charles is that it can either help us or hurt us and the odds are 50/50. I don’t think with those odds that we should simply act on our own using our influence to coerce others into an unjustified action simply because we perceive some nation as a threat. So if we’re wrong we just say “it’s just one of those things”?

This idea especially bad when considering global warfare. There are too many points of failure at the expense of lives and US credibility. Although we may never get complete agreement from all nations, I think it important to make a genuine concerted effort in good faith. Not rushing into a deed that could be afforded patience without detriment as we didn’t do with Iraq.

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How many pickup truck loads would you need?

I don’t know I haven’t done the math, but I’m reasonably certain that it would take more than one to do the damage they want to do.

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I suppose we should have impeached FDR for allowing PEarl Harbor.

Quite frankly that was a bit before my time. I don’t know all the particulars on that event so I never arrived to such a conclusion. However if we had ample warning and he ignored it, I believe that could be considered negligence. It is in a court of law.

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The US is not a police state.

Well isn’t that a revelation. Even though we act like we are, I 100% agree [/quote]

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We will always be at risk of sneak attack. Now we are at war and should tighten the ship.

My point has been this, we were at war long before 9/11 Charles and shouldn’t have to wait until a catastrophic event such as 9/11 occurs to declare a war that was verbally declared against us more than a decade ago.