I find this story as reported in today's Toronto Star interesting:
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Clark told CBS' Lesley Stahl, "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.'If you are going to lie, I would think it is not a good idea to fill the lie up with a whole bunch of other people whose jobs depend on not supporting your lie. It is so utterly contrary to the authorized, evangelized version of the workings of the White House yet so in line with what another high official in the government has recently written...and another resonably placed observer as well."Now he never said, `Make it up.' But 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.
"I said, `Mr. President. ... We have been looking at this. ... There's no connection.'
"He came back at me and said, `Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer.
"We wrote a report." Clarke continued, "We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. ... And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the national security adviser or deputy. (It was) sent back saying, `Wrong answer. Do it again.'
Keeping in mind that neither I nor any of you reading this have any knowledge about what happened and form our opinions out of belief, advertised material and how much sleep we got last night, isn't it kind of weird to think that morons might actually be in charge of what used to be called the phone to Moscow, the suitcase with the codes.
Comments
SayNay? - June 8, 2004 7:46 PM
I like Mark Steyn's "take" on Richard Clarke:
"How about that Richard Clarke! He’s the bureaucrat-turned-book-tour celebrity who began his testimony to Congress by issuing a dramatic apology to the American people for the Administration’s failure to prevent 9/11: “Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you.”
Hey, thanks for that, big guy. But, if you want an example of a President doing nothing to prevent not thousands but the best part of a million deaths, how about the Rwandan genocide? Remember that?...
...He was the guy in charge of Rwandan policy for the Clinton team and, as far as I can tell, unlike the Pain-Feeler, he feels not even a twinge of pro forma remorse. As we know, regrets, he’s had a few. But this isn’t one of them. “It is not always the United States that has to answer the 911 call,” Clarke said. “It is not always the United States that has to be the world’s policeman.” Correct. But in this instance Clarke and Clinton went further and scuttled a UN mission that had already answered the 911 call. Nothing the supposedly “unilateral” Bush team has done damaged the UN and its credibility as much as the Clinton-Clarke team did during the Rwandan bloodbath. And whenever a local bully gets away with it, it emboldens others.
By all accounts, Mr Clarke is a difficult man to work with. He reminds me of that comic classic on British history, 1066 And All That, with its battles between Royalists – “wrong but romantic” – and Roundheads – “right but repulsive”. In much of his Clinton-era approach to terrorism, Mr Clarke seems to have been “right but repulsive”, which is why nothing got done; in his more fanciful moments, he was “wrong but romantic”. But in his present incarnation he’s wrong and repulsive. He seems to have learned from his old boss, who’s always preferred to apologize for the mistakes of others rather than his own: shortly after 9/11, Bill Clinton apologized for the Crusades.
By September 11th, Clarke was far removed from the decision-making on Afghanistan, al-Qae'da and beyond. He has no more authority to apologize for the events of that day than I do.
But he bears a lot of responsibility for Rwanda. Any chance of an apology for that?"
see:http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=21