The Longbow Papers

UNDER THE RADAR

9/11
White House Tailspin

One day after counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke's well-documented criticism of the Bush Administration's lackadaisical attitude towards terrorism, the White House is deploying top officials in a vicious barrage of personal attacks on a man with 30 years of public service under four Presidents. The attacks reveal the vicious tactics this Administration uses to intimidate and threaten truth-tellers, but is so filled with inconsistencies, contradictions and lies that it actually bolsters Clarke's credibility. As Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said, "This is a serious book written by a serious professional who's made serious charges, and the White House must respond to these charges" – something that, despite the personal attacks, the White House has not yet done. See American Progress's full rundown of the Administration's distortions yesterday, and internal Justice Department/FBI documents substantiating Clarke's claims. Also, see American Progress National Security Policy Director Bob Boorstin's new column.

LIE – CLARKE NEVER VOICED HIS CONCERNS: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice claimed that Clarke "chose not to" voice his concerns about the Administration's counterterrorism policy, or lack thereof. But the White House itself acknowledges Clarke sent a memo to Rice on 1/24/01 marked "urgent" asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending al Qaeda attack, and that top officials rejected Clarke's request, saying they "did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat." Of course, Rice is the same person who denied ever being warned about putting the false uranium claim into the 2003 State of the Union Speech. When her dishonesty was exposed, she claimed, "I either didn't see the memo [or] I don't remember seeing the memo" from the CIA.

LIE – THERE WAS NO DOMESTIC THREAT: Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley – the same man who ignored CIA orders to remove false uranium claims from the President's pre-war State of the Union – defended the Administration by saying, "All the chatter [before 9/11] was of an attack, a potential Al Qaeda attack overseas." But according to page 204 of the bipartisan 9/11 congressional report, "In May 2001, the intelligence community obtained a report that Bin Laden supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States" to "carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives." The report "was included in an intelligence report for senior government officials in August [2001]." In the same month, the Pentagon found out that bin Laden associates "had departed various locations for Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States."

LIE – BUSH "EXPEDITED" ARMING OF PREDATOR: On Fox's Hannity and Colmes, Bush National Security spokesman Jim Wilkinson called Clarke's accusations a "work of fiction," and said the Bush Administration was focused on terror before 9/11. As proof, he claimed "it was this president who expedited the deployment of the armed Predator" (the unmanned plane). But according to Newsweek, it was the Bush Administration which "elected not to relaunch the Predator" and threatened to veto the defense bill if it "diverted $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism" programs like the Predator. As a result, AP reports, "though Predator drones spotted Osama bin Laden as many as three times in late 2000, the Bush administration did not fly the unmanned planes over Afghanistan during its first eight months." While "the military successfully tested an armed Predator throughout the first half of 2001," the Bush Administration failed to resolve a bureaucratic "debate over whether the CIA or Pentagon should operate" the system, and it did not get off the ground before 9/11.

SLANDER – CLARKE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL TERRORIST ATTACKS: One of the most odious charges from the White House yesterday was that Clarke was personally responsible for all previous al Qaeda attacks against America. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice – who oversaw the worst national security failure in American history and yet refuses to testify publicly about it – said, "what's very interesting is that, of course, Dick Clarke was the counterterrorism czar in 1998 when the embassies were bombed. He was the counterterrorism czar in 2000 when the Cole was bombed. He was the counterterrorism czar for a period of the '90s when al Qaeda was strengthening and when the plots that ended up in September 11 were being hatched." Vice President Cheney echoed the very same criticism on Rush Limbaugh's radio show. Rice and Cheney conveniently ignored the President's own "buck stops here" declaration and desire for a "culture of personal responsibility": Both refused to mention that they were Clarke's bosses in the lead up to 9/11, and that they ignored Clarke's repeated efforts to get the Administration to take terrorism more seriously. They also failed to elucidate why, if Clarke's record was so terrible, they called him an "outstanding public servant" and decided to keep him on board at the White House.

CONTRADICTION – WE TOOK TERROR SERIOUSLY, BUT DOWNGRADED TERRORISM: Top Bush officials claimed Clarke's criticism was not credible because, as Vice President Cheney said, Clarke "was out of the loop" after the White House counterterrorism office was downgraded from the top position it occupied under previous Administrations. But this attack implicitly acknowledges that counterterrorism was downgraded as a priority at the White House, and thus disproves the Administration's claims that it was taking terrorism seriously before 9/11. And such downgrading is consistent with other internal Administration documents. As columnist Paul Krugman notes, before 9/11 not only did the Administration "completely drop terrorism as a priority — it wasn't even mentioned in his list of seven 'strategic goals' — just one day before 9/11 it proposed a reduction in counterterrorism funds."

CONTRADICTION – WE TOOK TERROR SERIOUSLY, BUT TASK FORCE NEVER MET: Vice President Cheney claimed "a process was in motion throughout the spring" to develop a "more effective" terrorism policy – an allusion to the counterterrorism task force he was asked to head in May. But, while Cheney convened his energy task force at least 10 times (and had 6 other meetings with Enron executives), he never once convened the counterterrorism task force. Similarly, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett claimed, "President Bush understood the threat of terrorism when he took office." But when pressed to prove this claim in the face of Cheney's task force negligence and internal documents proving otherwise, Bartlett could only muster, "George Tenet personally briefed [the President about terrorism] every single morning."

UNDER THE RADAR

9/11

Warnings Ignored

Richard Clarke, a Reagan appointee who was the government's top counterterrorism expert under President Clinton and President George W. Bush, [yesterday] on 60 Minutes said the Bush Administration "failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from al Qaeda despite repeated warnings." The assertion is fully substantiated by newly revealed internal FBI and Justice Department documents that were published today on the Center for American Progress website. As the documents and a companion American Progress backgrounder show, the Bush Administration received repeated warnings that an Al Qaeda attack was imminent, yet underfunded and subordinated counterterrorism in the months leading up to 9/11, and after. The Administration has defended itself by claiming it set up a counter-terrorism task force in May of 2001 ? but the task force never actually met. Meanwhile, the Administration "downgraded terrorism as a priority" and ended such key counterterrorism efforts as the "highly classified program to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States." Among the victims of the Administration's "downgrading of terrorism as a priority" was "a highly classified program to monitor Al Qaeda suspects in the United States," which the White House suspended in the months leading up to 9/11.

EVEN AFTER 9/11, STILL CUTTING COUNTERTERRORISM: Clarke said the President was improperly attempting to "harvest a political windfall" from 9/11 even though he has taken "insufficient steps after the attacks" to secure America. Again, Clarke's assertion is backed up by the record. As the WP reports on the new documents released by American Progress, "in the early days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI." When congressional Democrats sponsored amendments to substantially increase this funding, the President threatened to veto them, and they were voted down.

9/11 USED AS MEANS TO ATTACK IRAQ: Clarke charged the Administration began making plans to attack Iraq on 9/11, despite evidence the terror attack had been engineered by Al Qaeda. And though Administration officials are now denying it, Clarke's assertion is consistent with earlier reports. CBS News reported on 9/4/02 that five hours after the 9/11 attacks, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq -- even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." Similarly, then-Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill said the Administration "was planning to invade Iraq long before the Sept. 11 attacks and used questionable intelligence to justify the war." When the Administration denied O'Neill's charges, ABC News reported that his account was confirmed by another White House source.

CONSERVATIVES STILL CLAIMING SADDAM-AL QAEDA TIES: Clarke's elaboration on how the Administration immediately focused on Iraq instead of Al Qaeda has moved conservatives to a new level of dishonesty. As an American Progress video shows, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) claimed yesterday that "the Bush administration never made any claim that there was a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda." (See the full transcript and video). But it was President Bush and Vice President Cheney who repeatedly told the American public that there was "no question" Saddam and Al Qaeda were connected. Those claims were never substantiated, and have now been proven completely false.

SHIFTING THE BLAME: Vice President Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice have criticized (without proof) the Administration's opponents for supposedly wanting to treat counterterrorism as a simple law enforcement matter. But as Newsweek notes, it was the Bush Administration who was most guilty of such shortsightedness: Despite repeated terror warnings before 9/11 and urging by the Clinton Administration to focus on Al Qaeda, the Administration "placed more emphasis on drug trafficking and gun violence" than on counterterrorism. The Newsweek story is substantiated by the record: look at this internal document outlining how the Clinton Administration made counterterrorism the "Tier One" priority. Now look at this internal document in which Attorney General Ashcroft highlighted his new goals -- none of which were counterterrorism. Ashcroft was trying to downgrade counterterrorism and re-prioritize traditional "law enforcement."

RICE ATTACKS COME AS SHE HIDES: While Rice continues her attacks, she has "repeatedly declined" to appear publicly before the 9/11 commission to answer questions raised by Clarke and others. As AP reports, the commission issued a formal statement saying "Rice should tell the public what she knows." But, the Administration has fought any inquiry of 9/11 from the beginning. As Newsweek reported on 2/4/02, Vice President Cheney called Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) to "warn" him not to open hearings into the attacks. If Daschle pressed the issue, Cheney "implied he would risk being accused of interfering with the mission" against terrorism. For the next several months the White House opposed the creation of the independent commission, attempted to drain its funding after it was created, and tried to limit the amount of time top officials would spend with the panel.

WHITE HOUSE RESPONDS BY MAKING FALSE ATTACKS: The Administration responded to Clarke not by addressing the facts, but by attacking his credibility. Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley ? the same man who helped insert the false uranium claim into the President's pre-war State of the Union - claimed one conversation between Clarke and the President never happened. In fact, "two people who were present confirmed Clarke's account. They said national security adviser Condoleezza Rice witnessed the exchange."