There is now clear evidence that Bush invaded Iraq instead of going after terrorists, heedlessly reducing our security, and that of the world.
The latest evidence comes from Richard Clarke, who worked against terrorism under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, was President Clinton's terrorism czar, and was head of counter-terrorism under this President Bush.
Here's what he said on CBS's 60 Minutes last night:
"I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it.
"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.
"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection." [Did Bush Press For Iraq-9/11 Link? 03/21/2004]
President Bush got into the act himself:
"[President Bush] 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."
"We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.' [Ibid.]
Clarke had tried to get the attention of the President on the mounting terrorist threat, but had no luck until it was too late:
Clarke was the president's chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn't until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject.
Article comments
1 - Ms. Tek
Well, a lot can happen between now and November.
I think the best thing for the country is for Bush to get outta Dodge... The thing is that what this will do is only bring the US to a state where its slide will be halted. I don't think that we will see big improvements... but maybe the state of the nation will stop getting worse. I'll be happy for just that at the moment.
2 - David Flanagan
The difficulty is that while they occupy places of power in the administration, they were not elected.
I still don't understand why it was that Richard Clarke never came out with any of this before he released his book. If he truly believes in our national security, why hasn't he been out there from the beginning?
I would also like to not that, using your definition, if the final court decision had gone Al Gore's way, he would not have been "elected" either. The certified vote count in the state of Florida was for Bush.
Al Gore chose to challenge the count in court, he lost the challenge. Al Gore knew that once he pushed this to the judicial level, it was likely that the election would be decided at that level.
And liberals never like to mention the recount that was undertaken by organizations like the Washington Post, USA Today, Miama Herald, and several other major media companies which found that Bush would have won the election under almost every circumstance.
Thanks.
David
3 - Mark Saleski
and conservative never like to mention that their man lost the popular vote count by a half a million votes.
a technicality, perhaps but it certainly did not point to a 'mandate'.
4 - CW Fisher
Thanks, Hal. Good post and you saved me a lot of work as I was assembling similar material. Like David, I also wondered why Clark didn't speak up sooner, but then again, the answer is obvious. He was writing a book. In today's moral climate, national security takes a backseat to business.
Still, why shoot the messenger? He's merely confirming what most of us suspected: that the Bushies came to office with a hidden agenda. It was all part of a master plan that the public wasn't let in on. It was about the restoration of Reagan's world by Reagan's people, picking up where they left off, back in Iraq. Clearly this was the plan. Clearly they used 9-11 in the most cynical way possible. Just one day after the towers came down the president and his team were trying to figure out how to pin it on Saddam. The inhumanity of their thinking sickens me. The whole scene is macabre.
5 - Hal Pawluk
David,
Can you - or do you even want to - defend the feckless ignoring of the Al Qaeda threat and the reckless invasion of Iraq by Bush and the neocons?
Or is that the reason you pulled in the red herrings?
6 - Dan
Of course one thing Hal (I'm not a liberal) Pawluk forgot to mention is that Clarke is in bed with John Kerry's foreign policy advisor.
Clarke was a holdover from the Clinton administrations ineffective security organization and had had ample time to do something about AlQueda then. Funny how things only got "urgent" after Bush took office.
Bush rightfully demoted this kook to a less sensitive position in "cyber security". He got hacked off because he was out of the loop. He's now positioning himself and us for another dose of ineffectiveness in the Kerry regime. It's pretty easy to connect the dots on this "whistle blower".
"It was about the restoration of Reagan's world by Reagan's people, picking up where they left off,"
We can only hope so.
7 - Hal Pawluk
"Clarke was a holdover from the Clinton administrations ineffective security organization"
What Dan forgot to mention was that Clarke was a holdover from the George H. W. Bush administration where he was a holdover from the Ronald Reagan administration, so most of his carer has been under Republicans.
When you take a look at what went on with the Al Qaeda threat, you see that it surfaced more and more within the intelligence community during the Clinton administration. They then tried to pass that sense of urgency on to the new Bush administration but were ignored.
It was not something invented out of whole cloth by Sandy Berger or Richard Clarke after the fact.
And the Bush crew blew it.
8 - Still waiting
Rice's editorial raises more questions than answers.
More troubling is that some US actions following 9-11 in Afghanistan are without legal foundation and expose the US to some serious consequences.
9 - Hal Pawluk
And a similar story for still more perspective:
Five days before Bush invaded Iraq, Rand Beers resigned his position as special Presidential assistant for counterterrorism. He had spent thirty-five years in intelligence under three Republican Presidents, but objected to what was happening with the current one:
He was right.
10 - Shark
Clarke's testimony would be different if he were a lone voice crying in the wilderness, BUT EVERYTHING ELSE OVER THE LAST YEAR OR SO seems to corroborate his story.
The Bushies wanted Iraq from day one in office. (FACT)
9/11was exploited to move that agenda forward. *Possibly an impeachable crime, IMO; lying about war is just a tad more serious than lying about a blow job) (Arguable, but not by much)
Then there's the forgotten SCOTT RITTER'S testimony re. WMD. (FACT: He was right and deserves an apology from all the loud-mouthed, right-wing shills who called him a traitor)
And David Kay.
And Paul O'Neill.
And the 'coverup' going on relative to the 9/11 commission. Why not talk if you don't have anything to hide?
It's getting to the point where a blind man could connect the dots ---
But y'know what really gets me?
(And Dave, here's a SERIOUS question for ya:)
There came a time when many 'supporters', including myself, said, "Clinton is beyond defending. He's moved into a realm where his actions can no longer be justified. One has to critique him in order to maintain one's honesty and integrity."
At what level will you guys do that? What is it about the Bushies that you want to defend them beyond what's reasonable and honorable?
Because at this point, their shenanigans really are starting to slide over the edge of absurdity.
Thanks,
Shark
11 - Scott S
Come on. THis guy is somewhat believable by his credentials, and he was/is a card-carrying member of the Republican party, but the timing is suspect. He's about to testify before the 9/11 commission and evidence shows he moved up the book release for it. Who knows. Without the book, his testimony would get no press. Now he's a name.
Regardless, you still wonder whether he speaks truth or not. Well, this is one man. One opinion. He thinks we were distracted. To the contrary, within a month, we did invade Afghanistan. We didn't invade Iraq for another year.
And do you expect us to not have a plan about Iraq? Do we just invent scenarios on the fly. Iraq was a threat before 9/11 - totally exclusive of 9/11. It just happens that 9/11 showed us that not dealing with threats resulted in, well, 9/11.
Were Saddam and Osama the same? Of course not. The spinning that went on is shameful, but it does not erase the truth. A President flat out against nation-building changes overnight. Consider why this happened. Overnight was 9/11.
We could handle 2 fronts at once. Everyone is blasting this war, but that stats are staggering on the sacrifices (casualties) - clearly low. I hate any American dying, but doing nothing could easily result in another 3000. or 300,000.
Iraq was getting ready to have sanctions removed, headed by France in exchange for oil kickbacks. So the war was about oil. Hey, we all want it. What is your solution? Let the French/Russians have it. Then wake up one day threatened by a strong Putin and an alliance with a militarily-armed EU?
Bottom line, 9/11 started the war on terror. But the War on Terror meant cleaning up old problems too. Wrongly those two concepts got mixed and combined - not that they were connected, but that Iraq was connected directly to 9/11. The real umbrella of the War on Terror was 1. Direct attack against the aggressor (Osama) and 2. Regime change against a festering sore in the heart of the Middle East. The TOGETHER were the plan to hit terrorism NOW and destroy it FOREVER. One was for now, the other forever. One short term, one long term.
But people insist Bush blamed Saddam for 9/11.
You so want to treat everyone fairly, equally, and avoid conflict, as if you neighborhood had a squabble and you just want everyone to go back inside and forget about it. Well, there are good neighbors and bad neighbors - and contrary to "Can't We All Just Get Along" attitudes of the 60s, no we can't. We must confront our bad neighbors, ask them to shape up or ship out. That's leadership, not appeasement.
12 - Shark
Scott, then we should have invaded Pakistan. They were selling REAL nukes to REAL terrorists. Not imaginary nukes to imaginary terrorists.
Or Saudia Arabia. How the hell did they get a pass on 9/12? They sent the money. They sent the people. They were stirring the terrorist pot for YEARS before 9/11.
You want to start cleaning up festerin sores in the heart of the Middle East, two countries could have easily gone to the front of that line.
Except for those pesky behind-closed-doors deals...
(See the book "Terrorist Hunter" for more.)
13 - sheri
I'm a republican from a long line of republicans, and me and mine were against the invasion of Iraq. Common sense, the kind that doesn't really require too much thinking, told us that the reasons were not backed up with enough solid evidence.Intelligence? American intelligence was not our idea of solid evidence. What a mess. It was a mistake, and only time will tell to what degree.