News Flash - Clarke In His Own Words
Fows News just interrrupted the coverage of 9/11 Comissioner Ben-Veniste's soft-ball leads to witness Sandy Berger's Clinton terrorism effort defense to announce that reporter Jim Angle has a tape of Richard Clarke praising the Bush administration counter-terroism efforts.
Mr. Clarke, a year and a half ago, gave Mr. Angle an "on background" interview, which is now released for publication, in which he proclaims that the Bush administration was getting after the terrorist problem in 2001.
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.UPDATE: Four other journalists were also involved in this conference call, the White House has notified them all that they are free to use the interview in public now; thus far none have come forward.
And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, mid-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.
Update deux: Former Senator from Nebraska and 9/11 Commission member Bob Kerrey (also spelled Kerry in some news reports, no relation to Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts) lashed out in committee at Fox News for releasing this transcript. Apparently Mr. Kerrey is not interested in the truth.
Comments
You taking a day off or something Rick? I can't keep up.
Posted by: Chris | March 24, 2004 01:05 AM
No day off, my schedule changes with the wind. My 9am appt. became a12:30pm appt. Had to fill the time.
Posted by: Rick Jones | March 24, 2004 04:30 AM
I haven't seen Kerrey's reaction on video, but he's been reasonably fair so far for a Democrat. I'd suspect it was beyond his ability to withstand a shot at an easy target like Fox (relatively speaking) to keep himself in the good graces of his party.
Posted by: Chris | March 24, 2004 10:12 AM
From what I heard of Bob Kerrey's questions today on the commission, he's more stubborn and irrascible than partisan lackey. Though even having the commission is a mollifying, 20/20 hindsight, let's sell Dick Clarke's book joke for the most part. Granted intelligence mistakes were made, but the ultimate blame for 9/11 is with Osama and Al Qaeda. Grandstanding and politicizing the issue (or having congressional meetings 21/2 years later) is tantamount to pandering and doing the Washington blame dance.
Posted by: Norman | March 24, 2004 10:37 AM
Bob Kerry went so far (out there) as to warn others to be careful about giving info on background because it may end up in print, he intoned that Fox News had pulled a fast one on Clarke. The interview cited here was held as background by the US Gov., and then released by the US Gov., Fox did not present it until it was released.
Posted by: Rick Jones | March 25, 2004 07:48 AM