Clarke: I Let Bin Laden Family Go

Newsmax ^ | 4/1/04

[areafiftyone]

Don't look now, but Clinton terrorism czar Richard Clarke has inadvertently let the White House off the hook on the most potentially explosive charge related to 9/11 - allegations that President Bush let Osama bin Laden's family escape from the U.S. in the days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Clarke says nothing about this episode in his book and with good reason, since the truth fits neither his Bush-bashing agenda nor his carefully constructed image as a tougher-than-nails terrorism fighter.

It turns out, however, that it was Clarke himself who gave the green light for Osama bin Laden's relatives fly home to Riyadh beginning on Sept. 14, just three days after U.S. skies were closed to all air traffic.

The subject of the bin Ladens' escape came up briefly during Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 Commission last week, where he tried to finesse his role in blowing what many still believe was the best chance to get information on Osama bin Laden's whereabouts and his family's financial network.

Clarke told the Commission that an individual - whose identity he doesn't recall - relayed a request for the bin Laden fly-out from the Saudi embassy to his White House Situation Room Crisis Management Team.

He says that he refused to grant approval until the FBI signed off.

In his testimony the closest Clarke came to admitting responsibility was when he told the Commission:

"I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all of these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference," Clarke explained, before hinting at his own responsibility.

"I was making - or coordinating a lot of decisions on 9/11 in the days immediately after," he told the Commission.

But in the next breath Clarke tried to shift responsibility away from himself, suggesting instead that blame for the blunder should go perhaps to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card or Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me," the terrorism whistleblower lamented to the Commission. "Since you press me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State or the White House Chief of Staff's Office. But I don't know."

In an interview with Vanity Fair last October, however, Clarke was more forthright about his role in the decision to let the bin Ladens go.

"My role was to say it can't happen until the FBI approves it," he told VF writer Craig Unger. "And so the FBI was asked - we had a live connection to the FBI - and we asked the FBI to make sure that they were satisfied that everybody getting on that plane was someone that it was O.K. to leave.

Then Clarke confessed, "And [the FBI] came back and said, yes it was fine with them. So we said fine, let it happen."

The charge that President Bush was to blame for the bin Ladens' escape had already become a cause-celeb in left-wing circles, with radical filmmaker Michael Moore among those complaining that the terrorist's kin were allowed to fly the coop at a time when all U.S. flights were still grounded.

In fact, as noted by Unger in his VF piece, U.S. skies had been re-opened to air traffic by the time the bin Ladens were allowed to leave on Sept. 14, leaving yet another Democrat urban legend in tatters.

[areafiftyone]

[stylin19a]

why would the "cyberterroism" czar be allowed to make that call ?

[conserv13]

It looks like the FBI is also to blame.

[Sacajaweau]

You're absolutely right. And why would the FBI just say "okay". That doesn't seem to be within their realm of decision making either. Why would Clarke even ask them if it was okay?? Or was it one of those "Hey, we gotta get these dudes out and I need someone in your Office to say it's okay...even if it's the janitor."

Nothing in writing??

[BMC1]

Clarke was also the one who talked Clinton into going to Somalia.

That was a Clinton/Clarke disaster.

[oceanview]

this is a big story I think.

one of the people on those planes was the saudi who owned that race horse War Emblem. He knew about 9/11 in advance, and was "found dead" sometime later, as were two other saudi royal family members. Its all in Gerald Posner's book.

[Sacajaweau]

If Clarke KNEW from the first moment that it was Alqueda, and the FBI kew also, the entire fiasco doesn't make sense.

[Maceman]

[Remole]

Before we leap to say anything from a partisan perspective, we need to have the facts and some sober judgment. Fact: Osama had been rejected years previously by most of the bin Laden clan. Fact: the US then--and now--is not in a position to fundamentally p*ss off some of the leading families of the Saudi regime. Fact: there was no evidence then or now that the bin Ladens in the USA were complicit in AQ activities. And Logic: what was the US Govt supposed to do? Hold the bin Ladens here as soft hostages? Surely we should know that AQ and Osama would not hold off on terror by the fear that something would be done to the bin Laden clan. So all in all, while I am a staunch supporter of the Bush WOT, I would not criticize this decision to let the bin Ladens go.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Clarke told the Commission that an individual - whose identity he doesn't recall

Yeah, you wouldn't recall an individual who requested that you fly bin Laden family members out of United States afterone of the most important events in the nation's history. Every person in this country can remember exactly what he was doing on 9-11 and in the immediate aftermath, except Clarke. Looks like another honor graduate from the Bill & Hillary Clinton School of Selective Memory.

[angkor]

Skeleton in Clarke's closet
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Thursday, March 25, 2004

Former counterterrorism official and now tell-all author Richard Clarke was at it again yesterday, scorching Bush administration officials in testimony before the national Sept. 11 commission.

We'd like to know how Clarke squares his contention that he was the only one in the Bush administration truly committed to thwarting terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks with this: It was Clarke who personally authorized the evacuation by private plane of dozens of Saudi citizens, including many members of Osama bin Laden's own family, in the days immediately following Sept. 11.

Clarke's role was revealed in an October 2003 Vanity Fair article. ``Somebody brought to us for approval the decision to let an airplane filled with Saudis, including members of the bin Laden family, leave the country,'' Clarke told Vanity Fair. ``My role was to say that it can't happen unless the FBI approves it. . . And they came back and said yes, it was fine with them. So we said `Fine, let it happen.' ''

Vanity Fair uncovered that the FBI never fully investigated the passengers on those privately chartered flights (one of which flew out of Logan International Airport after scooping up a dozen or so bin Laden relatives.) But Clarke protested to Vanity Fair that policing the FBI was not in his job description.

Isn't that convenient?

The same sanctimonious Clarke who now claims National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice didn't even know what al-Qaeda was, could have stopped the bin Laden airlift singlehandedly.

Why didn't he appeal to Rice, or even President Bush [related, bio] himself in one of those one-on-ones in the Situation Room, to block the flights? Surely it would have been helpful to determine - without a shred of doubt - that those passengers knew nothing about the Sept. 11 plot or the modus operandi of their notorious relative.

By all accounts, Clarke made hundreds of decisions in the days after Sept. 11, many clear-headed and right.

Approving those special flights seems like a wrong one, but it was a judgment call made in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in history.

Perhaps it was the best decision he could make under the circumstances. It's too bad Clarke cuts no one in the Bush administration the same slack he so easily cuts himself.

[Arkie2]

Bush put the troops into Somalia. The Mogadishu disaster took place under Clinton.

[OneTimeLurker]

You sure Clarke talked Clinton into going to Somalia? I am pretty sure GHWB sent the troops there.

[mabelkitty]

Tin Foil Alert

Tenet and Clarke - Deliberate sabotage artists.

[BMC1]

Maybe I got the country wrong. What I'm talking about is the Black Hawk incident.

Last night on the Fox report, Fred Barns said that Clark was the one who talked Clinton into going after Aideed.

[SpyGuy]

Fact: there was no evidence then or now that the bin Ladens in the USA were complicit in AQ activities.

Lack of evidence does not mean they had no involvement or knowledge. At the very least, they should have been detained for questioning.

[angkor]

Fact: there was no evidence then or now that the bin Ladens in the USA were complicit in AQ activities. And Logic: what was the US Govt supposed to do? Hold the bin Ladens here as soft hostages?

You are perhaps inadvertantly shilling for the Clarkes of this world.

"Evidence of complicity" would not be a necessary reason for wanting to question OBL's siblings and relatives about 9/11. Unearthing important information about this mass murder and military attack on America would be a good reason, even assuming that they were not complicit (and they probably were not).

"Hostages" is exactly and precisely the rationale used by the litigious Reno DoJ staffers and bureaucrat Clarke himself. But is this term ever used to describe other persons who may or may not have evidence in a criminal or national security matter? No, it's not.

The way you've posed your comments is completely bogus, and not supported by law or even common sense. And it's of course the set of reasons used by DoJ, the FBI, and other bureaucrats.