Posted on 09/26/2006 6:08:31 AM PDT by teddyballgame
In fact, a 1999 Clarke after-action memo - the one top Clinton aide Sandy Berger later stole from the National Archives - identified national-security weaknesses so "glaring" that only sheer "luck" prevented a cataclysmic attack back then.
And, as Clarke told the 9/11 Commission publicly, there was nothing the Bush administration could have done that would have prevented the attacks.
Sure, he tells a different story now. But that, he admitted, is because of his opposition to the Iraq war, which he believes distracted from the War on Terror.
Secretary Rice was a lot more honest, explaining yesterday that there was no full-scale War on Terror "the way that we're fighting it now" - by either administration - before 9/11: "We just weren't organized as a country, either domestically or as a leader internationally."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
BUT.......Never underestimate the new media and how very few Americans give a mohamad's ass about the MSM and Clinton spin team.
I believe that what really hurt the Klintonistas the worst what the fact that they could not prevent the mini-series from happening.........their power is slowly waining and this really has them worried.
The dems put their star player BJBilly out there Sunday to bring things back into line and instead he ended up stepping on his dick.
Should be fun to watch from this point on.
RIGHT ON!!!!!!!!!
He was stupid for not going away quietly into the night as most presidents do. He still wants to be center stage and that leaves him open to judgement over decisions he made while in office. He can't rid himself of the demons he conjured up for his party and the party is now addicted to politics of hate and slander and THE LEFT WING CONSPIRACY!
It does. But I wonder if he really thought it would go to hell? Again I think he thought that if things didn't go his way, he'd let them unravel further, to then 'save' us at a later point. And plenty of his people kept his secrets, so he could always bite his lower lip and give a thumbs up and say it wasn't his fault and he feels our pain, gaining more of our affections.
Wanted the world to go to hell? Sure - it's a fair assumption and why not? Look at the messes he left others to clean up in Arkansas. And they did! Or tried to. Folks have gone to jail for him, kept his secrets, some never leaving the jail alive. I just saw Denise Rich on CSpan (before I could switch channels) defending him and what they were trying to do. I know that the basic narcissists/sociopaths can be charming, but wow! What kind of Svengali-like hold does he have over his peons?
And also, he may have know hte mess he created would explode, but either he could do more damage control with Gore in office and try to clean it up, pushing for the laws to somehow allow him a third term. Or leave the mess for his Repub successor, then blaming it solely on him. Either way pushing for a return of him to office - he did say he would gladly serve a third term if only the law would allow. Not, 'but the law is quite clear and doesn't allow'. I think he was hoping we'd say, and some did, forget the law, you're the best, keep being our president. Or paving a way for his wife to step in as president to clean up the messes left by the 'republican presidency'. I think it was purely self serving. And he - and I! - are surprised that the media is at all exposing him or allowing him to unravel on air.
What he didn't anticipate was how easy it would be to document the landmines he planted around the world during his 8 years in office.
Again, remember how he had Hollywood bigs and media darlings all towing the pro-Bill line? Not even one tiny blurb on Hillary or Chelsea in the MSMedia unless to say how wonderful they were. I think he thought the media would always love and adore and protect him. I'm a little surprised that he was allowed to unravel on air. Of course, he yelled at his staff, to blame them, but, still...
If this becomes the main topic, then we will be looking good in November.
Bubba is a baby; the more he cries...the better for us.
Plus he pulls himself even lower.
and Condi gets another shot at the fool.
Sound familiar? The Rudy Obfuscation Factory comes to mind. The shape of things to come if Rudy and his ding-a-lings ever get anywhere near the WH.
Bubba and Rudy both operate under The Shadow Effect: they believe they have the ability to "cloud men's minds" so that everything they ever said or did, that gets in the way of their ambitions, is magically erased.......or stolen from the archives and shredded.
I'm glad that you posted this, Liz. It's an apt juxtaposition and pre-repudiation of the desperate cries from those Republicans who insist that we must nominate Giuliani if only to keep Hillary out of the White House.
that still doesn't tell us what the margin notes on the documents actually said.
only you could somehow turn this thread into Rudy Giuliani bashing.
Liz is one of a kind, isn't she!
Aw, you only say that cause it's true (blush).
Well, look now to what the 9/11 report has to say about the man to whom President Clinton, under attack by an independent counsel,delegated so much in respect of national security, Samuel “Sandy” Berger. The report cites a 1998 meeting between Mr. Berger and the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, at which Mr. Tenet presented a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.
“In his meeting with Tenet, Berger focused most, however, on the question of what was to be done with Bin Ladin if he were actually captured. He worried that the hard evidence against Bin Ladin was still skimpy and that there was a danger of snatching him and bringing him to the United States only to see him acquitted,” the report says, citing a May 1, 1998, Central Intelligence Agency memo summarizing the weekly meeting between Messrs. Berger and Tenet.
In June of 1999, another plan for action against Mr. bin Laden was on the table. The potential target was a Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. The commission report released yesterday cites Mr. Berger’s “handwritten notes on the meeting paper” referring to “the presence of 7 to 11 families in the Tarnak Farms facility, which could mean 60-65 casualties.”According to the Berger notes, “if he responds, we’re blamed.”
On December 4, 1999, the National Security Council’s counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: “In the margin next to Clarke’s suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, ‘no.’ ”
In August of 2000, Mr. Berger was presented with another possible plan for attacking Mr. bin Laden.This time, the plan would be based on aerial surveillance from a “Predator” drone. Reports the commission: “In the memo’s margin,Berger wrote that before considering action, ‘I will want more than verified location: we will need, at least, data on pattern of movements to provide some assurance he will remain in place.’ ”
In other words, according to the commission report, Mr. Berger was presented with plans to take action against the threat of Al Qaeda four separate times — Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000. Each time, Mr. Berger was an obstacle to action. Had he been a little less reluctant to act, a little more open to taking pre-emptive action, maybe the 2,973 killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks would be alive today.
yes, that's correct. it was pretty damning. for this guy to have stuffed documents into his pants at the national archives, stole them, and destroyed them - I can only iamgine what was written there.
and unfortunately, by letting Berger walk, there will never be an investigation into it now. letting Berger walk is perhaps the single biggest mistake of the Bush administration.
bflr
Definitely agree. I would even go so far as to say they are projecting a panic mode. They're reacting too aggressively and quickly, when they know people realize Bubba's stepped in it.
At several points in the September 11 commission hearings, Democrats pointed to the millennium case as an example of how a proper counterterrorism program should be run. But sources say the report suggests just the opposite. Clarke apparently concluded that the millennium plot was foiled by luck — a border agent in Washington State who happened to notice a nervous, sweating man who turned out to have explosives in his car — and not by the Clinton administration's savvy anti-terrorism work. The report also contains a number of recommendations to lessen the nation's vulnerability to terrorism, but few were actually implemented.
Nicely written, clear piece. Thanks for posting it.
They have National sponsors who should no longer exist.
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