Clarke: Clinton Would Have Likely Prevented 9/11 Attacks

NewsMax.com ^ | 3/22/04 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[prairiebreeze]

John Podhertz was just on Fox News tearing up Clarke's allegations as well. Fabulous!

Prairie

[snooker]

The question is what did the terror czar do and why didn't he do it? Is that why he was fired?

Maybe a little investigation into the culpability of the messenger is in order.

[Miss Marple]

Wow, that was really something, wasn't it! First Condi comes on and shows very diplomatically that Clarke is a liar, and then ka-boom, Ijaz goes after him with both barrels!

[OldFriend]

Thanks, I rarely watch TV.........and rely on FR for the truth and updates.

[Feckless]

This reminds me of Donna Shalala inferring that if Clinton had gone to Viet Nam we would have won the war. My response to that one got the Secret service out to my compund near Waco the first time.

This follows liberal logic, along the lines that Mary Jo Kopechne would be benefitting from Medicare and Social Security because of Teddy Kennedy.... had he not murdered her.

[A. Pole]

"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'

"He 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."

Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the 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.'

From http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml

[The Wizard]

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[mewzilla]

All I can say is that people should read Richard Miniter's book, Losing Bin Laden. Amazon has it for 60% off, I think a paperback edition is coming out shortly, so folks have no excuse. Anyone who reads that will have some questions for Clarke.

[new cruelty]

Utter nonsense.

[lawdude]

"He said the meetings forced Clinton officials to return to their agencies and "shake the trees" for evidence of the plot. In the months before Sept. 11, however, Clarke said Bush did nothing similar."

When did the planning for the attack begin? When did the Arab 'pilots' enter the US? I am going to bet that both occured on klinton's watch. If he believes President Bush should have known, so must he have known!

[banjo joe]

...because he took the threat posed by al Qaeda more seriously.

Clinton took nothing seriously; he left running things to the Arkansas mafia he brought with him and a cadre of academic elites w/ no real world experience.

[Milligan]

Clinton worried too much about his legacy. He was soft on terrorism for eight years. Bush got tough on terrorism within eight months of his presidency.

[adakota]

apparently the arse is saying the meetings took place in 1999.

Tenet is still around, it would be interesting to hear what he has to say.

[Piquaboy]

This idiot had to crawl out from under a rock to make these brilliant statements.

[petitfour]

Do we have a list of speeches of Bubba's from 2001??? He was jet-setting around the world and making gobs of $$$$$$ in speaking fees. Did he ever mention how seriously he took the threat of al-Qaeda?????????????????????

When I think back to the post2000 election fiasco, and the failure to transition the government in a timely fashion, I can't see that the Clintons were thinking of our national security. They wouldn't hand over keys to offices, much less share information. Why should we believe that the Clinton-appointed CIA officials would be any different than the many other childish bureaucrats? I believe the Clintons/Gores were so bitter when they left the White House that they WANTED something bad to happen.

[I got the rope]

BTTT.

[TheGunny]

Are you Sh#t'n me?

[BenLurkin]

"President Clinton would have been more likely to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks than President Bush, because he took the threat posed by al Qaeda more seriously."

[CT]

Sure. If Clinton had been president during the rise of Al Qaeda he might have prevented 9/11.

And with that little gem I am reminded of a passage in George Orwell's 1984: "We have always been at war with Oceana."

This has to be one of the most fantasic attempts of double-speak I think I have ever heard!

[GunnyB]

As a former counterintelligence and counter terrorism specialist I can categorically state that this man and his book are nothing more than pure CYA. Are we to really believe that this imbecile, the supposed counter terrorism "czar" for nearly 30 years was so inept and so powerless that he stood aside and allowed an administration to allow an act of terrorism to occur? Mr. Clarke is nothing more than an opportunist of the first rank. His performance, and it was pure performance, on 60 minutes was stunning.

Here is the man responsible for counter terrorism, under whom the African Embassies were bombed, and the USS Cole was nearly sunk (with no appreciable response on our country's behalf) berating in the strongest terms an administration that was only 8 months old when 9/11 occurred. Clarke is a seditious opportunist with book sales and other ulterior motives on his mind.