XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.liberalism, alt.politics.democrats XPost: alt.politics.usa.republican
On 2024-03-23 05:34:02 +0000, AlleyCat said:
On Sat, 23 Mar 2024 00:10:59 -0500, super70s says...
say they are prepared to detail how they repeatedly warned their Bush administration
No details, and that was them just saying they were "prepared" to do so.
Here's all the details about Dubya being warned you could want but I
don't expect you to read them, so some highlights for everyone else....
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/24/bn.00.html
RICHARD A. CLARKE: My impression was that fighting terrorism, in
general, and fighting al Qaeda, in particular, were an extraordinarily
high priority in the Clinton administration -- certainly no higher
priority. There were priorities probably of equal importance such as the
Middle East peace process, but I certainly don't know of one that was
any higher in the priority of that administration.
ROEMER: With respect to the Bush administration, from the time they took
office until September 11th, 2001, you had much to deal with: Russia,
China, G-8, Middle East. How high a priority was fighting al Qaeda in
the Bush administration?
CLARKE: I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months
considered terrorism an important issue, but not an urgent issue.
Well, president Bush himself says as much in his interview with Bob
Woodward in the book "Bush at War." He said, "I didn't feel a sense of urgency."
CLARKE: My impression was that fighting terrorism, in general, and
fighting al Qaeda, in particular, were an extraordinarily high priority
in the Clinton administration -- certainly no higher priority. There
were priorities probably of equal importance such as the Middle East
peace process, but I certainly don't know of one that was any higher in
the priority of that administration.
ROEMER: With respect to the Bush administration, from the time they took
office until September 11th, 2001, you had much to deal with: Russia,
China, G-8, Middle East. How high a priority was fighting al Qaeda in
the Bush administration?
CLARKE: I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months
considered terrorism an important issue, but not an urgent issue.
Well, president Bush himself says as much in his interview with Bob
Woodward in the book "Bush at War." He said, "I didn't feel a sense of urgency."
ROEMER: OK. With my 15 minutes, let's move into the Bush administration.
On January 25th, we've seen a memo that you've written to Dr. Rice
urgently asking for a principals' review of al Qaeda. You include
helping the Northern Alliance, covert aid, significant new '02 budget
authority to help fight al Qaeda and a response to the USS Cole. You
attach to this document both the Delenda Plan of 1998 and a strategy
paper from December 2000.
Do you get a response to this urgent request for a principals meeting on
these? And how does this affect your time frame for dealing with these important issues?
CLARKE: I did get a response, and the response was that in the Bush administration I should, and my committee, counterterrorism security
group, should report to the deputies committee, which is a sub-Cabinet
level committee, and not to the principals and that, therefore, it was inappropriate for me to be asking for a principals' meeting. Instead,
there would be a deputies meeting.
ROEMER: So does this slow the process down to go to the deputies rather
than to the principals or a small group as you had previously done?
CLARKE: It slowed it down enormously, by months. First of all, the
deputies committee didn't meet urgently in January or February.
Then when the deputies committee did meet, it took the issue of al Qaeda
as part of a cluster of policy issues, including nuclear proliferation
in South Asia, democratization in Pakistan, how to treat the various
problems, including narcotics and other problems in Afghanistan, and
launched on a series of deputies meetings extending over several months
to address al Qaeda in the context of all of those inter-related issues.
That process probably ended, I think in July of 2001. So we were ready
for a principals meeting in July. But the principals calendar was full
and then they went on vacation, many of them in August, so we couldn't
meet in August, and therefore the principals met in September.
ROEMER: So as the Bush administration is carefully considering from
bottom up a full review of fighting terrorism, what happens to these
individual items like a response to the USS Cole, flying the Predator?
Why aren't these decided in a shorter time frame as they're also going
through a larger policy review of how this policy affects Pakistan and
other countries -- important considerations, but why can't you do both?
CLARKE: The deputies committee, its chairman, Mr. Hadley, and others
thought that all these issues were sufficiently inter-related, that they
should be taken up as a set of issues, and pieces of them should not be
broken off.
ROEMER: Did you agree with that?
CLARKE: No, I didn't agree with much of that. ROEMER: Were you
frustrated by this process?
CLARKE: I was sufficiently frustrated that I asked to be reassigned.
ROEMER: When was this?
CLARKE: Probably May or June. Certainly no later than June.
And there was agreement in that time frame, in the May or June time
frame, that my request would be honored and I would be reassigned on the
1st of October to a new position to deal with cybersecurity, a position
that I requested be created.
ROEMER: So you're saying that the frustration got to a high enough level
that it wasn't your portfolio, it wasn't doing a lot of things at the
same time, it was that you weren't getting fast enough action on what
you were requesting?
CLARKE: That's right.
My view was that this administration, while it listened to me, didn't
either believe me that there was an urgent problem or was unprepared to
act as though there were an urgent problem.
And I thought, if the administration doesn't believe its national
coordinator for counterterrorism when he says there's an urgent problem
and if it's unprepared to act as though there's an urgent problem, then probably I should get another job.
I thought cybersecurity was and I still think cyber security is an extraordinary important issue for which this country is very
underprepared. And I thought perhaps I could make a contribution if I
worked full time on that issue.
Now why don't you proved -- "IN DETAIL" -- that Dubya took that intelligence or any other warnings seriously, asshat?
Never expected a reply and I didn't get one.
<usual extraneous alligator shit snipped>
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