GOP Leaders Seek Release of Clarke's 2002 Testimony Sat Mar 27, 6:48 AM ET Add Top Stories - washingtonpost.com to My Yahoo! By Charles Babington and Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writers The Senate's top Republican called yesterday for declassifying Richard A. Clarke's testimony before a House-Senate intelligence panel two years ago to determine whether he lied, as partisan exchanges intensified over allegations leveled this week by the Bush administration's former counterterrorism chief. In a blistering speech from the Senate floor, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said Clarke "has told two entirely different stories under oath" -- first in private before Congress's joint intelligence committee in July 2002, then this week before cameras at a hearing conducted by the commission looking into the same topic, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Frist offered no specific contradictions other than to say that Clarke was "effusive in his praise" of the Bush administration's handling of terrorism matters in his 2002 testimony but was sharply critical this week. "If he lied under oath to the United States Congress, it is a far more serious matter" than being inconsistent with reporters, another Republican charge aimed at Clarke, who served in the White House under four presidents. Some Democratic lawmakers who heard Clarke's testimony in both settings said they found no inconsistencies. Sen. Bob Graham (news, bio, voting record) (D-Fla.), who was co-chairman of the joint intelligence inquiry, said in a statement, "To the best of my recollection, there is nothing inconsistent or contradictory in that testimony [from 2002] and what Mr. Clarke has said this week." He said Clarke's 2002 testimony should be declassified "in its entirety," not in selected ways to favor the White House. The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), said: "As one of the co-chairs of the House-Senate Joint Inquiry on 9/11, the statements I heard Richard Clarke give then were consistent with what he is saying now." Clarke did not respond to e-mails and phone calls seeking comment yesterday. The essence of Frist's allegation was raised at Wednesday's televised 9/11 commission hearing by commissioner Fred F. Fielding, White House counsel in the Reagan administration. He told Clarke he had read the 2002 closed-door testimony and said, "I can't believe that over six hours you never expressed any concern to them that the Bush administration didn't act with sufficient urgency to address these horrible potential problems" of terrorist threats. Clarke replied that "all the measures that I thought should have been taken were in the [counterterrorism] plan that I presented in January of 2001." He said he told the House-Senate inquiry, as he had told the commission earlier that day, that "those proposals which ultimately were adopted by the [Bush National Security Council] principals' committee took a very, very, very, long time to make it through the policy development." When Fielding pressed him to explain why he had waited until this week to express his concerns about the lack of "urgency within the Bush administration," Clarke said that, while speaking to the 2002 joint inquiry committee, he was a member of the administration. At the time, he said, he had provided "all the facts it needed to make the conclusions which I have made about how long it took" to get the plan approved. He told Fielding: "Sir, with all of your experience in this city, you understand as well as I do the freedom one has to speak critical of an administration when one is a member of that administration." House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) joined Frist in calling for declassifying Clarke's 2002 testimony before the joint intelligence committee. Normally a committee would send testimony to the CIA (news - web sites) for clearance, then review the requested deletions and vote on whether to release it. It was not clear last night whether one or both of the congressional panels would have to agree on declassifying the testimony. Yesterday's remarks by Frist, a heart surgeon who typically leaves the sharpest partisan barbs to others, suggested White House concern about Clarke's allegations made this week in interviews, public testimony and a new book. Clarke, who served in the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administrations, says President Bush (news - web sites) in early 2001 was too slow to respond to urgent warnings about the al Qaeda terrorist group. He told the commission Wednesday that the administration "saw terrorism policy as important but not urgent prior to 9/11." Frist spokesman Robert Stevenson said aides had briefed the senator on Clarke's six hours of testimony to the joint intelligence committee in 2002. "It is absent some of the criticisms of the administration's policies" that Clarke has leveled this week, Stevenson said, but Frist has no more detailed examples of contradictory testimony. The White House, largely consumed this week by Clarke's allegations, announced yesterday that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) will appear Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes," the program on which Clarke first made his criticisms six days ago. Polls suggest large numbers of Americans have followed the controversy over Bush's handling of terrorist threats, a topic the GOP -- until this week, at least -- has considered a strong suit in Bush's reelection bid. His likely Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), cautiously entered the debate yesterday, telling CBS's "MarketWatch" he has "read a couple of chapters" of Clarke's book. "I think he raises very, very serious questions," Kerry said. "My challenge to the Bush administration would be, if he's not believable and they have reason to show it, then prosecute him for perjury, because he is under oath." Since Sunday, Bush and his supporters have tried to undermine Clarke's credibility in several ways. They cited Clarke's brief praise of the president in his resignation letter and in a farewell meeting in the Oval Office. Clarke replied that he was simply being polite. The notion of declassifying congressional testimony marks the second time that Republicans have tried to draw Clarke from anonymity to challenge his truthfulness. The White House revealed this week that Clarke was the unnamed speaker in an August 2002 press briefing that defended the administration's terrorism policy, which had been criticized in a Time magazine article. Clarke says it was part of his job then to defend the administration as best he could. Frist's denunciation of Clarke yesterday was often searing. He called Clarke's criticisms of Bush "outrageous" and suggested they are designed mainly to sell books. He said that "the only common denominator" in 10 years of unanswered terrorist attacks against Americans "was Mr. Clarke himself, a consideration that is clearly driving his effort to point fingers and shift blame." Frist continued: "There is not a single public record of Mr. Clarke making any objection whatsoever in the period leading up to or following the 9/11 attacks. . . . If Mr. Clarke held his tongue because he was 'loyal,' then shame on him for putting politics above principle. But if he has manufactured these charges for profit and political gain, he is a shame to this government."
Yawn . . . Your typical bullshit on this thread is getting pretty boring. Lots of yelling and screaming about Clinton and his administration. Really quite typical of you. I guess you are the sort of person who blames the current lack of job growth in the Economy on the Clinton Administration too, eh? Or perhaps you are one of those that believed the 911 Hijackers had links to Saddam Hussein and Iraq even though 16 of them were Saudi nationals. This is not a Clinton vs Bush debate, although you have a knack for conveniently making it into such a thing whenever someone shows that Bush was asleep at the wheel leading up to 911. On August 6th, 2001 there was a briefing and the title of the briefing was, "Bin Laden Determinged to Strike in the U.S."and that briefing had the word "hijacking" in it. Yet, Bush did not convene any sort of a meeting with his National Security Council. Instead, he headed for Crawford, Texas to chop wood. He dropped the ball. Period. Ever wonder why George Tenet, who is still around as the Director of the CIA even though he has dropped the ball on several huge occassions under Clinton and Bush? Ever wonder why Bush keeps him on? Think about that for a moment and get back to me. As for our current National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice and her wonderful background as an expert on the Soviet Union, I dare say that I would trust Richard Clarke's resume and his "real-world" job experience under three Republican Administrations way before that of an academic whose greatest accomplishment was serving as Stanford University Provost for six years. And she knows what about terrorism, compared to Clarke? Please tell us about her fine background in regards to issues of terrorism. I'm sure we are all waiting to hear you respond to that. You and Maxpi state that the one common denominator during the 1.) Planning and implimentation of the 911- Attack 2.) the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in late 2000, 3.) Bombing of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 is Richard Clarke. Yet, you conveniently left out the fact that our current CIA Director, George Tenet was head of the CIA during all of the above incidents that you noted. Again, I ask you to put your thinking cap on and let us know why George Tenet is still head of the CIA after the biggest attack on our country since Pearl Harbor. Everytime somebody comes up and says something that is embarrassing to the White House, be it former Treasury Secretary Lyndsey or Richard Clarke, rather than answer questions about it or show the truth about it, the White House goes into character assassination. I'm a Republican and quite frankly I am getting tired of it. Furthermore, how anyone can defend Condoleezza Rice not testifying under oath in front of the 911 Commission is absolutely beyond me. If she can find time to appear on just about every television network this side of Jupiter, let alone on "60 Minutes" she sure as hell can find time to appear in public, under oath, before the 911 Commission. Meanwhile, we have a President that opposed the 911 Commission panel's creation, then opposed its request for a 2 month extension of its work before finally giving in to former New Jersey governor and republican, Thomas Kean. As for Iraq, I am completely saddened by the fact that the Bush Administration "prostituted" the independent intelligence agency that was created by Harry Truman back in 1947 to avoid another Pearl Harbor. We invade a country and risk our soldier's lives based on aluminum tubes that the Department of Energy laughed at, and [/b]forged[/b] reports on uranium and Niger. Oh yeah, and then there was the British intelligence dossier that good soldier Colin Power praised so lavishly and held up to the world during his speech at the United Nations on February 5th that was plagiarized from a graduate student who was writing about Iraq, circa 1991. Cuz, save your BS for someone else.
Anyone who dosen't think that Clinton's administration isn't as relevant (or more so) than Bush when discussing 9/11 is an idiot. Jeez, do you think this event was planned in lets say Aug. of 2001. It was YEARS in formation. I'm rapidly losing respect for a lot of people here who I thought were somewhat bright. Sigh.
"I'm rapidly losing respect for a lot of people here who I thought were somewhat bright. Sigh." That would no doubt, put you on equal footing with people who view you in the same manner.
Typical of me? You don't know me. This is the first post that I made on this thread that pertained to politics. The few others were in jest as responses to what others wrote. Go back and check it out. So where do you get off telling me I have a knack for twisting this into a Bush - Clinton debate when this is my first serious post. I know where mentioned Ms. Rice in my post, but you somehow managed to bring her into this. And I am twisting things? So I guess we can say you are turning this into Clarke vs Rice......right back atcha. I simply stated Clarke is a liar and it has been proven. I also did mention that the Saudi's are not our friends remember Keep your friends close and enemies closer. And yes they harbor terrorism my friend. If you don't think that Saddam has links to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, and that Iraq didn't have time to bury and hide their weapons than you are a bigger fool than I thought. We told them we were coming.............we gave them all the time in the world. As far as Tenent..........remember who he worked for before this?? Kind of hard to get things done with your hands tied behind your back. You know it's like banging your head against the wall until you finally realize that you must stop because you are not going to get anywhere. SORT of LIKE TALKING to YOU
Cuz: >So where do you get off telling me I have a knack >for twisting this into a Bush - Clinton debate when >this is my first serious post. That was "serious"? LOL JB
What's really funny is that the libs gave Clinton all the credit for the economy-- not too long after he was elected. Bush 41 had nothing to do with it... Right... LOL!
Cuz: >I simply stated Clarke is a liar and >it has been proven. I am not in anyway saying you are wrong here. You may have information that I have not read. I am quite interested in the "proven" evidence that you have to support this claim. Would you mind providing it? Thanks JB
Sorry partner I can't provide you with physical proof but it was on FoxTv, but I guess you can request the minutes from the Senate Committee.....................LOL