NationStates Jolt Archive

To be perfectly blunt, what's the big deal about his testimony? People are climbing the walls to use it as yet another long knife to jab at Bush with, but, it seems that one brief question, and an even briefer answer (which seem to be largely ignored) completely and totally eliminate Clarke as a weapon by which to blame Bush for 9/11.

Sen. Slade Gorton: "Assuming that the recommendations that you made on Jan. 25, 2001 ... had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?"

Richard Clarke: "No."
Source: Charles Kruathammer, as printed in The Chicago Tribune, April 5, 2004

Now, assuming that Dr. Krauthammer isn't randomly making up quotes from a nationally televised Senate hearing, this exchange seems to completely remove the wind from Clarke's sails. How can he imply that had only the big bad government listened to him, 9/11 could have been prevented, when by his own admission the instantaneous implimentation of all of his recommendations would not have prevented 9/11?

Now, I can infer 4 possibilities on preventing 9/11, based on this testimony. Clarke is a liar; either he's lying in the above quote, or elsewhere in his testimony.
Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.
The only way to prevent 9/11 would be to take steps that would make the Patriot Act look like an anti-loitering law.
9/11 was impossible to avoid without rewriting American history all the way back to the Barbary wars.

Now, I'm not going to place full blame for 9/11 on Clinton, that's not particularly responsible, and not terribly helpful in any event either. However, what I am willing to do is suggest that perhaps we try and move beyond finger-pointing and move towards preventing possible future attacks. Even if conclusive, 100% iron-clad, no doubt about it, nobody denies it, evidence surfaces that Bush had the exact times that it would happen, the flights that would be used -- essentially, that Bush all but planned the thing -- it still wouldn't bring back the dead. Finding out if there were gross oversights, or horrendous errors is a worthy goal (as finding such errors will help prevent their repeat), but trying to turn these proceedings into a witch-hunt is anything but productive. There are no Pumpkin Papers in this case.

Preventing future attacks is what we need to focus on, not partisan rancor. It would be grand if we could hop into Prof. Peebody's Waybac Machine and prevent 9/11, but we can't.

I think the only people really climbing the walls is the White House. All Clarke is saying is that Bush was obsessed with Iraq and not terrorism. This isn't exactly news. We already knew that. He's only confirming what every one else who has come forward has said.

His book wasn't even a Bush bash book.. in fact David Frum (an former Bush speech writer who coined the term "Axis of Evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address) who helped Clarke write the book, said their only purpose for writing the book was to try and bring attention back to the war on terrorism. Bush has lost focus and is obsessed with Iraq, when he should be obsessed with Al Qaeda.

The book doesn't bash Bush at all. In fact if you see Clarke on the many talk shows he's done.. he doesn't bash Bush at all.. he just says that Bush's priority wasn't terrorism or Al Qaeda.. it was Iraq. Which if we look at what's going on.. well, who are you going to believe.. Clarke or your lying eyes! We all see it.

Not to mention it wasn't really news what Clarke alleged because Bush is quoted himself in Bob Woodward's book as saying that terrorism wasn't a priority for him. So, I guess it's a lot to do about nothing.. in other words.. it wasn't news. We already knew what Clarke was saying. He was just one more in the long line of people saying it.

Ah, Charles Krauthammer and his magical ellipsis strike again. How about we look at the actual question in its entirety, shall we? From the Washington Post transcript (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20349-2004Mar24.html) about 60% of the way down:
Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11? The bolded part is what's missing.

That question is a lot more exact than the one that Krauthammer tries to make it look like Gorton is asking. And for a bit more background, I'd suggest you go back and look at the entirety of the testimony.

Has anyone considered that Bin Laden was planning 9-11 as a welcoming present for Bush? A while back, the CBC here in Canada aired a show entitled "Conspiracy Theories". Originally Broadcast on October 29, 2003

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/conspiracytheories/interviews.html

The show detailed links between the Bin Laden family and the Bush family, as early as 1968.

It also refers to the Congressional Committee report, CIA involvement, intelligence breakdown, and features some written interviews.

I watched part of this on TV and found it quite intriguing.

The clickable links on the left side provide the meat and potatoes. Fact or fiction? Who knows. With the way information keeps getting unearthed, anything is possible?

Let's all presume Clarke is right about every detail.
This would only prove that Clinton was wrong in not doing enough to prevent the tragedy that occurred on September 11. Clarke's testimony so far has shown all the intelligence was gathered prior to Bush getting into office. Did anyone have advanced warning that this attack was going to happen and when or even where? I highly doubt that any U.S. president who was in possession of such information would sit back and not use the most powerful military in the world to prevent it.

Let's not jump to conclusions.. the jury ain't back yet.. or even out.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040406-121654-1495r.htm

Let's all presume Clarke is right about every detail.
This would only prove that Clinton was wrong in not doing enough to prevent the tragedy that occurred on September 11. Clarke's testimony so far has shown all the intelligence was gathered prior to Bush getting into office. Did anyone have advanced warning that this attack was going to happen and when or even where? I highly doubt that any U.S. president who was in possession of such information would sit back and not use the most powerful military in the world to prevent it.Not exactly. In the world of intelligence gathering, nine months is an eternity. But more importantly, no one is accusing the Bush administration of not acting on a known threat--Clarke is merely stating that terrorism wasn't as important to them as it was to Clinton, and that's certainly the case.

The worst part of all this from the Republican point of view is that if they had just come out a year and a half ago and admitted all this--that they underestimated the threat of terrorism and that 9-11 caught them by surprise, they'd have taken a hit, but nearly the hit they're taking now by continually stonewalling and having their credibility decimated daily.

Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11? The bolded part is what's missing.

That question is a lot more exact than the one that Krauthammer tries to make it look like Gorton is asking. And for a bit more background, I'd suggest you go back and look at the entirety of the testimony.

Well... that restored part kinda makes it sound like "If we had done everything you suggested, as well as A, B, C, and D." Which seems to make Clarke's "No" even more potent.

Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11? The bolded part is what's missing.

That question is a lot more exact than the one that Krauthammer tries to make it look like Gorton is asking. And for a bit more background, I'd suggest you go back and look at the entirety of the testimony.

Well... that restored part kinda makes it sound like "If we had done everything you suggested, as well as A, B, C, and D." Which seems to make Clarke's "No" even more potent.Actually the restored part limits the question to only those particular suggestions that Clarke had made, and eliminates the rest of the suggestions that Clarke made between Jan. 26, 2001 and Sept. 11, 2001. It's a very clever wording of the question.

But more importantly--it shows Krauthammer to be the faker he is.

You know what bothers me.. is all this "lets pass the buck" stuff. Clinton tried to respond to Al Qaeda.. and you know what happened? How soon you all forget.. he was accused of "wagging the dog" to avert attention from his personal life.. and his blow jobs.. so he didn't do it again. We now know this. Don't you people.. (of course I'm not talking about "all" of you, you know who you are) but, don't any of you follow a story from beginning to end? Or at least to current! It seems to me like half the people who post either A) Have only started following politics because it's now a popular thing to do. B) Have just become old enough to attempt to understand it C) Are complete morons who can't even connect the dots.

I'm not sure which it is.. perhaps it's D) Only followed what suited their own beliefs... and have no desire to even know the truth.

*Shakes Head*

Clinton is so over.. he's not the President.. Bush is. This should be the concern, what is the current most powerful man in the world doing and more frightening not doing. This is the issue.. not what an ex-president who no longer has the power to do any thing thought/thinks/does.

Bottom line! I swear some of you need Chris Matthews sicced on you to stop the spin :x

No offence, Steph, but that's little more than a strawman. I distinctly mentioned in my first post that I'm not looking to pin the blame on Clinton, I'm looking to prevent future attacks.

Actually the restored part limits the question to only those particular suggestions that Clarke had made, and eliminates the rest of the suggestions that Clarke made between Jan. 26, 2001 and Sept. 11, 2001. It's a very clever wording of the question.

But more importantly--it shows Krauthammer to be the faker he is.

But wasn't Clarke's big complaint that the Bush administration ignored his Big File Of Suggestions that he gave them when Bush took over? I don't see this as Kruathammer trying to spin or "fake" anything. The question was limited to Clarke's suggestions that Bush had access to at the start of his administration, the suggestions that were "ignored" by Bush. The suggestions that, by Clarke's own admision, wouldn't have prevented 9/11.

So, unless Clarke had some amazing insight or precognative revelation between Jan 26th and Sept 10th, it looks like the "Terrorism Tsar" wouldn't have been any more capable of preventing 9/11 than anyone else.

Like I said, it appears to me that it would have been neigh unto impossible to prevent the attacks. And this is without getting into the uproar that would have happened if it was prevented. I can just hear the complaints of "Nothing happened; Bush lied to us!"

Condi Rice inherited 40,000 pages of National Security information from the Clintons that mentioned Usama twice and Al-Queda... never. Right? So.. Did the Bush Admin fail to act on the intelligence given to them? Doing nothing would be proper after getting the info they got, though they *did* do something. They called Musharraf about Al-Queda on the third week, and had an anti-Taliban plan before 9-11, besides shifting from policing terrorism to eliminating it, as Clarke admitted. Along with 5x the funding for anti-terror analysis.. i'd say they were not particularly to blame. This *is* what the comission is about (at least in theory), remember? :wink:

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040406-121654-1495r.htm