White House dismisses former adviser's charges
Clarke's allegations of pre-9/11 failures called politically driven
Sunday, March 21, 2004 Posted: 10:11 PM EST (0311 GMT)
Richard Clarke speaks at a security conference in San Jose, California, in 2002.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House is dismissing as a "red herring" charges from the Bush Administration's former counter-terrorism coordinator that President Bush has been more focused on Iraq than al Qaeda.
Richard Clarke detailed his allegations that Bush has done "a terrible job" battling terrorism during an interview Sunday night on CBS's "60 Minutes" and in a book to be published Monday. A White House spokesman said Clarke is motivated by politics.
"He has chosen at this critical time, in the middle of a presidential campaign, to inject himself into the political debate," spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "And he has every right to do so. But in so doing, his judgments -- his actions, or the lack thereof -- should also come under scrutiny."
Clarke said he asked for a Cabinet-level meeting in January 2001, shortly after the president took office, to discuss the threat al Qaeda posed to the United States. "That urgent memo wasn't acted on," Clarke told CBS. Instead, he said, administration officials were focused on issues such as missile defense and Iraq.
Clarke said Bush "probably" shares some of the blame for the attacks. He is scheduled to testify this week before the independent commission investigating 9/11. "Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism," Clarke said in the CBS interview. "He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."
According to a White House statement issued Sunday night, "The president recognized the threat posed by al Qaeda, and immediately after taking office, the White House began work on a comprehensive new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda." The statement said National Security Council deputies and second-ranking officials met frequently between March and September 2001 to work on that goal.
Note: Ah, so a White House spokesman says the NSC worked for six months on a plan to eliminate Al Qaeda, and came up with [ ??? ]
red herring: n 1: any diversion intended to distract attention from the main issue 2: a dried and smoked herring having a reddish color. Let's see: The White House dismisses Clarke's charges because the charges distract attention from the main issue which is [ ??? ]. Or was the spokesman saying the charges are a fish? Sounds to me like Mr. Bartlett, (no relation to Jed Bartlett, the fictional President on West Wing), needs a bit more work on his use of metaphors and/or similes.
posted by Richard at
Sunday, March 21, 2004
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