The War on Clarke
By Larry C. Johnson, TomPaine.com
March 30, 2004
Richard Clarke must be wondering if explaining what the United States did not do in the
war on terrorism is more dangerous than actually fighting the terrorists. Clarke, the
former terrorism czar for both Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, is now being
vilified by a host of Bush officials, including Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, as a
liar.
The attack on Clarke, which consists of leaks, threats and intimidation tactics, has
become the genuine hallmark of the Bush presidency. Previous victims of the Bush
smear machine include:
Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, who challenged the fantasy spun by Don Rumsfeld and
Paul Wolfowitz and correctly insisted that several hundred thousand troops would be needed
to pacify Iraq.
Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had provided the Bush administration with a report that
Niger had not supplied Iraq with uranium yellowcake essential for building a nuclear
device. Not only were his character and competence called into question, but his family's
security was jeopardized by a White House leak that his wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert
CIA operative.
Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, who reported on
the Bush administration obsession with Iraq and talk early on of
removing Saddam Hussein. These smear campaigns were mild compared to the vicious assault
now underway against Richard Clarke. What is the truth about Richard Clarke?
I was neither a personal friend nor fan of Richard Clarke when I was in government.
Richard Clarke, in my experience, was arrogant and intense. He probably still is. (People
who know me would suggest that I am the pot calling the kettle black.) However, Richard
Clarke also is a competent professional who has served faithfully with Democratic and
Republican administrations since the 1970s.
My first contact with Mr. Clarke came during January of 1991 in the operations center at
State Department. Clarke, who was the assistant secretary of state for political military
affairs, had been denied space in the task force area, and my boss, State Counterterrorism
Chief Morris Busby, interceded for Clarke and carved out space for his PM unit. Our
two groups shared space in the back rooms of the task force area.
In 1992, Clarke was exiled to the National Security Council over a flap involving Israel.
I was told at the time that this move was intended to get rid of him. Those who hoped that
banishing Clarke to the National Security Council would lead to his dismissal from
government did not understand what a formidable professional he was.
I left government service in 1993 but continued to monitor Clarke's counterterrorism
activities through friends and former colleagues in the various policy and intelligence
bureaucracies. Some close friends complained (and still do) that Richard was too alarmist
and too pushy on some issues. While some can quibble about his personality, there should
be no dispute that Richard Clarke was an aggressive advocate for a tough response to
terrorism.
Unfortunately, politicians in both parties chose to ignore him on key issues. President
Clinton, for example, sat on the Presidential Decision Directive 39, which laid out his
administration's plan for fighting terrorism, for 28 months after taking office in January
of 1993. Clinton finally signed the document after the Oklahoma City bombing in April
1995. Clarke pushed to get it done sooner but ran up against political apathy in the early
days of the Clinton administration.
Clarke was just as pushy with the Bush administration. In the first months of the Bush
presidency a terrorism issue unrelated to Al Qaeda, which first surfaced during the
Clinton administration, came to the front burner. Four U.S. oil workers were being held by
individuals tied to Colombian terrorists in the jungles of Ecuador. The U.S. Embassy
requested the deployment of U.S. counterterrorism forces (civilian and military) to
Ecuador to help find and rescue the workers.
Clarke chaired a meeting of the Counter Terrorism Support Group (CSG) at the Old Executive
Office Building to consider the matter. He wanted to grant the request and was backed by
the Department of State, the CIA and the FBI. The Department of Defense, however, balked.
At the end of the day, the Bush administration, against Clarke's recommendation, chose to
treat terrorism in Ecuador as criminal matter rather than a military issue. U.S. military
forces stayed at home.
Clarke has told the uncomfortable truth in his book, and now finds himself the target of
the full fury of angry Bush partisans, who insist that fighting terrorism was Bush's
highest priority. The evidence shows otherwise.
For starters, Clarke presented a memo to Condi Rice outlining the URGENT (this tag is on
the document) threat presented by Al Qaeda in January 2001. While Dr. Rice insists she
made terrorism a top priority, one of her first decisions in the early days of 2001 was to
downgrade Clarke's position as the National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism. How is that
making terrorism an elevated priority? It is not. Clarke also requested in January 2001
that President Bush convene a meeting of principal Bush officials (e.g., the secretary of
state, secretary of defense and the attorney general) but this meeting was postponed by
Dr. Rice until Sept. 4, 2001. That seven-month gap represents time that, in retrospect,
could have been used to prevent the 9/11 attacks.
The Clarke bashers also insist that that no more could have been done before 9/11 than
what was done during the first eight months of the Bush presidency. Oh? If that was the
case, then why did Bush direct the airlines to lock cockpit doors after 9/11? Why did the
Bush administration decide to arm pilots, put more air marshals on planes and federalize
the security force doing screening at airports? Why did the Bush administration order
attacks on Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan if, in the words of the Bush spinners, "we
did all that we could do prior to 9/11"? Why did Bush officials establish emergency
financial task forces composed of intelligence and law enforcement officials to hunt down
the trails of terrorist financing if all had been done prior to 9/11?
The uncomfortable facts show that Richard Clarke proposed many of these measures in the
early days of the Bush presidency. Action was taken only in the aftermath of 9/11.
Here is the bottom line: Richard Clarke was right, and the Bush administration and the
people of the United States would have been better off if his warnings in the early days
of 2001 had been heeded.
Rather than attack Richard Clarke's character, Republican operatives should focus their
venom on the terrorists who killed Americans in the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon.
George W. Bush should set the tone and thank his former terrorism chief, apologize for
this week's ugliness, and focus on getting Osama Bin Laden. As one American, I
say: Thank you, Richard Clarke.
Larry C. Johnson is a member of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity. He served with the CIA from 1985 through 1989 and worked in the
State Department's office of Counter Terrorism from 1989 through 1993. He also is a
registered Republican who contributed financially to the Bush Campaign in 2000.
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