The Administration’s Response to Dick Clarke:

While I do not disagree with Jacob’s assessment of the statement identifying the assassination attempt on President GHW Bush as terrorism, here is the entire White House response to Clarke’s allegation. It is worth reading in its entirety, but I found the same item that includes this questionable example of Iraqi support for terrorism interesting nevertheless:

Myth: After the 9/11 attacks, the President ignored the evidence and tried to pin responsibility for 9/11 on Iraq.

The Facts: The President sought to determine who was responsible for the 9-11 attacks. Given Iraq’s past support of terror, including an attempt by Iraqi intelligence to kill a former President, it would have been irresponsible not to ask if Iraq had any involvement in the attack.

When the President and his senior advisers met at Camp David on September 15-16, 2001, to plan a response to September 11, the DCI told the President that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attack. The President then advised his NSC Principals on September 17 that Iraq was not on the agenda, and that the initial US response to 9/11 would be to target al-Qa’ida and Taliban in Afghanistan.

Dick Clarke did prepare a memo for the President regarding links between Iraq and 9/11. He sent this memo to Dr. Rice on September 18, after the President, based on the advice of his DCI that that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attack, had decided that Iraq would not be a target in our military response for 9/11. Because the President had already made this decision, Steve Hadley returned the memo to Dick Clarke on September 25 asking Clarke to “please update and resubmit,” to add any new information that might have appeared. Clarke indicated there was none. So when Clarke sent the memo forward again on September 25, Dr. Rice returned it, not because she did not want the President to read the answer set out in the memo, but because the President had already been provided the answer and had already acted based on it.

Notice that this alleged connection of Saddam to terrorism is not offered in this response as a justification for the Iraq war. I also found this of interest:

Myth: The Administration did not treat the intelligence chatter about an imminent attack during the spring and summer of 2001 with sufficient urgency; Principals did not “go to battle stations.”

The Facts: The President and senior Administration officials were very concerned about
the threat spike during the spring and summer of 2001

The President and his NSC Principals received intelligence reports about
the intelligence “chatter” during this period, but none of the intelligence was specific as to time, place, or manner, and was focused overseas.

The Government’s interagency counterterrorism crisis management forum (the Counterterrorism Security Group, or “CSG”), chaired by Dick Clarke, met regularly, often daily, during the high threat period. The CSG was at “battle stations.” If Dick Clarke or other members of this group needed anything, they had immediate and daily access to their superiors. Dick Clarke never suggested that the President or the Principals needed to intervene to take any immediate action on these threats.

Dick did not ask to brief the President on the al-Qa’ida threat during this period — or at any other time. Instead, in the middle of the al-Qa’ida threat period, Clarke asked to brief the President, but on cybersecurity, not al-Qaida. He did so.

Formal, in-person meetings among Principals were not required; unlike President Clinton, President Bush met every morning with his Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet for an intelligence briefing. Secretary Card, Dr. Rice, and the Vice President sat in on the briefings. The threat posed by al-Qa’ida and the need for a response was discussed regularly at these high-level meetings, as well as in frequent, regular discussions between Dr. Rice and Tenet. Dr. Rice and Secretaries Powell and Rumsfeld also have a 7:15 am phone call every morning and talk frequently during the day, and in this period they discussed actions to respond to the threat during these calls.

Although the threats were focused overseas, in July, Dr. Rice specifically directed Dick Clarke and his CSG to meet to consider possible threats to the homeland and to coordinate actions by domestic agencies, including the FAA, FBI, Secret Service, Customs, Coast Guard, and Immigration, to increase security and surveillance. During the Summer of 2001, FAA and FBI issued numerous terrorist threat warnings, including a warning about “the potential for a terrorist operation, such as an airline hijacking to free terrorists incarcerated in the United States.” Security at federal buildings also were reviewed for vulnerabilities. Overseas, we also disrupted terrorist cells worldwide, significantly increased security at our embassies, and directed US Naval vessels to leave high-risk ports in the Middle East and heighten security at military facilities. . . .

During the Clinton Administration, Dick Clarke regularly briefed President Clinton because President Clinton did not meet regularly with his DCI. Since the beginning of his Administration, President Bush has met daily with his DCI for his intelligence briefing. President Bush believes he should get his intelligence principally not from White House staff, but from those directly responsible for US intelligence.

I am sure there is much to contest in the administration’s defense, and that whatever it is will be contested. But an unfortunate byproduct of pushing the assessment of the self-evidently miserable failure of the government to prevent 9/11 into this political season is that all such criticisms must now be viewed with heightened skepticism given the rabidity of hostility to President Bush. Because valid criticisms will now be hard for the public to distinguish from unfounded politically-motivated assertions, the pervasiveness of rejectionism by Bush haters is likely to retard rather than enhance our understanding of the failures that led to 9/11.

UPDATE: Mansoor Ijaz offers seven questions he thinks should be asked of Richard Clarke at today’s hearing. Here is part of the introduction to A Dick Clarke Top Seven:

The 9/11 commissioners have a thankless job of asking tough questions that nobody wants to ask. There will be a broad set of questions asked Tuesday and Wednesday of the various witnesses who appear. But when Clarke goes under oath, there will be a need to get down to specifics because the devil of understanding how 9/11 became possible is in the details of what Clarke did or did not do.

If I were a 9/11 commissioner, there are seven very pointed areas of inquiry I would enter into with Clarke to understand exactly how the intelligence failures and policy missteps evolved. . . [click here to continue]