WASHINGTON – Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the Bush administration of failing to recognize the al-Qaida threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and then manipulating America into war with Iraq with dangerous consequences.
He accuses Bush of doing “a terrible job on the war against terrorism.”
Clarke, who is expected to testify Tuesday before a federal panel reviewing the attacks, writes in a new book going on sale today that Bush and his Cabinet were preoccupied during the early months of his presidency with some of the same Cold War issues that had faced his father’s administration.
"It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier,” Clarke told CBS for an interview Sunday on its “60 Minutes” program.
CBS corporate parent, Viacom Inc., owns Simon & Schuster, publisher of Clarke’s book, “Against All Enemies.”
Clarke acknowledges that “there’s a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too.” He said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Jan. 24, 2001, asking “urgently” for a Cabinet-level meeting “to deal with the impending al-Qaida attack.”
“I’m sure I’ll be criticized for lots of things, and I’m sure they’ll launch their dogs on me,” Clarke said. “But 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. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something.”
The Associated Press fist reported in June 2002 that Bush’s national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attack yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions.
The last of those two meetings occurred Sept. 4 as the security council put finishing touches on a proposed national security policy review for the president. That review was finished Sept. 10 and was awaiting Bush’s approval when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.
Almost immediately after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Clarke said, the president asked him directly to find whether Iraq was involved in the suicide hijackings.
“Now he never said, ‘Make it up.’ But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said, ‘Iraq did this,’” said Clarke who told the president that U.S. intelligence agencies had never found a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida.
Clarke also harshly criticizes Bush over his decision to invade Iraq, saying it helped brew a new wave of anti-American sentiment among supporters of Osama bin Laden.
Inside Job by Jim Marrs
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"This sobering book is a vital reading for every American patriot. Jim Marrs raises so many important and unanswered questions that, whether or not you believe 9/11 was an inside job, there can be no doubt about the need for us to fight to win our country back from these thieves and criminals in high places. This is hair-raising journalism from a fellow Texan populist."
-Jim Hightower, activist, radio commentator, and author of "Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush."