9 Responses to Dick (Uncut) – Cheney Doesn’t Recall Richard Clarke’s Terrorism Warnings

1. TheOracle June 4th, 2009 at 4:25 pm «

   Counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke was demoted the moment Bush and Cheney entered the White House in early 2001.

   Richard Clarke, who used to chair cabinet-level principals meetings under President Bill Clinton involving counter-terrorism efforts. was forbidden from chairing, let alone attending, any Bush/Cheney cabinet-level principals meetings.

   Richard Clarke, therefore, had to fight through layers of bureaucracy to try to get the attention of top Bush/Cheney officials, who refused to pay attention during the summer of 2001 to all the warning signs of an imminent terrorist attack, with the August 6th, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing indicating that a domestic terrorist attack was being planned.

   But since counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke was frozen out of cabinet-level principals meetings, where he could have had a face-to-face discussion with top Bush officials and our nation’s law enforcement and intelligence agency heads, he had to resort to writing memos in hopes that someone, some top Bush official, would read them, and become as alarmed as he was.

   These memos weren’t read by top Bush officials. All of them, including Dick Cheney, didn’t take the right-wing religious fundamentalist terrorist threat seriously…until 9/11 and the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center. Too late.

   In my view, the demotion of counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke and the forbidding of his interaction with top Bush officials at cabinet-level counter-terrorism principals meetings was pivotal in the 9/11 hijackers succeeding…and Dick Cheney, or his chief of staff (of Bush and his chief of staff) made this decision…which means that they dropped their guard and our nation’s guard during 2001 when they should have all been on guard…like Richard Clarke was, though no one, no top Bush official, would listen to him.
2. newtonusr June 4th, 2009 at 4:28 pm «

   That’s right. ChimpCo knew an honest broker when they saw one.
3. EvilDrPuma June 4th, 2009 at 4:36 pm «

   So Cheney is stealing Gonzales’ schtick now? What a shameless son of a bitch.
4. Frank33 June 4th, 2009 at 7:01 pm «

   Thank you twolf1. But of course this leftwing thing to connect Darth with connecting 9-11 attacks to Saddam is such lib propaganda. This has been going on since 2001 when Richard Clarke was also spreading dire warnings connecting Al Qaeda to an attack on America. But that lefty Clarke was saying the same thing about Wolfowitz.

   Wolfowitz fidgeted and scowled, “I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden.”

   “We are talking about a network of terrorist organizations called al Qaeda, that happens to be led by bin Laden, and we are talking about that network because it and it alone poses an immediate and serious threat to the US,” I answered.

   Wolfowitz turned to me. “You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages does not mean they don’t exist.”

   I could hardly believe it, but Wolfowitz was actually spouting the totally discredited theory that Iraq was behind the 1993 truck bomb at the World Trade Center, a theory that had been investigated for years & found to be totally untrue. I had a 1993 truck bomb at the World Trade Center, a theory that had been investigated for years & found to be totally untrue. I had a flashback to Wolfowitz saying the very same thing in April. The focus on al Qaeda was wrong, he had said, we must go after Iraqi-sponsored terrorism.

   
   Funny, Wolfie does deny it.

   WOLFOWITZ: In case I wasn’t clear, I was not dismissive of Al Qaida as a threat.
5. Jkat June 4th, 2009 at 7:17 pm «

   well ..of course they kicked clark downstairs ..and refused to listen to anything that came forward from the clinton admin. … they were the anti-clintons ..at whatever cost .. and now we know what that cost was ..

   fuck dick cheney .. georgie bush ..and the whole right-wing cabal ..
6. bluebutterfly June 5th, 2009 at 2:09 am «

   Who wrote this script? Every torture apologist says the same speech almost word for word. Graham is a liar. He was on the Senate Committee that investigated how torture was authorized. It was not done quickly after 911 out of fear. I think Graham is playing CYA because he knew about torture being official policy and said nothing.
   ************

   ” This morning on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, a caller asked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) why he would not support a possible criminal investigation into the Bush-era torture program. Graham defended the Bush administration by saying they “overreacted” “out of fear,” but insisted that Bush’s “mistakes” were “not criminal mistakes”:

   GRAHAM: The reason I don’t want to go back any more than we have already done is because I know what happened. Out of fear, we overreacted. … They took a view of the law that I think was aggressive, and I would not have approached it that way. Right after 9/11, we all thought we were going to be hit again. So as we go back and try to hold people criminally liable. I think we’re doing a lot of damage to the country, because their mistakes were not criminal mistakes. They were mistakes made out of fear. “

   http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…..r-torture/

   COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

   CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman
   EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts/ JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
   ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia/ JOHN WARNER, Virginia
   JOSEPH 1. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut/ JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
   JACK REED, Rhode Island/ JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
   DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii/ SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
   BILL NELSON, Florida / SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
   E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska / LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
   EVAN BAYH, Indiana / ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina
   HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York / JOHN CORNYN, Texas
   MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas/ JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
   JIM WEBB, Virginia/ MEL MARTINEZ, Florida
   CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri/ ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
   RICHARD D. DEBoBES, Staff Director
   MICHAEL V. KOSTIW, Republican Staff Director

   INVESTIGATION STAFF

   JOSEPH M. BRYAN, Majority Professional Staff Member
   ILONA R. COHEN, Majority Counsel
   MARK R. JACOBSON, Majority Professional Staff Member
   WILLIAM M. CANIANO, Minority Professional Staff Member
   DAVID M. MORRISS, Minority Counsel
   BRYAN D. PARKER, Minority Investigative Counsel
   BRIAN F. SEBOLD, Staff Assistant

   http://armed-services.senate.g…..202009.pdf
7. Leen June 5th, 2009 at 5:29 am «

   Thanks for putting this up. I split a gut watching the other day. Stewart and his team are just flat out brilliant!
8. perris June 5th, 2009 at 7:20 am «

   cheney said that with a smirk on his face, it was a definate “fuck you” to clark, no doubt in my mind
• dosido June 5th, 2009 at 12:51 pm «

  Yep. I can’t wait for the day when that smirk is wiped off Dick’s face.