Ok Labman, here it is. I know I'm going to be accused of another long post but it needs to be settled. I've read the entire transcript on Clarke's testimony and pasted the parts where he is questioned about his honesty, his book, his briefing, his integrity. Please tell me where he said the book wasn't true? You can check the whole transcript yourself at:
http://ctstudies.com/Document/911_Commission_2.html
Questions and Answers from Commissioners and Richard Clark.
THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, as we sit here this afternoon, we have your book and we have your press briefing of August 2002. Which is true?
CLARKE: Well, I think the question is a little misleading. The press briefing you're referring to comes in the following context: Time magazine had published a cover story article highlighting what your staff briefing talks about. They had learned that, as your staff briefing notes, that there was a strategy or a plan and a series of additional options that were presented to the national security adviser and the new Bush team when they came into office. Time magazine ran a somewhat sensational story that implied that the Bush administration hadn't worked on that plan. And this, of course, coming after 9/11 caused the Bush White House a great deal of concern. So I was asked by several people in senior levels of the Bush White House to do a press backgrounder to try to explain that set of facts in a way that minimized criticism of the administration. And so I did. Now, we can get into semantic games of whether it was a strategy, or whether it was a plan, or whether it was a series of options to be decided upon. I think the facts are as they were outlined in your staff briefing.
THOMPSON: Well, let's take a look, then, at your press briefing, because I don't want to engage in semantic games. You said, the Bush administration decided, then, you know, mid-January -- that's mid- January, 2001 -- to do 2 things: one, vigorously pursue the existing the policy -- that would be the Clinton policy -- including all of the lethal covert action findings which we've now made public to some extent. Is that so? Did they decide in January of 2001 to vigorously pursue the existing Clinton policy?
CLARKE: They decided that the existing covert action findings would remain in effect.
THOMPSON: OK. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided. Now, that seems to indicate to me that proposals had been sitting on the table in the Clinton administration for a couple of years, but that the Bush administration was going to get them done. Is that a correct assumption?
CLARKE: Well, that was my hope at the time. It turned out not to be the case.
THOMPSON: Well, then why in August of 2002, over a year later, did you say that it was the case?
CLARKE: I was asked to make that case to the press. I was a special assistant to the president, and I made the case I was asked to make.
THOMPSON: Are you saying to be you were asked to make an untrue case to the press and the public, and that you went ahead and did it? MORE
CLARKE: No, sir. Not untrue. Not an untrue case. I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the administration had done and to minimize the negative aspects of what the administration had done. And as a special assistant to the president, one is frequently asked to do that kind of thing. I've done it for several presidents.
THOMPSON: Well, OK, over the course of the summer, they developed implementation details. The principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold. Did they authorize the increase in funding five-fold?
CLARKE: Authorized but not appropriated.
THOMPSON: Well, but the Congress appropriates, don't they, Mr. Clarke?
CLARKE: Well, within the executive branch, there are two steps as well. In the executive branch, there's the policy process which you can compare to authorization, which is to say we would like to spend this amount of money for this program. And then there is the second step, the budgetary step, which is to find the offsets. And that had not been done. In fact, it wasn't done until after September 11th.
THOMPSON: Changing the policy on Pakistan, was the policy on Pakistan changed?
CLARKE: Yes, sir it was.
THOMPSON: Changing the policy on Uzbekistan, was it changed?
CLARKE: Yes, sir.
THOMPSON: Changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance, was that changed?
CLARKE: Well, let me back up. I said yes to the last two answers. It was changed only after September 11th. It had gone through an approvals process. It was going through an approvals process with the deputies committee. And they had approved it -- The deputies had approved those policy changes. It had then gone to a principals committee for approval, and that occurred on September 4th. Those three things which you mentioned were approved by the principals. They were not approved by the president, and therefore the final approval hadn't occurred until after September 11th.
THOMPSON: But they were approved by people in the administration below the level of the president, moving toward the president. Is that correct?
CLARKE: Yes, so over the course of many, many months, they went through several committee meetings at the sub-Cabinet level. And then there was a hiatus. And then they went to finally on September 4th, a week before the attacks, they went to the principals for their approval. Of course, the final approval by the president didn't take place until after the attacks.
THOMPSON: Well is that eight-month period unusual?
CLARKE: It is unusual when you are being told every day that there is an urgent threat. MORE
THOMPSON: Well, but the policy involved changing, for example, the policy on Pakistan, right? So you would have to involve those people in the administration who had charge of the Pakistani policy, would you not?
CLARKE: The secretary of state has, as a member of the principals committee, that kind of authority over all foreign policy issues.
THOMPSON: Changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance, that would have been DOD?
CLARKE: No. Governor, that would have been the CIA. But again, all of the right people to make those kinds of changes were represented by the five or six people on the principals committee.
THOMPSON: But they were also represented on the smaller group, were they not, the deputies committee?
CLARKE: But they didn't have the authority to approve it. They only had the authority to recommend it further up the process.
THOMPSON: Well, is policy usually made at the level of the principals committee before it comes up?
CLARKE: Policy usually originates in working groups. Recommendations and differences then are floated up from working groups to the deputies committee. If there are differences there, policy recommendations and differences are then floated up to the principals. And occasionally, when there is not a consensus at the principals level, policy recommendations and options, or differences, go to the president. And the president makes these kinds of decisions. By law, in fact, many of the kinds of decisions you're talking about can only be made by the president.
THOMPSON: And you said that the strategy changed from one of rollback with Al Qaida over the course of five years, which it had been, which I presume is the Clinton policy, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaida, that is in fact the time line. Is that correct?
CLARKE: It is, but it requires a bit of elaboration. As your staff brief said, the goal of the Delenda Plan was to roll back Al Qaida over the course of three to five years so that it was just a nub of an organization like Abu Nidal that didn't threaten the United States. I tried to insert the phrase early in the Bush administration in the draft NSPD that our goal should be to eliminate Al Qaida. And I was told by various members of the deputies committee that that was overly ambitious and that we should take the word eliminate out and say significantly erode.
CLARKE: And then, following 9/11, we were able to go back to my language of eliminate, rather than significantly erode. And so, the version of the national security presidential decision directive that President Bush finally got to see after 9/11, had my original language of eliminate, not the interim language of erode.
THOMPSON: And you were asked when was...
KEAN: Governor, one more question.
THOMPSON: When was that presented to the president? And you answered: the president was briefed throughout this process.
CLARKE: Yes. The president apparently asked, on one occasion that I'm aware of, for a strategy. And when he asked that, he apparently didn't know there was a strategy in the works. I, therefore, was told about this by the national security adviser. I came back to her and said, well, there is a strategy; after all, it's basically what I showed you in January. It stuck in the deputies committee. She said she would tell the president that, and she said she would try to break it out of the deputies committee.
THOMPSON: So you believed that your conference with the press in August of 2002 is consistent with what you've said in your book and what you've said in press interviews the last five days about your book?
CLARKE: I do. I think the think that's obviously bothering you is the tenor and the tone. And I've tried to explain to you, sir, that when you're on the staff of the president of the United States, you try to make his policies look as good as possible.
THOMPSON: Well, with all respect, Mr. Clarke, I think a lot of things beyond the tenor and the tone bother me about this.
LEHMAN: Thank you. ****, since you and I first served 28 years ago in the MBFR delegation, I have genuinely been a fan of yours. I've watched you labor without fear of favor in a succession of jobs where you really made a difference. And so when you agreed to spend as much time as you did with us in, as you say, 15 hours, I was very hopeful. And I attended one of those all-day sessions and read the other two transcripts, and I thought they were terrific. I thought here we have a guy who can be the Rosetta Stone for helping this commission do its job, to help to have the American people grasp what the dysfunctional problems in this government are. And I thought you let the chips fall where they may. You made a few value judgments which could be debated. But by and large, you were critical of the things, institutions, and people that could have done better and some that did very badly. And certainly the greater weight of this criticism fell during the Clinton years simply because there were eight of them and only 7 1/2 months of the Bush years. I don't think you, in the transcripts that we have of your classified interviews, pulled punches in either direction. And, frankly, a lot of my questioning this past two days has been drawn from some of the things that you articulated so well during the Clinton years, particularly, because they stretched from the first, as you pointed out, attempt by Saddam to assassinate President Bush 41 right up through the end of the administration. But now we have the book. And I've published books. And I must say I am green with envy at the promotion department of your publisher.
LEHMAN: I never got Jim Thompson to stand before 50 photographers reading your book. And I certainly never got 60 Minutes to coordinate the showing of its interview with you with 15 network news broadcasts, the selling of the movie rights, and your appearance here today. So I would say, Bravo. (LAUGHTER) Until I started reading those press reports, and I said this can't be the same **** Clarke that testified before us, because all of the promotional material and all of the spin in the networks was that this is a rounding, devastating attack -- this book -- on President Bush. That's not what I heard in the interviews. And I hope you're going to tell me, as you apologized to the families for all of us who were involved in national security, that this tremendous difference -- and not just in nuance, but in the stories you choose to tell -- is really the result of your editors and your promoters, rather than your studied judgment, because it is so different from the whole thrust of your testimony to us. And similarly, when you add to it the inconsistency between what your promoters are putting out and what you yourself said as late as August '05, you've got a real credibility problem. And because of my real genuine long-term admiration for you, I hope you'll resolve that credibility problem, because I'd hate to see you become totally shoved to one side during a presidential campaign as an active partisan selling a book.
CLARKE: Thank you, John. (LAUGHTER) Let me talk about partisanship here, since you raise it. I've been accused of being a member of John Kerry's campaign team several times this week, including by the White House. So let's just lay that one to bed. I'm not working for the Kerry campaign. Last time I had to declare my party loyalty, it was to vote in the Virginia primary for president of the United States in the year 2000. And I asked for a Republican ballot.
CLARKE: I worked for Ronald Reagan with you. I worked for the first President Bush. And he nominated me to the Senate as an assistant secretary of state, and I worked in his White House, and I've worked for this President Bush. And I'm not working for Senator Kerry. Now, the fact of the matter is, I do co-teach a class with someone who works for Senator Kerry. That person is named Randy Beers. Randy Beers and I have worked together in the federal government and the White House and the State Department for 25 years. Randy Beers worked in the White House for Ronald Reagan. Randy Beers worked in the White House for the first President Bush, and Randy Beers worked in the White House for the second President Bush. And just because he is now working for Senator Kerry, I am not going to disassociate myself from one of my best friends and someone who I greatly respect and worked with for 25 years. And, yes, I will admit, I co-teach a class at the Harvard University and Georgetown University with Mr. Beers. That, I don't think, makes me a member of the Kerry campaign. The White House has said that my book is an audition for a high- level position in the Kerry campaign. So let me say here as I am under oath, that I will not accept any position in the Kerry administration, should there be one -- on the record, under oath. Now, as to your accusation that there is a difference between what I said to this commission in 15 hours of testimony and what I am saying in my book and what media outlets are asking me to comment on, I think there's a very good reason for that. In the 15 hours of testimony, no one asked me what I thought about the president's invasion of Iraq. And the reason I am strident in my criticism of the president of the United States is because by invading Iraq -- something I was not asked about by the commission, it's something I chose write about a lot in the book -- by invading Iraq the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism.
FIELDING: Mr. Clarke, thank you for being here. I shared John's feelings when I read your interviews with the staff as well, because it gave a perspective of something that bridged different administrations and really had a chance to see it. And of course, you were looking at it from different level than some of the other people we had interviewed. And likewise, I was a little taken back when I saw the hoopla and the promotion for the book and when I saw this transcript that just came forward today.
FIELDING: But what's bothering me now is that not only did you interview with us, but you also spent more than six hours with the congressional joint inquiry. And I've read your information, and, I mean, that's a very serious body and very serious inquiry -- not that we're not. But I can't believe over six hours you never expressed any concern to them that the Bush administration didn't act with sufficient urgency to address these horrible potential problems if you felt that way. Did you ever list for the joint inquiry any of the measures that you thought should have been taken that weren't?
CLARKE: I think all the measures that I thought should have been taken were in the plan that I presented in January of 2001 and were in the NSPD that the principals approved in September, September 4th, 2001. There were no additional measures that I had in mind other than those that I presented. And as I did explain, both to the commission and to the joint inquiry, those proposals, which ultimately were adopted by the principals committee, took a very, very, very long time to make it through the policy development process.
FIELDING: Well, I understand that, but I think the charges that you've made are much more -- I think they're much deeper than that. Let me ask you a question, because it's been bothering me as well. You've been involved intimately in PDD-39 and in PDD-62. The latter certainly very much implicates your own position. How long did it take for those to be developed and signed?
CLARKE: I'm not sure I could recollect that answer. Perhaps the staff could find that. To your general answer about how long does it take PDDs to be signed, I've seen them signed in a day and I've seen them take three years.
FIELDING: Well, of course. I mean, we've all seen that. But these were -- obviously 62 was a very important one, but obviously the one that we're talking about that was developed was an extremely important one, and it was one that you put a lot into yourself. And it was in the beginning of a new administration. Anyway...
CLARKE: Sir, if I may?
FIELDING: Yes?
CLARKE: There's also the issue that was raised earlier by another member of the commission was to whether all of the pending decisions needed to be rolled up into a national security presidential directive or whether, based on the urgency of the intelligence, some of them couldn't -- like arming the Predator to attack and kill bin Laden -- why did that have to wait until the entire policy was developed?
CLARKE: Weren't there pieces like that that could have been broken off and decided right away? Now I certainly urged that. I urged that beginning in February when I realized that this policy process was going to take forever.
FIELDING: I understand. And I understand your testimony that you did that. What I don't understand is, if you had these deep feelings and deep concerns about the lack of ability and urgency within the Bush administration, that you didn't advise the joint inquiry. And I mean, did you feel it unnecessary to tell them that the Bush administration was too preoccupied with the Cold War issues or Iraq at that point?
CLARKE: I wasn't asked, sir. I think I provided the joint inquiry, as a member of the administration at the time, please recall, I provided the joint inquiry all the facts it needed to make the conclusions which I've made about how long it took and what the development of the policy process was like and the refusal of the administration to spin out for earlier decision things like the armed Predator.
FIELDING: Well, it obviously will be up to the members of the joint inquiry to make that decision and judgment. But, you must agree that it's not like -- going before a joint inquiry is not like going before a press background briefing. As you said, I think your description was I tried to highlight the positive and play down the negative. But the joint inquiry wasn't asking you to do that, they were asking you to come forward, weren't they?
CLARKE: I answered very fully all of the questions the joint inquiry had asked. They said that themselves in their comments to me, and in their report. I testified for six hours. And I testified as a member of the Bush administration. And I think, sir, with all of your experience in this city, you understand as well as I do the freedom one has to speak critical of an administration when one is a member of that administration.
FIELDING: I do understand that. But I also understand the integrity with which you have to take your job. But thank you, sir.
ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Having served on the joint inquiry, the only person of this 9/11 panel to have served on the inquiry, I can say in open session to some of Mr. Fielding's inquiries that as the joint inquiry asked for information on the National Security Council and we requested that the National Security Adviser Dr. Rice come before the joint inquiry and answer those questions.
ROEMER: She refused. And she didn't come. She didn't come before the 9/11 commission. And when we asked for some questions to be answered, Mr. Hadley answered those questions in a written form. So I think part of the answer might be that we didn't have access to the January 25th memo. We didn't have access to the September 4th memo. We didn't have access to many of the documents and the e-mails. We're not only talking about Mr. Clarke being before the 9/11 commission for more than 15 hours, but I think in talking to the staff, we have hundreds of documents and e-mails that we didn't previously have, which hopefully informs us to ask Mr. Clarke and ask Dr. Rice the tough questions. And I have some more tough questions for you, Mr. Clarke.
KERREY: Well, Mr. Clarke, let me say at the beginning that everything that you've said today and done has not damaged my view of your integrity. It's very much intact as far as I'm concerned. And I hope that your pledge earlier not to be a part of the Kerry administration did not preclude you from coming to New York sometime and teaching at the new schools.
KERREY
LAUGHTER) And let me also say this document of Fox News earlier, this transcript that they had, this is a background briefing. And all of us that have provided background briefings for the press before should beware. I mean, Fox should say occasionally fair and balanced after putting something like this out.KERREY
LAUGHTER) Because they violated a serious trust.KERREY
APPLAUSE) All of us that come into this kind of an environment and provide background briefings for the press I think will always have this as a reminder that sometimes it isn't going to happen, that it's background. Sometimes, if it suits their interest, they're going to go back, pull the tape, convert it into transcript and send it out in the public arena and try to embarrass us or discredit us. So I object to what they've done, and I think it's an unfortunate thing they did. Let me say as well that you and I have some disagreements and I'm going to get into them. First of all, I do not want to go back to the bad old days when covert operations could be done in an environment where the people thought they could do something in violation of U.S. law or that they'd come to Congress and lie about it, thinking that that was okay. I mean, that's what we're directing our attention to. Perhaps there were some personnel mistakes that were made in the response to the problems in Guatemala in particular. But I don't want to go back to the bad old days where guys could go out there and operate and not have to worry about U.S. law, not have to worry about whether or not they came and lied to Congress.BEN-VENISTE: I just wanted to say that having sat in on two days of debriefings with you, Mr. Clarke, and having seen excerpts from your book, other than questions you weren't asked, I have not perceived any substantive differences between what you have said to us and what has been quoted from your published work. Having said that, I'll cede my time to Congressman Roemer, if he'll give me his time with Condoleezza Rice. (LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, in this background briefing, as Senator Kerrey has now described it, for the press in August of 2002, you intended to mislead the press, did you not?
CLARKE: No. I think there is a very fine line that anyone who's been in the White House, in any administration, can tell you about. And that is when you are special assistant to the president and you're asked to explain something that is potentially embarrassing to the administration, because the administration didn't do enough or didn't do it in a timely manner and is taking political heat for it, as was the case there, you have a choice. Actually, I think you have three choices. You can resign rather than do it. I chose not to do that. Second choice is...
THOMPSON: Why was that, Mr. Clarke? You finally resigned because you were frustrated.
CLARKE: I was, at that time, at the request of the president, preparing a national strategy to defend America's cyberspace, something which I thought then and think now is vitally important. I thought that completing that strategy was a lot more important than whether or not I had to provide emphasis in one place or other while discussing the facts on this particular news story. The second choice one has, Governor, is whether or not to say things that are untruthful. And no one in the Bush White House asked me to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have said them. In any event, the third choice that one has is to put the best face you can for the administration on the facts as they were, and that is what I did. I think that is what most people in the White House in any administration do when they're asked to explain something that is embarrassing to the administration.
THOMPSON: But you will admit that what you said in August of 2002 is inconsistent with what you say in your book?
CLARKE: No, I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I think, as I said in your last round of questioning, Governor, that it's really a matter here of emphasis and tone. I mean, what you're suggesting, perhaps, is that as special assistant to the president of the United States when asked to give a press backgrounder I should spend my time in that press backgrounder criticizing him. I think that's somewhat of an unrealistic thing to expect.
THOMPSON: Well, what it suggests to me is that there is one standard of candor and morality for White House special assistants and another standard of candor and morality for the rest of America.
CLARKE: I don't get that.
CLARKE: I don't think it's a question of morality at all. I think it's a question of politics.
THOMPSON: Well, I... (APPLAUSE)
THOMPSON: I'm not a Washington insider. I've never been a special assistant in the White House. I'm from the Midwest. So I think I'll leave it there.
