Clarke Book Reignites Debate Over Iraq Invasion By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post

John F. Lehman, a Republican member of the 9/11 commission, put it bluntly to former counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke when he testified publicly last week: Why did his earlier, private testimony to the commission not include the harsh criticism leveled at President Bush in his book?

”There’s a very good reason for that,” Clarke replied. ”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 . . . the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism.”

The furious charge and countercharge between Clarke and the White House last week has largely obscured this central complaint by Clarke. [mjh: which shows the effectiveness of the White House tactics.] …

Clarke depicts the president as tersely demanding that his staff look for links between the Sept. 11 attacks and Iraq. He charges that, for Bush and his advisers, attacking Iraq was ”a rigid belief, received wisdom, a decision already made and one that no fact or event could derail.” In the end, through the Iraq war, ”we delivered to al Qaeda the greatest recruitment propaganda imaginable.”

Clarke’s complaint resonates with some other former administration officials. …

Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst and Middle East specialist who left Bush’s National Security Council staff a year ago, also agrees.

”Clarke’s critique of administration decision-making and how it did not balance the imperative of finishing the job against al Qaeda versus what they wanted to do in Iraq is absolutely on the money,” Leverett said.

He said that Arabic-speaking Special Forces officers and CIA officers who were doing a good job tracking Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and other al Qaeda leaders were pulled out of Afghanistan in March 2002 to begin preparing for the war against Iraq. ”We took the people out who could have caught them,” he said. ”But even if we get bin Laden or Zawahiri now, it is two years too late. Al Qaeda is a very different organization now. It has had time to adapt. The administration should have finished this job.” …

Clarke also caused a stir last week by saying that Bush, in his secret directive ordering the strike against Afghanistan six days after Sept. 11, also told the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq. The Washington Post had reported on this directive more than a year ago, generating no complaint from the administration.

US News Article

”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 to stop 9/11,” Clarke told CBS. …

”Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, ‘America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country.’ This is part of his propaganda,” Clarke said. ”So what did we do after 9/11? We invade … and occupy an oil-rich Arab country which was doing nothing to threaten us.

”The result of that is that al Qaeda and organizations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda, have been greatly strengthened,” he added.

Committee’s Goal: ReDefeat Bush By Laura Pack, Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

WASHINGTON – The objective: register more Democrats and ”redefeat” President Bush in November.

The Committee to ReDefeat the President — redefeat refers to 2000’s popular vote majority for Democrat Al Gore — launched its campaign Tuesday with a voter-registration party at the dimly lighted Spy Lounge in [Washington DC’s] trendy Adams Morgan neighborhood. The committee is not affiliated with any candidate but is working to elect a Democrat as president. …

Lytel said that his campaign was off to ”a better start” than the Republican National Committee’s voter registration truck that was introduced Wednesday in front of RNC headquarters.

Republican national Chairman Ed Gillespie unveiled Reggie, the voter registration 18-wheel rig to launch National Voter Registration Week, March 6-13. The semi, equipped with televisions, computers and X-boxes, will travel the country between now and November to register new Republican voters, according to the RNC’s web site.

“They’re trying to substitute bright lights and fancy technology for a respectable record in the White House,” Lytel said.

Headquartered on the Internet at www.redefeatbush.com, the ReDefeat committee raises money through online contributions, events and the sale of merchandise, including buttons, bumper stickers, T-shirts, lawn signs and condoms.

Medicare Official Cites Cost Warning By Amy Goldstein, Washington Post

The Medicare program’s chief actuary told lawmakers yesterday he gave analyses last June to the White House and the president’s budget office — which were not shared with Congress — predicting that prescription drug benefits being drafted on Capitol Hill would cost about $150 billion more than President Bush said he wanted to spend.

Richard S. Foster made the disclosure during his first appearance on Capitol Hill since he confirmed two weeks ago that administration officials threatened to fire him if he directly provided lawmakers with his cost estimates on the changes to Medicare, which were among Bush’s top domestic priorities.

Clarke Stays Cool as Partisanship Heats Up By Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Shortly before the hearing, the White House violated its long-standing rules by authorizing Fox News [the official Republican News Organ] to air remarks favorable to Bush that Clarke had made anonymously at an administration briefing in 2002. The White House press secretary read passages from the 2002 remarks at his televised briefing, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who has declined to give public testimony to the commission, called reporters into her office to highlight the discrepancy. ”There are two very different stories here,” she said. ”These stories can’t be reconciled.”

Back at the hearing, former Illinois governor James R. Thompson, a Republican member of the commission, took up the cause, waving the Fox News transcript with one hand and Clarke’s critical book in the other. ”Which is true?” Thompson demanded, folding his arms and glowering down at the witness.

Clarke, appearing unfazed by the apparent contradiction between his current criticism and previous praise, spoke to Thompson as if addressing a slow student.

”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,” he explained. ”I’ve done it for several presidents.”

With each effort by Thompson to highlight Clarke’s inconsistency … Clarke tutored the commissioner about the obligations of a White House aide. Thompson, who had far exceeded his allotted time, frowned contemptuously. “I think a lot of things beyond the tenor and the tone bother me about this,” he said. During a second round of questioning, Thompson returned to the subject, questioning Clarke’s “standard of candor and morality.”

“I don’t think it’s a question of morality at all; I think it’s a question of politics,” Clarke snapped.

Thompson had to wait for Sept. 11, 2001, victims’ relatives in the gallery to stop applauding before he pleaded ignorance of the ways of Washington. “I’m from the Midwest, so I think I’ll leave it there,” he said. Moments later, Thompson left the hearing room and did not return.

Clarke served 4 presidents, including Ronald Raygun. He is a registered Republican and another outraged citizen. mjh

Telephonic Interview of the Vice President by Rush Limbaugh

[mjh: first, let’s discredit Richard Clarke]

Lush: Why did the administration keep Richard Clarke on the counterterrorism team when you all assumed office in January of 2001?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I wasn’t directly involved in that decision. He was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cyber security side of things, that is he was given a new assignment at some point here. I don’t recall the exact time frame.

Lush: Cyber security, meaning Internet security?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, worried about attacks on the computer systems and the sophisticated information technology systems we have these days that an adversary would use or try to the system against us.

Lush: Well, now that explains a lot, that answer right there explains — (Laughter.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, he wasn’t — he wasn’t in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff. And I saw part of his interview last night, and he wasn’t —

Lush: He was demoted.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It was as though he clearly missed a lot of what was going on. …

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I’ve worked with a lot of them over the years. I suppose he may have a grudge to bear there since he probably wanted a more prominent position than [Rice] was prepared to give him. …

[mjh: now, blame the Democrats]

Lush: But it’s just part of the — what to me appears now to be an obvious attack machine at full throttle. You have this book coming out while John Kerry is on vacation so he doesn’t have to say this stuff. The author of this book is associated with Kerry’s foreign policy advisor, up at the Kennedy School. You have a Bob Woodward book that’s coming in a few weeks from the same publisher. Despite all of these attacks, and by the way, I actually think, Mr. Vice President, if you’ll permit me an editorial comment here, you have the Clinton administration — if they had defended the country as eagerly and with as much fervor as they are attempting to defend themselves in all this, we might have — and I don’t expect you comment, I just — we might have escaped some of the attacks that we’ve had. [mjh: yup, craven Dems caused 9/11]

But with this frontal assault, the President’s poll numbers remain up [mjh: ?!]. The administration remains focused. They haven’t taken you off your game. …

Lush: Mr. Clarke, to get back to him for a moment, is saying that actually if we would just take some more time and talk to these people, understand why they hate us, we might be able to forge some kind of peace with them. … [mjh: nowhere else have I read such a quote attributed to Clarke]

THE VICE PRESIDENT: In Iraq, we were concerned not only about the fact that Saddam had hosted terrorists in the past. He’d stimulated and encouraged them by providing financial rewards for suicide bombers that hit Israel, as well as his past involvement with weapons of mass destruction. … [mjh: past?]

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we’ve got, obviously, a very important election here, Rush. This may be the most important presidential election in many years because of the issues that are going to be decided here, especially with respect to how we defend the country in this war on terror. And it’s very important we get our side of the story out. …

Lush: When you criticize Senator Kerry’s record, it is said that you’re attacking him and going negative and this sort of thing. I see it’s not deterring you, and so forth. But how do you plan a campaign against an opponent who will claim to have said or not said anything he’s accused of having said or not said? … [mjh: 2004 winner of the Rumsfeld Obfuscation Award; ”it’s the unknown we don’t know…”]

Lush: Does it frustrate you when you see Senators Hagel and McCain, Republicans, sort of attack the administration’s attack on Kerry’s voting record and defend it… Does it bother you to see what some people regard as Republican defections? …

This transcript appears at www.whitehouse.gov — your deficit dollars at work. Blowhard Lush Limbaugh delivers his army of dittoheads to Bush. This is not the reason Lush isn’t in jail for drug crimes. Or is it? mjh

Op-Ed Contributor: The Wrong Ticket to Ride By IAN AYRES and BARRY NALEBUFF, NYTimes

Justice Scalia had flown to Louisiana in January on the vice president’s plane. But Mr. Cheney left before Justice Scalia did, so the justice and his relatives bought their own tickets home. In a 21-page memo explaining his decision not to recuse himself from a case involving the vice president, Justice Scalia wrote, ”We purchased (because they were the least expensive) round-trip tickets that cost precisely what we would have paid if we had gone both down and back on commercial flights.” …

Justice Scalia later noted, “None of us saved a cent by flying on the vice president’s plane.” But from the airline’s standpoint, it was wrong. Justice Scalia and his family probably saved a bundle by misrepresenting their intentions. …

Justice Scalia did not say how much he paid for his round-trip ticket, but it seems fair to assume that he bought what is known as a ”throw-away ticket” — something the airlines expressly prohibit. …

[Scalia] in essence has admitted to buying a ticket under false pretenses. He made a promise without any intention of fulfilling it. Justice Scalia is no doubt familiar with the legal term for such an act: it’s called promissory fraud.

The airlines’ policy may be annoying, inconvenient and customer-unfriendly. But they can legally insist that their passengers abide by it. And certainly a strict believer in the rule of law like Justice Scalia would agree.
—
[Ian Ayres is a professor of law and Barry Nalebuff is a professor of business at Yale.]

Scalia has sneered that no one could reasonably question his ethics. Then he rolled his eyes and said the nation is in serious trouble if people think a Supreme Court Justice can be bought for the price of airfare. Well, we all know the nation is in trouble. And Scalia is unworthy of the Supreme Court. Impeach Scalia! mjh

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