"Former counterterror adviser slams White House, Rumsfeld
WASHINGTON (AP) — Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism coordinator, accuses the Bush administration of failing to recognize the al-Qaeda 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 Monday 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 for 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-Qaeda attack." Months later, in April, Clarke met with deputy cabinet secretaries, and the conversation turned to Iraq.
"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."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-03-20-clarke_x.htm?csp=24
