E-mail:

“Rich,
You make a very good case today re how the substance of much of Clarke’s testimony is being overlooked due to the spin. But you end up buying into an interesting error he makes when you argue the following:
Clarke apparently agrees that law enforcement is an inappropriate paradigm for fighting. He noted the problem with accepting the rules of evidence that apply to criminal cases when it comes to terrorism. He was, for instance, frustrated when the Clinton administration called in the FBI to confirm Iraqi involvement in the attempted assassination of the first President Bush in early 1993, creating an unnecessary delay. He explained, ‘And that took from February of ‘93 through the end of May. And it was done in a way that was reminiscent of a criminal process. At least the FBI case was. The CIA case was an intelligence case and had different sources of information, different standards for what was admissible, and a more lenient standard for making a determination. But I think beginning then, I was frustrated by that kind of evidentiary process.’
I am the first person to agree that terrorism is primarily a national security rather than a criminal justice problem. BUT, in this particular, Clarke is hallucinating. The attempt on Bush 41 took place in mid-April 1993. The intelligence did not suggest Iraqi terrorism until late April. Clinton promptly dispatched the Feebs in May, the interviews and forensics were completed by early June and the cruise missile strikes were on June 26. .) With an accurate timeline, the law enforcement performance is not nearly as bad as Clarke suggests.
Interesting, though, is why Clarke is probably confused here. What happened in February 1993 was the bombing of the WTC. Clarke, of course, is now hellbent on closing his eyes to any suggestion of an Iraq/Qaeda connection. While he was still couterterror czar, though, years after the Bush assassination attempt, Clarke wrote an internal memo explaining that when the WTC was first bombed, he immediately thought Iraq because of the Bush assassination attempt. Obviously, that can’t be since the assassination hadn’t happened yet. FYI: Paul Wolfowitz described this incident in his Commission testimony when Roemer asked him a direct question about Clarke. Here’s the reponse:
WOLFOWITZ:. . . By the way, I know of at least one other instance of Mr. Clark’s creative memory. Shortly after September 11th, as part of his assertion that he had vigorously pursued the possibility of Iraqi involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, he wrote in a memo that, and I am quoting here, ‘When the bombing happened, he focused on Iraq as the possible culprit because of Iraqi involvement in the attempted assassination of President Bush in Kuwait the same month,’ unquote. In fact, the attempted assassination of President Bush happened two months later. It just seems to be another instance where Mr. Clarke’s memory is playing tricks.