Shays Questions Clarke’s Motives
By Brian Dolan
WASHINGTON—Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4th, lashed out Wednesday at Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism chief who told a commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that the Bush administration failed to adequately address the threat to America.
Clarke “was part of the problem before Sept. 11 because he took too narrow a view of the terrorism threat. His approach was reactive and limited to swatting at the visible elements of al Qaeda,” Shays wrote in a letter to the commission, which spent the last two days questioning high-ranking members of the Bush and Clinton administrations.
“The blind spots and vulnerabilities that contributed to the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy were apparent to many throughout the years Mr. Clarke was in a position to do something about them,” Shays wrote. “Yet no truly national strategy to combat terrorism was ever produced during Mr. Clarke’s tenure.”
Clarke created a stir in the capital this week with the publication of his book, “Against All Enemies,” in which he wrote that President Bush did not do enough to protect America before al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and that Bush then tried to pin blame on Iraq.
The White House has launched a counterattack in an effort to discredit Clarke, who left the administration a little more than a year ago. Bush’s press secretary, Scott McClellan, disclosed Wednesday that Clarke was the anonymous “senior administration official” who defended the administration’s counterterrorism policies during a briefing with reporters in August 2002.
Clarke explained to the commission that he “put the best face” on Bush’s policies while on staff.
“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,” Clarke said.
Clarke, who was an anti-terrorism adviser to four presidents, said Wednesday that in its first eight months in office, the Bush administration treated fighting al Qaeda as “important” but not “urgent.”
Shays, chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, said Clarke was unhelpful during some of the 20 hearings the panel conducted on terrorism before Sept. 11. “Mr. Clarke was of little help in our oversight. When he briefed the subcommittee, his answers were both evasive and derisive,” Shays wrote in his letter.
In a statement, Shays went into more detail. “Clarke told the subcommittee in June 2000that there was ‘no need for an assessment’ of the terrorist threat,” Shays said. “Mr. Clarke is engaging in revisionist history, apparently for personal partisan reasons. The fact is, when he had the authority and responsibility to craft U.S. counterterrorism policies, he consistently failed to articulate a cogent strategy or plan to Congress.”
Shays also said that at a briefing on June 28, 2000, he asked Clarke, then serving as President Clinton’s counterterrorism chief, when a threat assessment and strategy would be completed.
“No assessment has been done, and there is no need for an assessment, I know the threat,” Clarke replied, according to Shays.
Shays accused Clarke of taking the low ground nowfor political reasons.
”The task of responding to the terrorist threat is too important to be lowered to partisan bickering,” Shays said. “The bottom line is the failure to respond to the terrorist threat was systemic, not political. It spanned several administrations and pervaded the intelligence community.”
Some critics have accused Clarke of working for the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is his party’s presumptive nominee, while others have suggested he is simply trying to peddle a book. Clarke has denied the allegations, telling the commission he last voted as a Republican.
John Lehman, the former Navy secretary who serves on the 9-11 Commission, gave voice to many of Clarke’s critics when he questioned Clarke’s motivations.
“I hope you resolve that credibility problem, because I’d hate to see you shoved aside in the presidential campaign as an active partisan trying to shove out a book,” Lehman said during the hearing.
“I will not accept any position in the Kerry administration should there be one,” Clarke responded.
Clarke began his testimony Wednesday afternoon with a rare apology for the deaths that occurred on his watch.
“I welcome this hearing because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the victims of the loved ones of 9-11,” Clarke said. “Your government failed you—those entrusted to care for you failed you—I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn’t matter because we still failed you.”
