Tuesday, March 23, 2004

That dick, Clarke

Mansoor Ijaz has the skinny on Politicized intelligence. He writes, "To this day, neither Mr. Berger nor Mr. Clarke has explained to the American people why a deliberative decision [Sudan's offer to share terrorism data on al Qaeda and bin Laden in 1997] of the U.S. government, made by interagency review, was overturned in such cavalier fashion by a small clique of Clinton advisers in the face of Sudan's unconditional April 1997 offer to cooperate on terrorism issues. If he was interested in facts, why did Mr. Clarke spurn the recommendations of his own intelligence and foreign policy institutions that the Sudanese offer be explored? Why did he not act on the Sudanese intelligence chief's direct approach to the FBI, of which he was aware, in early 1998 just prior to the final planning stages of the embassy bombings?"

On the 2nd offer to get bin laden: "As the strategy started taking shape in earnest — a personal request from President Clinton to Sheikh Zayed, Abu Dhabi's ruler, seeking help to get bin Laden coupled with a $5 billion pan-Arab Afghan Development Fund that would be offered in return for bin Laden taking residence under house arrest in Abu Dhabi, with the possibility of extraditing him later to the United States — Mr. Clarke again scuttled the deal by opting instead for the militaristic solution. He pushed for armed CIA predator drones to hunt bin Laden in the remote mountains of northeastern Afghanistan."



Stephen Hayes has more here on what Clarke thought about the Clinton administration, who are amazingly escaping Clarke's wrath. Funny, 8 years of doing nothing was is not as bad as 8 months of turning the ship around.