Richard A. Clarke

Also see Richard A. Clarke (External Links) for dated articles and other resources.

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Richard A. Clarke resigned in January 2003 as "anti-terrorism czar", after serving under three presidents (George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) before leaving the White House. [1] [2] [3]

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Clarke, "an internationally recognized expert on security, including homeland security, national security, cyber security, and counterterrorism [and] currently an on-air consultant for ABC News," is Chairman of Good Harbor Consulting, LLC. [4]

"Clarke served the last three Presidents as a senior White House Advisor. Over the course of an unprecedented 11 consecutive years of White House service, he held the titles of: [5]

• Special Assistant to the President for Global Affairs
• National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism
• Special Advisor to the President for Cyber Security

"Prior to his White House years, Clarke served for 19 years in the Pentagon, the Intelligence Community, and State Department. During the Reagan Administration, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence. During the Bush (41) Administration, he was Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs and coordinated diplomatic efforts to support the 1990-1991 Gulf War and the subsequent security arrangements." [6]

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In their March 23, 2004, Washington Post article "The Book on Richard Clarke", Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus provide a profile of Clarke and comment on his recently released book Against All Enemies.

"Strong opinions are the norm when it comes to Dick Clarke. A 30-year veteran bureaucrat, Clarke rose to the uppermost ranks of the national security establishment under presidents of both parties but also managed to anger numerous colleagues with his brusque style and bursts of temper. His previous boss, former national security adviser Samuel R. Berger, has said he regularly had to turn down demands from colleagues that Clarke be fired. [7]

"Clarke's brash manner is on full display in Against All Enemies, a searing portrait of missteps and misjudgments in the war on terror. While laying some blame on the former Bush and Clinton administrations, Clarke is most explicit in his criticism of George W. Bush and his top advisers, particularly Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz. They are portrayed as indifferent to al Qaeda but obsessed with Iraq and Saddam Hussein, even in the wake of attacks carried out by Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization." [8]

"He also has chosen to release his book and to sit for a lengthy '60 Minutes' interview, on the eve of hearings today and Wednesday by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Clarke, who left the Bush administration last year after a public demotion, is a scheduled witness. [9]

"The timing is classic Clarke, according to many who know him well. Former colleagues say Clarke is a wily tactician in the political world of Washington and would be well aware of the firestorm he would cause by the release of his book during a presidential campaign. [10]

"Most acquaintances do not regard him as a partisan. Clarke was viewed as a hawk and 'true believer' by many within the Clinton administration, and Clarke himself says he is an independent who is registered as a Republican." [11]

"There were good things and dubious things about Clarke, traits that inspired both admiration and leeriness. The former: He was very smart, a highly skilled (and utterly nonpartisan) analyst, and he knew how to get things done in a calcified bureaucracy. The latter: He was arrogant, made no effort to disguise his contempt for those who disagreed with him, and blatantly maneuvered around all obstacles to make sure his views got through.
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The key thing, though, is this: Both sets of traits tell me he's too shrewd to write or say anything in public that might be decisively refuted. As Daniel Benjamin, another terrorism specialist who worked alongside Clarke in the Clinton White House, put it in a phone conversation today, "Dick did not survive and flourish in the bureaucracy all those years by leaving himself open to attack.""
--Fred Kaplan [12]

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Quotes

• "'This is Dick Clarke's American grandstand. He just keeps changing the tune,' Scott McClellan added." March 22, 2004.

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Unknowingly at the time, Ewen MacAskill, in his April 4, 2003, article "Blair 'dissuaded Bush from attack after 9/11'," supports Clarke's contention that the Bush administration wanted to make its retaliatory strike against "terrorists" in Iraq, not against al Qaeda in Afghanistan:

"Hawks in the Bush administration, mainly the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, pushed for an attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan in the aftermath of September 11.

"Sir Christopher Meyer, in an interview with the US public broadcasting system last night, said that the prime minister (Tony Blair), arriving in Washington the week after an inconclusive discussion between George Bush and his key advisers at Camp David, swung in behind the US secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, who saw Afghanistan as the prime target."

The question, then, is this: Where did the Bush White House come by the idea that Iraq was "the" threat? Peter Bergen emphasized that "the belief that Saddam posed an imminent threat to the United States amounted to a theological conviction within the administration, a conviction successfully sold to the American public" and then pointed directly to Laurie Mylroie in his December 2003 Washington Monthly article "Armchair Provocateur": Laurie Mylroie: The Neocons' favorite conspiracy theorist".

"She laid out her case in Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America, a book published by [the American Enterprise Institute] in 2000 which makes it clear that Mylroie and the neocon hawks worked hand in glove to push her theory that Iraq was behind the '93 Trade Center bombing. Its acknowledgements fulsomely thanked John R. Bolton and the staff of AEI for their assistance, while Richard Perle glowingly blurbed the book as 'splendid and wholly convincing.' I. Lewis Libby, now Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is thanked for his 'generous and timely assistance.' And it appears that Paul Wolfowitz himself was instrumental in the genesis of Study of Revenge: His then-wife is credited with having 'fundamentally shaped the book,' while of Wolfowitz, she says: 'At critical times, he provided crucial support for a project that is inherently difficult.'

"None of which," Bergan opines, "was out of the ordinary, except for this: Mylroie became enamored of her theory that Saddam was the mastermind of a vast anti-U.S. terrorist conspiracy in the face of virtually all evidence and expert opinion to the contrary. In what amounts to the discovery of a unified field theory of terrorism, Mylroie believes that Saddam was not only behind the '93 Trade Center attack, but also every anti-American terrorist incident of the past decade, from the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to the leveling of the federal building in Oklahoma City to September 11 itself. She is, in short, a crackpot, which would not be significant if she were merely advising say, Lyndon LaRouche. But her neocon friends who went on to run the war in Iraq believed her theories, bringing her on as a consultant at the Pentagon, and they seem to continue to entertain her eccentric belief that Saddam is the fount of the entire shadow war against America."

Sean Aday's The Gadflyer March 22, 2004, blog entry "Mr. Left Hand, I'd Like You to Meet Mrs. Right Hand" reveals an even stranger view on the Bush administration's almost schizophrenic response to Clarke's "revelations":

"You had to love these back-to-back graphs in today's Washington Post story about former Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke's claim that President Bush demanded he find a link between the Trade Center attacks and Iraq:

"On the same broadcast, deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said, 'We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred.' In interviews for this story, two people who were present confirmed Clarke's account. They said national security adviser Condoleeza Rice witnessed the exchange.

"Rice, in an opinion article published opposite The Washington Post editorial page today, writes: 'It would have been irresponsible not to ask a question about all possible links, including to Iraq....'

"So basically the Administration sent Hadley out with talking points instructing him to call Clarke a liar. But they not only neglected to tell him that Clarke was telling the truth, but that they were already writing Condoleezza Rice's op-ed confirming as much.

"Either the much vaunted White House communication team is a paper tiger, or they just hung Mr. Hadley out to dry. Either way, despite their attempt at a hatchet job on Clarke, they've really only made him look more credible."

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March 19, 2001: "The President intends to designate Richard A. Clarke to be Chair of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. Clarke was recently named Special Advisor to the President for Cyber Space Security and was previously the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism on the National Security Council. Clarke is a member of the Senior Executive Service, having begun his federal service in 1973. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology." [13]

"Richard Clarke [served as] a career member of the Senior Executive Service, having begun his federal service in 1973 in the Office of the Secretary of Defense." [14]

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March 12, 2003: "Career highlights: Chairman, President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board (resigned Jan. 31[, 2003]); chaired interagency counterterrorism committee for nine years; served on National Security Council staff under President Bush and President Bill Clinton, covering U.N. peacekeeping, Haiti intervention, Persian Gulf security and international crime control; assistant secretary of state for politico-military affairs in first Bush administration, coordinating State Department support of the Persian Gulf War; deputy assistant secretary of state for intelligence in Reagan administration; joined State in 1979 as senior analyst for European arms control; analyst on nuclear weapons and European issues, Defense Department." [15]

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Affiliations

• Advisory Board Member, Civitas Group, LLC [16]

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SourceWatch Resources

• 9-11 Commission
• Bush administration investigations
• September 11, 2001
• war on terrorism