GU Interview: Richard Clarke

[grytpype]

A MUST READ!!!!! AMAZING REVELATIONS IN THIS INTERVIEW!!!!

Here's a sample:

JB: So were there any principals meetings about al-Qaida in all this time?

RC: It didn't come up in the principal's meetings. Between April and July only four of the 30 or 35 deputy principal meetings touched on al-Qaida. But three of those were mainly about US-Pakistan relations, or US-Afghan relations or South Asian policy, and al-Qaida was just one of the points. One of the meetings looked at the overall plan. It was the July one. April was an initial discussion of terrorism policy writ large and at that meeting I said we had to talk about al-Qaida. And because it was terrorism policy writ large Wolfowitz said we have to talk about Iraqi terrorism and I said that's interesting because there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States. There hasn't been any for 8 years. And he said something derisive about how I shouldn't believe the CIA and FBI, that they've been wrong. And I said if you know more than I know tell me what it is, because I've been doing this for 8 years and I don't know about any Iraqi-sponsored terrorism against the US since 1993. When I said let's start talking about Bin Laden, he said Bin Laden couldn't possibly have attacked the World Trade Centre in '93. One little terrorist group like that couldn't possibly have staged that operation. It must have been Iraq.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1175817,00.html

[whistle]

1. So, BushCo went to war with Iraq because...

...they knew they could win and the president, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld could all be "hot dogs"!

[Chicago Democrat]

2. Its the best!

juicy bits


JB: So what were all the principal's meetings about then?

RC: There were a lot of meetings on 'Star Wars'. We had a lot of meetings about Russia policy, because Condi is a Russian specialist. There were a lot of meetings on China.

JB: And after the February meeting any more on Iraq?

RC: Yes there were many more, it was central. The buzz in national security staff administration wanted to go after Iraq.

JB: Do you think they came into office with that as a plan?

RC: If you look at the so-called Vulcans group talked about publicly in seminars in Washington. They clearly wanted to go after Iraq and they clearly wanted to do this reshaping of the middle east and they used the tragedy of 9/11 as an excuse to test their theories.

JB: Do you think President Bush was already on board when he came to office.

RC: I think he was. He got his international education from the Vulcans group the previous year. They were people like Richard Perle, Jim Woolsey, Paul Wolfowitz. They were all espousing this stuff. So he probably had been persuaded. He certainly wasn't hearing any contrary view during this education process.

[Chicago Democrat]

4. This is the first I've heard of Vulcan Group! Is Bush a Trekie?

Bush must have come up with this name!

IS BUSH A TREKie!???

Run screaming! Wait! maybe he could come to my Dungeons and Dragons convention!!

[librechik]

5. look up "Rise of the Vulcans" at Amazon.

it tells the whole story

[Chicago Democrat]

3. More incredibly embarrassing details...

What great papers they have in the UK! God save the queen! Down with Tony Blair!

JB: Do you believe they felt they had to finish what Bush's father started?

RC: That's a big part of it. For Wolfowitz and Cheney feels some guilt for having stopped the war, a couple of days early, not that we should have marched on Baghdad but at least we should have gone after the Republican Guard.

JB: Do you believe there were also political motives.

RC: You have to bifurcate the White House team between the national security types and the political types. For the political types like Karl Rove this has been a godsend. They ran on the war in the congressional elections two years ago. They're running on the war now. They're painting this election as a vote on terrorism, a vote against Osama Bin Laden. And they're succeeding to a certain extent because 70 per cent of American people last year thought that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. But the political benefit clearly a secondary benefit.

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I love the British people

So worth a full read dontcha know?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1175817,00.html

[grytpype]

6. kick

Read this if you haven't read it yet. Clarke is confirming most of our non-tin-foil-hat suspicions.