not supposed to be said some time ago!
Also Howard Dean!
Media Silent on Clark's 9/11 Comments
Gen. Clark says White House pushed Saddam link without evidenceSunday morning talk shows like ABC's This Week or Fox News Sunday often make news for days afterward. Since prominent government officials dominate the guest lists of the programs, it is not unusual for the Monday editions of major newspapers to report on interviews done by the Sunday chat shows.
But the June 15 edition of NBC's Meet the Press was unusual for the buzz that it didn't generate. Former General Wesley Clark told anchor Tim Russert that Bush administration officials had engaged in a campaign to implicate Saddam Hussein in the September 11 attacks-- starting that very day. Clark said that he'd been called on September 11 and urged to link Baghdad to the terror attacks, but declined to do so because of a lack of evidence.
Here is a transcript of the exchange:
CLARK: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein."
RUSSERT: "By who? Who did that?"
CLARK: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence."Clark's assertion corroborates a little-noted CBS Evening News story that aired on September 4, 2002. As correspondent David Martin reported: "Barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, the secretary of defense was telling his aides to start thinking about striking Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." According to CBS, a Pentagon aide's notes from that day quote Rumsfeld asking for the "best info fast" to "judge whether good enough to hit SH at the same time, not only UBL."Clark's assertion corroborates a little-noted CBS Evening News story that aired on September 4, 2002. As correspondent David Martin reported: "Barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, the secretary of defense was telling his aides to start thinking about striking Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." According to CBS, a Pentagon aide's notes from that day quote Rumsfeld asking for the "best info fast" to "judge whether good enough to hit SH at the same time, not only UBL." (The initials SH and UBL stand for Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.) The notes then quote Rumsfeld as demanding, ominously, that the administration's response "go massive...sweep it all up, things related and not."
More.....
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1842 "There was a hunger in some quarters to go after this fight. It was as though using force was a reward in itself, that, by putting our forces in there and showing our power, we would somehow solve our problems in the international environment. And I think the opposite is the truth. I think you should use force only as a last resort." Wes Clark
http://www.studioglyphic.com/mt/archives/2003/07/general_wesley_1.htmlAND
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/08/17/sprj.irq.clark.comments/Ex-NATO commander: Iraq shouldn't be center of war on terror
Sunday, August 17, 2003attacked the Bush administration Sunday for launching a war with Iraq on "false pretenses" and spreading the military too thin amid the global war on terrorism.
snip
"We've made America more engaged, more vulnerable, more committed
less able to respond," he said. "We've lost a tremendous amount of goodwill around the world by our actions and our continuing refusal to bring in international institutions."
He said that if Iraq "is the centerpiece of the war on terror, it shouldn't be."
snip
Clark has called on Congress to investigate allegations that the Bush administration overstated intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs.
Clark also lashed out at House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican.
snip
"The issue is the issues," he said. "What does America stand for? How do we want to behave in the world? What does it take to fulfill America's dreams at home?" AND
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/000070.htmlAnd now, the moment all you Valerie Plame fans have been waiting for: the CIA has made a formal referral to the Justice Department.
And I think we can count on Howard Dean, who has already broached the issue, and Wesley Clark and Bob Graham to keep this issue boiling.--------
Inquiry call over US agent leakBBC Washington correspondent Justin Webb says the president's opponents believe this affair could do real damage to the reputation of the Bush White House.
Democratic presidential hopefuls Howard Dean and Wesley Clark said a special investigator should be appointed.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3151066.stmAND ....
Democrat
Clark Blames President Bush
for Sept. 11 Intelligence Failures Clark, a retired Army general who led NATO forces in Europe, delivered his sharpest critique yet of Bush's foreign policy. As the newest entry in the Democratic presidential race, he echoed many of his rivals arguments for removing Bush from office.
Clark argued that Bush has manipulated facts, stifled dissent, retaliated against detractors, shown disdain for allies and started a war without just cause. He said Bush put Americans at risk by pursuing war in Iraq instead of hunting for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, pulling a "bait-and-switch" by going after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein instead of al Qaida terrorists.
He called Bush's labeling of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an axis of evil in his January 2002 State of the Union address -- "the single worst formulation in the last half century of American foreign policy."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/103003A.shtml beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan. So, I thought, this is what they mean when they talk about 'draining the swamp."
"Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than consciously to make a case for war based on false claims. We need to know if we were intentionally deceived. This administration is trying to do something that ought to be politically impossible to do in a democracy, and that is to govern against the will of the majority. That requires twisted facts, silence, secrecy and very poor lighting." Wes Clarkhttp://www.juancole.com/2003/10/wesley-clark-calls-for-criminal.html
17-Jan-04Wesley Clark
AP: "Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark said Thursday it was up to Congress to determine whether President Bush's march to war in Iraq amounted to a criminal offense. Asked if misleading the nation in going to war would be criminal, Clark told reporters, 'I think that's a question Congress needs to ask. I think this Congress needs to investigate precisely' how the United States wound up in a war 'that wasn't connected to the threat of al-Qaida.'"http://archive.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Wesley%20Clarkhttp://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/16916/Let the General Lead the Charge
By Robert ScheerLast week, in calling for an "independent, comprehensive investigation into the administration's handling of the intelligence leading to war in Iraq," Clark raised the key issue facing this president.
"Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a case for war based on false claims," he said.
And there you have it -- the basic issue that the Democrats must raise in the next election, or it isn't worth having one. CLASH OF TITANS DEBATE 2005-
Clark said that joint staff officers told him 10 days after 9/11 that the Bush administration was planning to invade Iraq. “I said, ‘But why?’ They said, ‘Well, um, we don’t know, but if the only tool you’ve got is a hammer, then every problem has to look like a nail,’” said Clark. “And they proceeded to explain that the administration really didn’t know what to do about the War on Terror, but did want to take apart a regime to show that we were powerful …”
When several audience members cried out, Clark also generated some applause after yelling “Stand up and say it! Let’s hear it! And lets hear you explain it and justify it to the families of those who have suffered the loss!”
On Prisoner Abuse.....Clark jumped in, and the issue escalated. Clark took issue with what he said were memos that came from the White House that basically said that the Geneva Convention didn’t apply.
Clark told his fellow officer that the military that he served in for 34 years “didn’t torture people. It didn’t abuse them. It didn’t punch out prisoners when it captured them.” Clark blamed the guidance from the top for undercutting the armed forces’ training.
“We never had the investigation, but I’ll tell you what, if you believe everything that has happened at Abu Ghraib, and at Guantanamo, and the rest of it, is the responsibility of a colonel or a corporal or a couple of sergeant’s somewhere,” said Clark, “then I’ve got a bridge or two I’d like you to buy!”
http://www.regent.edu/news/clash_titans_debate05.htmlAlso see....his call on investigation of prisoner abuse!
http://www.securingamerica.com/?q=node/184--------------
According to a Slate article (isn't Slate supposed to be progressive?) dated January 12, 2004, Wes Clark, like Howard Dean speaks nonsense and should not have stated certain points on the primary trail.
Clark has a "...propensity for speaking imprecisely off the cuff."
Wes Clark deemed a flake because of the following statements:http://slate.msn.com/id/2093825 /
Bush was "warned" about 9/11: "President Bush didn't do his job as commander in chief in the early months of his administration. He was warned that the greatest threat to the United States of America was Osama Bin Laden, yet on the 11th of September in 2001, the United States had no plan for dealing with the threat posed by Osama Bin Laden. The ship of state was on autopilot.
(More to this statement in the article)
(Jan. 6, McKelvie Middle School, Bedford.)
Bush "never intended" to get Osama Bin Laden: "We bombed Afghanistan, we missed Osama Bin Laden, partly because the president never intended to put the resources in to get Osama Bin Laden. All along, right after 9/11, they'd made their mind up, I guess, that we were going to go after Saddam Hussein. That's what people in the Pentagon told me. And they capped the resources, stopped the commitment to Afghanistan, and started shifting to prepare to go after Saddam Hussein." (Jan. 6, McKelvie Middle School, Bedford.)
President Bush doesn't even want to find Bin Laden "Newsweek magazine says he's in the mountains of western Pakistan. And I guess if Newsweek could find him there, we could, too, if we wanted to." (Jan. 8, Havenwoods Heritage Heights senior center, Concord.)
There wasn't a single terrorist in Iraq before the war "The president was not and has not been held accountable yet for misleading the American people. He is continuing to associate Saddam, Iraq, and the problem of terrorism. Yet the only terrorists that are in Iraq are the people that have come there to attack us." (Jan. 7, Town House, Peterborough.)
Fifty-five million voters are "ill-informed" dupes of the Christian right "Now, there's one party in America that's made the United Nations the enemy. And I don't know how many of you have ever read that series of books that's published by the Christian right that's called the "Left Behind" series? Probably nobody's read it up here. But don't feel bad, I'm not recommending it to you. I'm just telling you that according to the book cover that I saw in the airport, 55 million copies have been printed. And in it, the Antichrist is the United Nations. And so there's this huge, ill-informed body of sentiment out there that's just grinding away against the United Nations." (Jan. 7, Fuller Elementary School, Keene.)
And in another article used as a follow up to this one, same author justifies why he wrote the article....
The point of the piece, which was admittedly not clear, was to suggest that Clark may not be the "electable Dean" that his supporters believe he is. Both candidates have a propensity to make statements that range from impolitic to provocative to simply inaccurate. If you like Clark or Dean, you're predisposed to excuse these statements or to see them as courageous truth-telling. If you don't like them, you have a different reaction. I wanted to highlight this similarity between the two candidates, which belies the consensus that Clark is supported by careful centrists and Dean by angry liberals. I wish I had been more precise.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2093956 /
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