White House insider says Bush lied

Susan Webb

In explosive revelations this week, former White House counter-
terrorism chief Richard Clarke charged that the Bush 
administration had little interest in the September 11 terrorist 
attacks except for how they could be used to promote war on 
Iraq.

"US soldiers went to their death in Iraq, thinking that they were 
avenging 9/11, when Iraq had nothing to do with it," Clarke told 
Good Morning America.

"They died for the president's own agenda which had nothing do 
with war on terrorism. In fact, by going into Iraq, the president 
has made the war on terrorism that much harder."

"While the World Trade Centre was still smouldering," he said, 
"while they were still digging bodies out, people in the White 
House were thinking: 

"'Ah! This gives us the opportunity we have been looking for to 
go after Iraq.'"

In his just-released book, Against All Enemies: Inside the White 
House's War on Terror — What Really Happened, Clarke relates 
that on September 12, 2001, Bush pulled him and a few aides 
aside, telling them, "Go back over everything, everything. See if 
Saddam did this". When Clarke replied that "al-Qaida did this," 
and reminded Bush that the CIA, FBI and White House staff had 
failed to find any link to Iraq, Bush "testily" replied, "I know, 
I know, but see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know 
any shred."

On the 60 Minutes news show, Clarke told reporter Lesley 
Stahl, "Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire 
conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush 
wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this. "I 
said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been 
looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no 
connection'. He came back at me and said, 'Iraq! Saddam! Find out 
if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean 
that we should come back with that answer".

The White House did not deny this report, saying only it "cannot 
find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the 
president ever occurred". However the exchange has been confirmed 
by others.

Clarke, a Republican security hawk, held senior security 
positions under Presidents Reagan, Bush I and Clinton. After two 
years in the George W. Bush White House, he resigned last March.

Another former top Bush official, ex-Treasury Secretary Paul 
O'Neill, said in January that top Bush advisers began planning to 
attack Iraq as soon as they got into office.

The shocking core of these revelations was summarized by 
Washington political commentator Josh Marshall in his widely read 
Talking Points web log: "On September 12, the Bush war cabinet 
set about using 9/11 — exploiting it, really — to advance an 
agenda which had, in fact, been largely discredited by 9/11. They 
shoehorned everything they'd been trying to do before the attacks 
into the new boots of 9/11. And the fit was so bad they had to 
deceive the public and themselves to do it." 

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has released a report citing "237 
specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq 
made by the five administration officials most responsible for 
providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq" 
— Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, 
Secretary of State Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice.

The report, Iraq on the Record, has a searchable database. 
See www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record/. 

MoveOn.org has launched an online campaign for congressional 
censure of Bush for misleading the country about Iraq's WMDs, 
charging that Bush and his administration "hyped and distorted" 
the Iraq threat to take the US to war. 

At a March 22 press conference, Kyle Hence, of 9/11 Citizens 
Watch, representing family members of Sept. 11 victims, charged 
that the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks has 
experienced "a pattern of stonewalling and slow walking" by the 
White House and federal agencies. Hence other 9/11 family members 
demanded that the commission compel cooperation and public sworn 
testimony from top officials.

Meanwhile, the special panel named by Bush to "study" pre-war 
intelligence has not been heard from.

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The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org.
From People's Weekly World