Clinton: Bush Had Urgent Warnings on Al-Qaeda

Top Clinton Aides Will Tell 9-11 Commission That Bush

Ignored Al Qaeda Warnings

http://www.planetnetopia.com/forum/topics/id_3/

Clinton: Bush Had Urgent Warnings on Al-Qaeda

Senior Clinton administration officials called to
testify next week before the independent commission investigating
the Sept. 11 attacks say they are prepared to detail how they
repeatedly warned their Bush administration counterparts in late
2000 that Al Qaeda posed the worst security threat facing the
nation — and how the new administration was slow to act.

They said the warnings were delivered in urgent post-election
intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 for
Condoleezza Rice, who became Mr. Bush’s national security adviser;
Stephen Hadley, now Ms. Rice’s deputy; and Philip D. Zelikow, a
member of the Bush transition team, among others.

One official scheduled to testify, Richard A. Clarke, who was
President Bill Clinton’s counterterrorism coordinator, said in an
interview that the warning about the Qaeda threat could not have
been made more bluntly to the incoming Bush officials in
intelligence briefings that he led.

At the time of the briefings, there was extensive evidence tying Al
Qaeda to the bombing in Yemen two months earlier of an American
warship, the Cole, in which 17 sailors were killed.

“It was very explicit,” Mr. Clarke said of the warning given to the
Bush administration officials. “Rice was briefed, and Hadley was
briefed, and Zelikow sat in.” Mr. Clarke served as Mr. Bush’s
counterterrorism chief in the early months of the administration,
but after Sept. 11 was given a more limited portfolio as the
president’s cyberterrorism adviser.

The sworn testimony from the high-ranking Clinton administration
officials — including Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright,
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Samuel R. Berger, Mr.
Clinton’s national security adviser — is scheduled for Tuesday and
Wednesday.

They are expected to testify along with Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who will answer for
the Bush administration, as well as George J. Tenet, director of
central intelligence in both administrations.

While Clinton officials have offered similar accounts in the past, a
new public review of how they warned Mr. Bush’s aides about the need
to deal quickly with the Qaeda threat could prove awkward to the
White House, especially in the midst of a presidential campaign. But
given the witnesses’ prominence in the Clinton administration,
supporters of Mr. Bush may see political motives in the testimony of
some of them.

The testimony could also prove uncomfortable for the commission,
since Mr. Zelikow is now the executive director of the bipartisan
panel. And the Clinton administration officials can expect to come
under tough questioning about their own performance in office and
why they did not do more to respond to the terrorist threat in the
late 1990’s.

The White House does not dispute that intelligence briefings about
the Qaeda threat occurred during the transition, and the commission
has received extensive notes and other documentation from the White
House and Clinton administration officials about what was,

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http://www.planetnetopia.com/forum/topics/id_3/

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