an icepick through the keyhole

(continued from previous reply)

What it comes down to is this 25 January memo to Condi Rice where Clarke says he outlined his concerns about Al-Qaeda. The White House has not denied its existence, not has it denied that it tabled the proposals. At best then, the White House's defense - which is only on record from an unnamed "official" - is that it wasn't an effective plan. The best way to prove this claim by the White House, then, would be to produce the memo. Shall we call for it?

But that's not all - what about the claim that immediately after 9/11 the President told Clarke to find a connection between Iraq and the attack, which subsequently when found that none existed, the administration told the intelligence services to go back and try again? McClellan claims that there is no record of Bush having this conversation with Clarke, or that Bush was in the Situation Room on 9/12.

Q Scott, this morning, you said the President didn't recall the conversation in the Situation Room on September 12th that Mr. Clarke said he had, where the President asked Dick Clarke three times to pursue links between 9/11 and Iraq. And you said he doesn't -- I had two questions. So did the President tell you or somebody in the White House over the weekend, he doesn't recall?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I talked to him. He doesn't recall that conversation or meeting.

Q And that was -- he said it this morning, or this weekend? When did he say that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, this weekend and this morning, yes.

Q Okay. And secondly, Clarke now says that he has three eyewitnesses, and he repeated it again this morning, and he named them -- to the conversation.

MR. McCLELLAN: Let's just step backwards -- regardless, regardless, put that aside. There's no record of the President being in the Situation Room on that day that it was alleged to have happened, on the day of September the 12th. When the President is in the Situation Room, we keep track of that.

To repeat Jon Stewart's incredulity - the day after the most horrific terrorist attack on American soil, the President did not go into the Situation Room? Where the Hell was he? Can we see the records, please?

The problem is not really whether Bush could have prevented 9/11. That's just one allegation. The more pressing issue, for which more and more evidence is mounting, from Clarke, from Paul O'Neill, from Karen Kwaitkowski, that the administration wanted a connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda where none existed to justify the war against Iraq. The fact that America went to war on grounds exaggerated at best, fabricated at worst, but in any case deceptive, remains.