khaosworks | Clarke to White House: Bring It On

Dear Condi, Won't You Come Out To Play?

By Mr. Terence Chua, the sun is out, the sky is blue, it's beautiful, and we're not fools.

Clarke Urges Terrorism Testimony to Be Made Public
By Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke on Sunday called on the White House to make public his own testimony to Congress as well as other statements, e-mails and documents about how the Bush administration handled the threat of terror.

Clarke, center of a firestorm over the level of engagement of President Bush (news - web sites) in the issue before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was responding to Republican allegations that his earlier testimony to Congress contradicted statements he made last week that criticized Bush.

"I would welcome it being declassified, but not just a little line here or there. Let's declassify all six hours of my testimony," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, slamming Clarke on Friday, called for declassifying Clarke's July 2002 testimony to a joint hearing by the Senate and House of Representatives Intelligence committees.

Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said Clarke's words then, when, as a member of Bush administration he defended its policies, conflicted with last week's sworn public testimony before the bipartisan commission investigating the attacks, known popularly as the 9/11 Commission.

Clarke said he supported having that testimony declassified and also wanted testimony given in private to the commission by Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice made public.

He said he wanted everything out in the open. "The White House is selectively now finding my e-mails, which I would have assumed were covered by some privacy regulations, and selectively leaking them to the press.

"Let's take all of my e-mails and all of the memos that I sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20th to September 11th, and let's declassify all of it," he said.

"The (9-11) victims' families have no idea what Dr. Rice has said," Clarke said. Rice has been criticized for appearing extensively on television but not in public before the panel.

Clarke rejected accusations by Republicans that he was speaking out for political reasons eight months before presidential elections.

Clarke's called the Republicans' bluff. I kind of figured that this kind of call by the GOP might backfire. On the other hand, this might be a subtle nudge by the Republicans as part of a strategy to try to edge the Bush cabal out of office, but I'm not sure I give them that much credit. Still, given the pressure on full disclosure and the plummeting public confidence, something has to give.

Now let's see how far the White House is willing to go in response. In a court of law, it's easy to resolve disputes of fact as far as I'm concerned: look to the documentation. Sure, documents can be forged, altered, etc., but that aside, if it's otherwise trustworthy, and both sides are claiming stuff that was documented as it happened, there's really no reason to believe it wasn't accurately transcribed, especially if it's verbatim. The rules are different in the court of public opinion, but there's only so long you can try to weasel out of giving firm proof before you start looking like a weasel.

So when the White House mutters about how Clarke is contradicting himself, let's see the documentation. When it mutters about how the Jan. 25 memo wasn't concrete enough, let's see the documentation. Clarke has his story out there, on paper, under oath. Where's the White House's statements under oath? Where's Condi Rice? Why do they have a problem with public testimony in the public interest? Don't worry guys - I think the building has lightning rods. Don't give me press conferences, or appearances on 60 Minutes (Rice is appearing on it tonight, by the way) - give me something with meat.

Show me the memos, baby.