[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 24, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3055-S3057]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               TERRORISTS

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, this morning I heard the minority leader 
talking about a couple of books that have been written, one by Mr. 
O'Neill and one by Mr. Clarke. It appears there is an effort in the 
Senate to use the September 11 Commission and its work as an effort to 
point fingers, to say--in this instance, by the minority leader--
somehow President Bush and his administration were responsible for the 
September 11 attack.
  I took a post on the Senate Intelligence Committee this past year 
because I believe the most important thing we can do to safeguard the 
United States and our citizens from further terrorist attacks is to 
figure out how to improve the intelligence-gathering system. There is 
no question there were flaws, there were holes in the intelligence 
system, that we did not get as good intelligence as we should have.
  Some of those were legislatively mandated. We had walls between the 
CIA and the FBI that prevented them from sharing information. We took 
those down in the PATRIOT Act. We had problems with inadequate funding 
for intelligence, particularly human intelligence. We found a lot of 
areas with sophisticated electronic surveillance and aerial 
surveillance. While they could tell us the movements on the ground and 
pick up conversations, they were not good at knowing what was going on. 
We did not have the sources we needed inside of the countries and even 
inside of the terrorist organizations themselves to find out what 
should be done.
  I hope the focus of this body when we talk about intelligence is not 
on what political advantage we can gain. I have seen some of Senator 
Kerry's political advisers say we are going to carry the battle for the 
White House to the floor of the Senate. When we start talking about 
intelligence and trying to bring that in as part of the political 
campaign, we are not serving the needs of this country and its 
intelligence service well.
  There is much we need to do and there are lots of votes in Congress 
we ought to debate. The joint inquiry into September 11 has identified 
a number of systemic problems which contributed to the intelligence 
community's failure to prevent the September 11 attacks. There was a 
lack of comprehensive counterterrorist strategy, a lack of information 
sharing among intelligence agencies, and even a lack of military 
response to al-Qaida and others.
  There have been problems for a number of years, predating the Bush 
administration, I might add. When Mr. Clarke points to the Bush 
administration in his book and claims there were all kinds of failures 
and faults on behalf of the Bush administration, those people who look 
at his previous statements, read his testimony, and listen to the other 
testimony, tend to believe there was a lot of fiction going into the 
writing he put into that book. He has made unfounded statements that 
are contradicted in a number of other places where he has made 
comments.
  The article that appeared in the New Yorker on March 24, by Jane 
Mayer, in

[[Page S3056]]

an interview at Mr. Clarke's home in Arlington, VA, July 28, 2003:

       Richard Clarke, the country's first counterterrorism czar 
     told me--the writer, in an interview at his home in 
     Arlington, Virginia--that he wasn't particularly surprised 
     that the Bush Administration's efforts to find Osama bin 
     Laden had been stymied by political problems. He has seen 
     such efforts fail before. Clarke, who retired from public 
     service in February . . . served every President since Ronald 
     Reagan. . . . Clarke emphasized that the C.I.A. director, 
     George Tenet, President Bush and, before him, President 
     Clinton were all deeply committed to stopping bin Laden. 
     Nonetheless, Clarke said their best efforts were doomed by 
     bureaucratic clashes, caution, and incessant problems with 
     Pakistan.

  Those efforts were clear if you listen to some of the testimony. I 
will try to refer only to the testimony that is being made in public 
before the joint terrorism, joint September 11 inquiry. There were 
grave concerns raised. There were concerns raised about whether it was 
appropriate for the United States, as has been suggested by some, 
perhaps in 2001, to launch an attack on Afghanistan. Given the 
reluctance some seem to have about launching an attack on Iraq, to 
think we could muster votes or muster international support for 
launching an attack on Afghanistan to disband the Taliban is a stretch 
beyond reason.
  Furthermore, we know by June of 2001, 16 of the 19 terrorists who 
carried out the tragic airplane bombings on September 11 were already 
in the United States. Even had we been able to take out bin Laden, 
which is no easy task, we would not have stopped the terrorist cells 
already in the United States planning the attacks.
  There is a very good article in today's Washington Times by Jack 
Kelly, national security writer for the Pittsburgh, PA Post-Gazette, a 
former marine, Green Beret, and deputy assistant secretary for the Air 
Force in the Reagan administration. He notes Mr. Clarke's charge that 
worries about al-Qaida took a back seat to concerns about Iraq and 
ballistic missile defense have been effectively countered by Dr. 
Condoleezza Rice, security adviser. He notes the very first foreign 
policy strategy adopted by the Bush administration in early September 
prior to the attack was a plan to compel the Taliban in Afghanistan to 
stop providing sanctuary to al-Qaida, but that was a program that would 
take a long time to carry out.
  Mr. Kelly goes on to say:

       The thrust of Mr. Clarke's complaint is that Mr. Bush 
     failed to do in eight months what President Clinton failed to 
     do in eight years. But all he has to offer is a continuation 
     of the ``law enforcement'' approach to terrorism that failed 
     to deter the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993; the 
     bombing of the Khobar Tower barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996; 
     the attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 
     1998, and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

  He goes on to say, it is no wonder that Mr. Bush wanted a new 
approach, a different approach. As President Bush told Dr. Rice, it was 
time to stop swatting flies and to go after al-Qaida and its support.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article from Cal 
Thomas and Jack Kelly be printed in the Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. BOND. There are those who say the President was totally focused 
on Iraq and he was unaware of the dangers of al-Qaida. Well, that is 
just totally false. Was he focused on a regime change in Iraq? Did Mr. 
O'Neill say he was focused on a regime change in Iraq? Perhaps. If so, 
it was because this Congress in 1998 passed a very strong resolution 
warning about the dangers of Iraq and saying its weapons of mass 
destruction--which had not been accounted for, and particularly after 
the U.N. had been moved out--posed a great danger and that we should 
pursue a policy of regime change.
  This was stated. This was the policy of the Clinton administration, 
clearly stated by President Clinton; Secretary Albright; Secretary 
Cohen; his National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger. Well, when you go 
beyond that, it is not unusual the new administration would have that 
as a top concern. But to say they did not have a plan, they were not 
concerned about al-Qaida, has absolutely nothing to do with reality.
  I think you are going to find out as you look at the testimony before 
the Joint Commission--and I hope we will have a report that will be 
declassified coming out of the Intelligence Committee which will also 
deal with these and other questions, not, as I emphasized before, in an 
effort to point fingers, but as an effort to find out what we need to 
do to get the kind of intelligence system we need.
  If one is interested in pointing fingers and reading books, the 
minority leader has talked about Mr. O'Neill's book, talked about Mr. 
Clarke's book. I would urge my colleagues to also read a book written 
by Richard Miniter called ``Losing bin Laden.'' Mr. Miniter, in that 
book, talks a great deal about Mr. Clarke's role and the frustrations 
apparently Mr. Clarke and others had because the Clinton administration 
was either unwilling or did not have the will to take strong action to 
deal with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.
  Now, I do not think that is a necessary basis for our actions in this 
body. I do not think that is a constructive matter for us to be totally 
consumed in debating. Certainly, we did not have the intelligence we 
needed, and there were extenuating circumstances why the Clinton 
administration did not take action, did not accept the offer of Sudan, 
did not move against suspected locations of al-Qaida. Those can be 
debated by historians.
  But for some people to come to the floor and say after 9/11 President 
Bush was focused solely on Iraq is absolute nonsense. When you listen 
to the testimony, it is clear when the attack occurred, the questions 
were raised. Everybody thought it was probably al-Qaida. They asked 
questions. Was it Hamas? Was it Hezbollah? Was it Iraq? Within a day or 
so, the conclusion the intelligence community came to was it was, in 
fact, al-Qaida. So when the President and his staff retired for the 
planning conference, they had one map on the wall. It was a map of 
Afghanistan. It was a map of the Taliban-controlled country of 
Afghanistan, which was harboring the terrorist Osama bin Laden and his 
al-Qaida.

  They developed a plan. They formulated the plan, and they attacked. 
They attacked and they disbanded the Taliban forces, and they drove 
Osama bin Laden away from his training camps. We are still pursuing 
him.
  I think you will hear in testimony, if people are asked, that all of 
the available resources have been focused on capturing Osama bin Laden. 
It think it is clear when you look at the mountainous regions between 
Afghanistan and Pakistan, this is not an easy area to track someone 
down, particularly when that person has the support of a terrorist 
organization in a very hostile country.
  We note that it took 5 years to find the bomber of the Atlanta 
Olympics in North Carolina. That should have been friendly territory.
  But now the good news is, the Pakistanis are working with us, and we 
are continuing the effort to capture al-Qaida and al-Zawahiri, who is 
the mastermind behind it. We have captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. We 
are slowly but surely taking down the leadership of al-Qaida, as we 
have taken down the leadership of Saddam Hussein's regime.
  I think it is clear when you look at what Dr. Rice has done--and I do 
not need to apologize for Dr. Rice. I think if you listen to her 
testimony, read the comments she has written, you will see she, through 
her work, has earned the high reputation and distinction she has 
received as a valued National Security Adviser.
  As a matter of fact, Dr. Rice requested in January of 2001 that Mr. 
Clarke present her with ideas to address the al-Qaida threat. The 
administration acted on the ideas it made since: weaponization of the 
Predator; increased funding to Uzbekistan, a front-line state opposed 
to al-Qaida. Yet to say we did not go forward with an attack on 
Afghanistan at the time was clear because there was not the sufficient 
foundation readily developed by that time.
  The President has never ignored al-Qaida. But the President and the 
administration were legitimately concerned about the threat posed by 
Iraq, which we know Iraq had sponsored terrorism, attacked its 
neighbors, used chemical weapons, violated 16 U.N. Security Council 
resolutions, kicked out U.N. weapons inspectors, circumvented

[[Page S3057]]

sanctions to acquire billions of dollars to fund its illegal 
activities, and continued to try to shoot down over 1,000 times United 
States and United Kingdom aircraft that were patrolling the no-fly 
zone.
  Based on all that information and the intelligence provided to those 
of us in Congress, 78 Senators--and I was one of them--voted to use 
force for a regime change in 1998.
  When senior advisers and the President met at Camp David on September 
15, 2001, the Director of Central Intelligence said there was no 
evidence Iraq was responsible. That is when the President focused, in 
that time, on al-Qaida.
  There is so much to be done to improve our intelligence. I would hope 
we could leave our political battles for the campaign trail. I have 
lots to say about some of the votes of our colleague who is running for 
President. That is not going to help us with this battle on terrorism. 
We need to use the 9/11 Commission and the work of the Intelligence 
Committee to develop a sound policy for combating terrorism with good 
intelligence.
  I yield the floor.


                               exhibit 1

               [From the Washington Times, Mar. 24, 2004]

                   The Blame Game . . . With Misfires

                            (By Cal Thomas)

       At least two things should raise suspicions about the 
     motive of Richard Clarke, the former antiterrorism adviser to 
     four presidents, whose name, face and book were all over the 
     newspapers last weekend and on ``60 Minutes'' Sunday night.
       One is that Mr. Clarke's book, in which he accuses the Bush 
     administration of not heeding ``warnings'' from the Clinton 
     administration about possible terrorist attacks by al Qaeda, 
     was available only to journalists and not to those in the 
     administration on the receiving end of Mr. Clarke's 
     criticism. So says an administration spokesman with whom I 
     spoke.
       The other red flag that should make us cautious about Mr. 
     Clarke's assertions is that his former deputy, Rand Beers, is 
     now an adviser to the presidential campaign of John F. Kerry. 
     Part of Mr. Kerry's campaign strategy is to persuade the 
     public President Bush has failed to effectively fight the war 
     on terror.
       Mr. Clarke is right about one thing. He admits ``there's a 
     lot of blame to go around [for September 11, 2001], and I 
     probably deserve some blame, too.'' Yes, he does, and he can 
     begin with the first World Trade Center bombing and continue 
     with the bombing of the USS Cole and the attack on the 
     American Embassy in Tanzania, all of which occurred on the 
     watch of President Bill Clinton, whom Mr. Clarke was 
     advising.
       Was Mr. Clinton not listening to Mr. Clarke's advice? Did 
     Mr. Clinton ``do a terrible job on the war against 
     terrorism,'' the charge he levels against President Bush, who 
     was in office less than nine months prior to September 11, 
     2001?
       Responding to Mr. Clarke's allegations, senior 
     administration official told me Mr. Clarke is engaged in a 
     ``flagrant effort to avoid responsibility for his own 
     failures.''
       He added, ``The Clinton administration never gave the Bush 
     administration a plan that included the possibility of 
     hijacked airplanes used as missiles to be flown into 
     buildings. Most of their advice was general in nature.'' Even 
     if it had specifically warned the Bush people, he said, it 
     probably would not have prevented September 11, which was 
     well on its way to execution by the time the Bush 
     administration took office.
       The official confirmed press reports that al Qaeda suspects 
     at Guantanamo Bay are providing ``good stuff that's 
     reliable'' and are helping locate wanted suspects still in 
     Iraq and Afghanistan.
       Does he think there is a possibility Osama bin Laden will 
     be captured or killed this year? ``There are a lot of 
     military and CIA people who are surprisingly optimistic he 
     will be found this year,'' he said. Even so, he noted, 
     capturing or killing Osama, while gratifying will be mostly 
     ``symbolic,'' because others among ``the death worshippers'' 
     will take his place.
       The senior official thinks press reports of nuclear 
     suitcase bombs are exaggerated but he cannot rule out the 
     possibility.
       Where was Mr. Clarke while all these threats were 
     developing? He was the chief adviser to President Clinton on 
     terror. The Clinton administration approached terror as a law 
     enforcement problem, not a national threat, which is 
     precisely the strategy Democratic presidential candidate John 
     F. Kerry would pursue were he to become president. At least 
     that is the strategy he says he will employ today. Who knows 
     what he'll propose tomorrow or next week?
       The ineffective response to terrorism by the Clinton 
     administration encouraged the terrorists to go for broke with 
     such high-profile targets as the World Trade Center, the 
     Pentagon and the Capitol or White House. We know it was only 
     because of the bravery of passengers on the fourth plane, 
     which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, that the horror 
     was not greater.
       If Mr. Clarke wants to cast blame for September 11, he 
     should look in a mirror. It was he, not the Bush 
     administration, who controlled the power, strategy and 
     direction of U.S. policy toward terrorism for the last 
     decade. That we were hit hard on September 11, 2001, was not 
     the fault of George W. Bush, but William Jefferson Clinton 
     and his chief adviser on terrorism, Richard Clarke.
                                  ____


                            (By Jack Kelly)

       If the Clinton administration had a plan to capture or kill 
     Osama bin Laden and to dismantle the al Qaeda terrorist 
     network, as his former counterterrorism chief claims, how 
     come the Clinton administration didn't implement it?
       Lesley Stahl of CBS did not ask this question of Richard 
     Clarke in her fawning interview on ``60 Minutes,'' but 
     somebody should.
       Mr. Clarke claimed in the ``60 Minutes'' interview and in 
     his just-published book, ``Against All Enemies,'' that Bush 
     administration officials weren't much concerned about 
     international terrorism until the September 11, 2001, 
     attacks.
       ``I find it outrageous that the president is running for 
     re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things 
     about terrorism,'' Mr. Clarke told Miss Stahl. ``He ignored 
     terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something 
     to stop September 11.''
       Mr. Clarke and other Democrats want to blame Mr. Bush for 
     his predecessor's failings, but it won't wash. The Bush 
     national security team did listen to the recommendations of 
     Mr. Clarke and other Clinton holdovers, but found them 
     wanting, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice wrote in 
     The Washington Post Mar. 22. ``We judged that the collection 
     of ideas presented to us were insufficient for the strategy 
     President Bush sought,'' Miss Rice said. ``The president 
     wanted more than occasional, retaliatory cruise missile 
     strikes. He told me he was `tired of swatting flies.' ''
       Mr. Clarke's charge that worries about al Qaeda took a back 
     seat to concerns about Iraq and ballistic missile defense is 
     false, Miss Rice said. The first foreign policy strategy 
     document adopted by the administration was a plan to compel 
     the Taliban in Afghanistan to stop providing sanctuary to al 
     Qaeda, or to oust the regime if it failed to comply, she 
     said.
       The thrust of Mr. Clarke's complaint is that Mr. Bush 
     failed to do in eight months what President Clinton failed to 
     do in eight years. But all he has to offer is a continuation 
     of the ``law enforcement'' approach to terrorism that failed 
     to deter the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993; the 
     bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia in 
     1996; the attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania 
     in 1998; and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.
       No wonder Mr. Bush wanted a different approach. But a new 
     strategy takes time to devise and put into effect. The speed 
     with which Mr. Bush acted against the Taliban after September 
     11 indicates considerable planning had been done in the 
     preceding months.
       The September 11 plot had been hatched well before Mr. Bush 
     became president. Most of the conspirators were in this 
     country before he took the oath of office. It would be unfair 
     to blame Mr. Clinton for the parlous state of intelligence 
     and counterintelligence in the CIA and FBI at the time. But 
     it is fair to note he did nothing to improve the situation 
     during his two terms of office.
       President Bush has.
       Though there is no evidence Mr. Bush lacked concern about 
     al Qaeda, there is considerable evidence Mr. Clinton didn't 
     worry about the terror group as much as hindsight suggests he 
     should have. Britain's Sunday Times reported Jan. 6, 2002, 
     that Mr. Clinton turned down at least three offers from 
     foreign governments to help seize Osama bin Laden.
       ``The main reasons were legal,'' the Sunday Times said. 
     ``There was no evidence that could be brought against bin 
     Laden in an American court.'' Mr. Clinton's legalistic 
     approach to terror may explain why his administration also 
     passed up an opportunity to kill bin Laden in the fall of 
     2000.
       NBC news obtained a surveillance videoshot by a Predator 
     drone of bin Laden at the Tarnak Farms training camp in 
     Afghanistan. An air strike could have taken him out. But Gary 
     Schroen, former CIA station chief in Pakistan, told NBC's 
     Lisa Meyers the White House instructed the CIA to try to 
     capture bin Laden alive, not kill him.
       Can terrorism be defeated with subpoenas, dialogue and 
     nuance, or are bombs and bullets required? The key issue in 
     this election is whether we will continue waging war on 
     terror, as Mr. Bush plans, or retreat to the failed 
     legalistic approach of the Clinton years, as advocated by Mr. 
     Clarke and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BOND. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.




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