Reconciliation
As noted yesterday, career counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke served under four presidents beginning as an analyst on nuclear weapons under Reagan. His most recent book is entitled: “Your Government Failed You.”
Recently, on MSNBC, Clarke was asked did people lie? He replied that the Senate intelligence report said:“ statements by the president were not substantiated by intelligence. And statements by the president were contradicted by available intelligence. In other words, they made things up and gave them to Colin Powell and others who believed them. Colin Powell did not know he was lying, but he was. He was given intelligence that people in the intelligence community at the time knew was not true.”
Clarke was then asked: “What are we to make now, in the light of the political realities of today, of Senator McCain’s undiminished enthusiasm for and defense of the war, specifically this claim that every intel assessment of the time was screaming WMD? ”
Clarke responded: “Senator McCain‘s statements are contradicted by the facts in a Senate report, which two Republican senators voted for. He is a big proponent of the war, but he is also now justifying the intelligence claims of the president, which now we have the evidence, we have the proof, four years too late, that those statements were flat-out wrong. And these weren’t close calls. They made things up.
“The fact is that over 80 percent of the American people supported the president, that we were all wanting it do something about 9/11, but that doesn‘t change the legal responsibilities of the Congress to do oversight. It doesn’t change the legal responsibilities of the intelligence community to analyze and report the truth and very few of them did. One of them, the State Department's Intelligence Bureau, was absolutely correct. You never heard that at the time. You were never told that there were dissenting opinions.
“I just don’t think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and pretend that nothing ever happened when there are over 4,000 American dead and 25,000 Americans grievously wounded. And they will carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives. Someone should have to pay in some way for the decisions that they made to mislead the American people. I think we do have to forgive people who ask for forgiveness but first, they have to admit they lied.”
Recently, on MSNBC, Clarke was asked did people lie? He replied that the Senate intelligence report said:“ statements by the president were not substantiated by intelligence. And statements by the president were contradicted by available intelligence. In other words, they made things up and gave them to Colin Powell and others who believed them. Colin Powell did not know he was lying, but he was. He was given intelligence that people in the intelligence community at the time knew was not true.”
Clarke was then asked: “What are we to make now, in the light of the political realities of today, of Senator McCain’s undiminished enthusiasm for and defense of the war, specifically this claim that every intel assessment of the time was screaming WMD? ”
Clarke responded: “Senator McCain‘s statements are contradicted by the facts in a Senate report, which two Republican senators voted for. He is a big proponent of the war, but he is also now justifying the intelligence claims of the president, which now we have the evidence, we have the proof, four years too late, that those statements were flat-out wrong. And these weren’t close calls. They made things up.
“The fact is that over 80 percent of the American people supported the president, that we were all wanting it do something about 9/11, but that doesn‘t change the legal responsibilities of the Congress to do oversight. It doesn’t change the legal responsibilities of the intelligence community to analyze and report the truth and very few of them did. One of them, the State Department's Intelligence Bureau, was absolutely correct. You never heard that at the time. You were never told that there were dissenting opinions.
“I just don’t think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and pretend that nothing ever happened when there are over 4,000 American dead and 25,000 Americans grievously wounded. And they will carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives. Someone should have to pay in some way for the decisions that they made to mislead the American people. I think we do have to forgive people who ask for forgiveness but first, they have to admit they lied.”
posted by Jim O'Leary | 12:00 AM
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