Bush Admin's First Memo on Al Qaeda Declassified (Richard Clarke) [View All]

[Octafish]

From Jan. 25, 2001, here's what Richard Clarke told the Little Turd from Crawford regarding "al Qida -- not just some terrorist group."



Spread this one to all who give a damn, please.

Memo PDF:

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20memo.pdf

Bush Administration's First Memo
on al-Qaeda Declassified

January 25, 2001 Richard Clarke Memo:

"We urgently need . . . a Principals level
review on the al Qida network."

Document Central to Clarke-Rice Dispute on Bush Terrorism Policy Pre-9/11

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 147

Edited by Barbara Elias

February 10, 2005

Washington, D.C., February 10, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted the widely-debated, but previously unavailable, January 25, 2001, memo from counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice - the first terrorism strategy paper of the Bush administration. The document was central to debates in the 9/11 hearings over the Bush administration's policies and actions on terrorism before September 11, 2001. Clarke's memo requests an immediate meeting of the National Security Council's Principals Committee to discuss broad strategies for combating al-Qaeda by giving counterterrorism aid to the Northern Alliance and Uzbekistan, expanding the counterterrorism budget and responding to the U.S.S. Cole attack. Despite Clarke's request, there was no Principals Committee meeting on al-Qaeda until September 4, 2001.

The January 25, 2001, memo, recently released to the National Security Archive by the National Security Council, bears a declassification stamp of April 7, 2004, one day prior to Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission on April 8, 2004. Responding to claims that she ignored the al-Qaeda threat before September 11, Rice stated in a March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed, "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration."

Two days after Rice's March 22 op-ed, Clarke told the 9/11 Commission, "there's a lot of debate about whether it's a plan or a strategy or a series of options -- but all of the things we recommended back in January were those things on the table in September. They were done. They were done after September 11th. They were all done. I didn't really understand why they couldn't have been done in February."

Also attached to the original Clarke memo are two Clinton-era documents relating to al-Qaeda. The first, "Tab A December 2000 Paper: Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status and Prospects," was released to the National Security Archive along with the Clarke memo. "Tab B, September 1998 Paper: Pol-Mil Plan for al-Qida," also known as the Delenda Plan, was attached to the original memo, but was not released to the Archive and remains under request with the National Security Council.

CONTINUED w/LINKS, PDFs and a lot of the Big Thing that shows Bush was asleep, at best:

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm

Remember "The Pet Goat"?



Hello. This is important for those interested in restoring the United States Constitution and democracy.

EDIT: Added stuff.