Centerfield

Dissent Among Hardliners

At least one member of the current White House staff is disgruntled over the Administration's campaign against Richard Clarke, because the ship of state is leaking. According to the Washington Post, Bush Counsel Called 9/11 Panelist Before Clarke Testified.

President Bush's top lawyer placed a telephone call to at least one of the Republican members of the Sept. 11 commission when the panel was gathered in Washington on March 24 to hear the testimony of former White House counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke, according to people with direct knowledge of the call. White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales called commissioner Fred F. Fielding, one of five GOP members of the body, and, according to one observer, also called Republican commission member James R. Thompson.

No doubt the White House would like to know which "observer" leaked this information. As a former staffer for the California Public Utilies Commission, I know that "ex parte" or private off-the-record contracts between Commissioners and witnesses are considered improper.

Some other former officials (note the use of the plural) have raised the issue of a speech Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to give on September 11, 2001, which was cancelled for obvious reasons.

On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.

The speech provides telling insight into the administration's thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.

Rice clearly has made some enemies within the White House, but it's extraordinary that these items have come out from a formerly leakproof administration. I don't think this can be dismissed as normal bureaucratic politics.

This is not a right vs. left split. There is a right vs. right split within the national security community between Bush loyalists and opponents.

Posted by rickheller at April 1, 2004 10:27 AM