White House CyberSecurity Adviser to Resign

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Elyn Wollensky <elyn () consect com>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38819-2003Jan24.html

By Ted Bridis
Associated Press Writer
Friday, January 24, 2003

WASHINGTON ­­ Richard A. Clarke, a blunt-spoken White House adviser who
raised warnings about Islamic terrorism and biological weapons years before
they became nightmare headlines, will resign from government soon, people
familiar with his plans said.

Clarke, the president's counterterrorism coordinator at the time of the
Sept. 11 attacks, was disinclined to accept a senior position in the new
Homeland Security Department and planned to retire after three decades with
the government, these people said. He has not yet solicited an outside job,
they said.

These people, working both inside and outside government, spoke on condition
of anonymity but said Clarke personally described his plans to them. Clarke
did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press over three days.

Clarke, currently the nation's top cyber-security adviser, is best known for
his success in identifying emerging issues and outlasting his critics. He
has focused most recently on preventing disruptions to important computer
networks from Internet attacks. But he has tempered warnings about a
"digital Pearl Harbor" after some industry experts mocked them as overblown.

With much of the White House evacuated for safety in the hours after the
Sept. 11 attacks, Clarke worked in the situation room there with National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney as stunned
leaders planned what to do next. His supporters said Clarke played a central
role in the unprecedented decision to quickly ground the nation's airliners.

Clarke previously led the government's secretive Counterterrorism and
Security Group, made up of senior officials from the FBI, CIA, Justice
Department and armed services, who met several times each week to discuss
foreign threats.

"It was really the engine room of the anti-terrorism effort," said Sandy
Berger, Clinton's former national security adviser and Clarke's former boss.
"He's not an easy guy. He's very demanding. More than once people would come
to me and complain, but that's why I wanted Dick in that job: He was pushing
the bureaucracy."

Clarke also had the ear of President Clinton about the risks from a
biological attack, years before anthrax poisoned the U.S. mail.

"Dick was the single most effective person I worked with in the federal
government," said Jonathan M. Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of
state. "When he was given the authority, he would stay with something every
day until it got done. He's efficient and tough-minded. I never saw anyone
else as good."

Clarke is known for his aggressive ­ sometimes abrasive ­ personality and
for his willingness to bypass bureaucratic channels. Under Clinton, he was
known to contact Special Forces and other military commanders in the field
directly, irritating the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon.

Clarke was "a bulldog of a bureaucrat," wrote former national security
adviser Anthony Lake in a book two years ago. He said Clarke has "a
bluntness toward those at his level that has not earned him universal
affection."

Some senior CIA officials under Clinton complained that Clarke pressed them
to launch covert programs without adequate preparation or study, said
Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief.

"He gave the impression he was somewhat of a cowboy," Cannistraro said.
"There was no love lost between Clarke and the CIA."

Clarke managed largely to avoid Washington's finger-pointing over failures
to anticipate the Sept. 11 attacks, even though he was the top
counterterrorism adviser and he was replaced by the White House in that role
less than one month later.

"Dick in both the Clinton and Bush administrations was the voice pushing
this forward, calling out about the dangers," said William Wechsler, a
former director for transnational threats on the National Security Council.

"There's an easy reason why no one is pointing the finger at him."

The security council's director for counterterrorism under Clinton, Daniel
Benjamin, described Clarke as "a visionary in terms of pushing hard to
recognize the dangers of al-Qaida; certainly the new administration should
have attended to his thoughts a little more."

Clarke already has submitted his resignation letter to the president, one
person said. Clarke is among the country's longest-serving White House
staffers, hired in 1992 from the State Department to deal with threats from
terrorism and narcotics.

A spokeswoman, Tiffany Olson, said Clarke, who reports to Rice and Homeland
Security chief Tom Ridge, hasn't told White House staff at the President's
Critical Infrastructure Protection Board that he plans to leave.



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