FC: AP's Ted Bridis: Dick Clarke to resign as WH cybersecurity adviser

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

From: "Ted Bridis" <tbridis () ap org>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: Dick Clarke to resign as White House cyber-security adviser
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 15:27:13 -0500
Organization: The Associated Press

<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&ncid=703&e=6&u=/ap/20030124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terrorism_adviser>http<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&ncid=703&e=6&u=/ap/20030124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terrorism_adviser>://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&ncid=703&e=6&u=/ap/20030124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terrorism_adviser

By TED BRIDIS
Associated Press Writer

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.




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------