Transcript of interview with ex-Bush cybersecurity coordinator

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Richard Clarke (misspelled in transcript) was the Bush administration's 
cybersecurity coordinator:
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-993594.html

He was Clinton's counter-terrorism coordinator but demoted under Bush to just 
cybersecurity. Here's what Clarke is doing now (and of course he has a new book 
out):
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/degreeprog/courses.nsf/aba163361f7adf748525676600686c40/0b4023202c0b1f8f85256e06000af9ee?OpenDocument
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/degreeprog/courses.nsf/0/4548cb72b5f5d6c985256e06000afe33?OpenDocument&ExpandSection=1

-Declan

---

THE WHITE HOUSE

                         Office of the Press Secretary
_____________________________________________________________________
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE
At 8:00 p.m. EST
March 21, 2004

                                  INTERVIEW OF
                 DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR STEVE HADLEY
                       BY LESLIE STAHL, CBS, "60 MINUTES"

                                  EEOB Studio

                                 March 19, 2004

8:17 A.M. EST

     Q    How would you describe the President's handling of the war on
terrorism since 9/11?

     MR. HADLEY:  He's obviously made the war on terrorism the centerpiece, or a
centerpiece of his foreign policy.  I think his great insight was really
twofold:  one, the notion that we had to not only take the war to the
terrorists, you had to button-up and defend the homeland, but you needed to go
on offense, you needed to take the war on terrorism to the enemy, to al Qaeda.
And second of all, we needed to eliminate the safe havens for al Qaeda.  And
that's why it was so important when he said that if you harbor a terrorist,
you'll be treated as a terrorist.

     And so it's been a combination of taking the war to the enemy and hardening
up the United States.

     Q    Dick Clark, he was the administration's top official on
counter-terrorism -- in the Clinton years he was a terrorism czar.  How would
you describe the job he did?  And him, personally, too?

     MR. HADLEY:  Look, Dick is very dedicated, very knowledgeable about this
issue.  When the President came into office, one of the decisions we made was to
keep Mr. Clark and his counter-terrorism group intact, bring them into the new
administration -- a really unprecedented decision, very unusual when there has
been a transition that involves a change of party.  We did that because we knew
al Qaeda was a priority, that there was a risk that we would be attacked and we
wanted an experienced team to try and identify the risk, take actions to disrupt
the terrorists -- and if an event, an attack were to succeed, to be an
experienced crisis management team to support the President.

     Q    Now, of course, Clinton held him over -- he came in with Reagan,
stayed with the first Bush administration.  Clinton kept him over, and then this
President Bush kept him over.  So I'm assuming -- you tell me -- that he was
doing a good job?

     MR. HADLEY:  He did.  One of the things, though, we did was to give him
some new guidance, and we actually asked Mr. Clark and his team to do two
things.  One, to continue to pursue aggressively the policy we inherited, to use
all the existing authorities and resources we had to identify risks of terrorist
attack, disrupt those potential attacks.

     So we asked him to continue to move aggressively against al Qaeda, but we
also at the same time asked him to develop a more aggressive strategy against al
Qaeda -- a strategy that was intended not just to roll back al Qaeda, but to
eliminate al Qaeda as a threat to the United States; not simply to confine al
Qaeda in its sanctuary in Afghanistan, but actually to end that sanctuary as
part of the President's desire to take the fight to the enemy.

     So we asked him to do two things:  continue to move aggressively using
existing authorities and capabilities, but also to develop a new strategy that
would eliminate this threat.

     Q    Well, one of the major thrusts of Dick Clark's book is that despite
his warnings -- repeatedly, from day one of the Bush administration -- of the al
Qaeda threat, despite warnings from the CIA Director Tenet directly to the
President, and Dick's warnings to your NSC staff and other senior officials, the
President did not put terrorism and al Qaeda at the top of his list of
priorities -- other things were ahead of it.

     MR. HADLEY:  That's just not true.  The President heard those warnings; the
President met daily with his chief of intelligence, the Director of Central
Intelligence, George Tenet and his staff; he heard through Mr. Tenet and tracked
closely the intelligence we had on al Qaeda and the potential threat that al
Qaeda posed.  He also -- very early on Dr. Rice directed that Mr. Clark and his
team prepare the more aggressive strategy that I talked about.

     And the President followed that work through Dr. Rice.  He really wanted
his senior people -- his senior intelligence official, his senior foreign policy
advisor --personally engaged.  Tenet was to run the intelligence side, Dr. Rice
was to run the policy side, and they kept him fully informed.  And at one point,
the President became somewhat impatient with us, he said, I'm tired of swatting
flies, where is my new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda.  So the President was
informed

?-

     Q    When was that?  Do you remember?

     MR. HADLEY:  It was probably April or May of 2000 [sic].  We had told him
-- Dr. Rice had told the President that, we are pursuing a more aggressive
strategy, and he wanted to see it and he wanted us to get on with it.  So he was
informed, he was pushing us; al Qaeda was an important priority; the war on
terror was an important priority from the very beginning of the administration.

     Q    In the book, Dick Clark says that on January 24, 2001, four days after
the inauguration, he sent a memo to your boss, Condoleezza Rice -- I'm sure you
saw it -- asking for a high-level, Cabinet-level meeting to elevate everybody's
alertness on the threat of al Qaeda.  And he asked for that meeting repeatedly.
He felt having that high-level meeting was important to get everybody's sense of
awareness up.  And he didn't get the meeting for nine months, and that that was
an indication of where all of this was on the President's list of priorities.
He said missile defense was ahead of it, other Cold War issues were ahead of it.

     MR. HADLEY:  Mr. Clark and his team had already succeeded in elevating the
concern about al Qaeda.  All the National Security Council principals --
Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor -- all had
extensive briefings on al Qaeda, some from Mr. Clark, some from the intelligence
community, before they came into office.

     The President, from his first day in office, was meeting with his Director
of Central Intelligence, getting intelligence briefings on terrorism and al
Qaeda.  So the threat was already raised.

     Q    Well, what about the Cabinet --

     MR. HADLEY:  What Dick wanted was a Cabinet meeting, a meeting of the
principals to launch a study.  We didn't need a meeting of the principals to
launch a study and develop a new strategy.  Condi -- Dr. Rice directed that in
the first week of the administration.

     Q    He says not a study, he says he wanted to make all the relevant
Cabinet heads conscious, aware, alert, so that if anything was happening at the
lower levels it would bubble up because the senior person was going back and
saying, I care about this.

     MR. HADLEY:  They were aware.  They were alert.  They were sending the
message that they did care.  They directed that a strategy -- not a study -- be
made, a strategy be developed that would eliminate al Qaeda.  They turned to
their deputies, the number two person in each agency -- Paul Wolfowitz for
Defense, Rich Armitage for State, John McLaughlin for DCI -- they invested with
those people to develop this more aggressive strategy.  These were people who
reported daily to the Cabinet officials -- that way they were aware, and we were
aware, that the strategy we developed was consistent with the principals.

     So they were engaged.  The President was informed.  The President was aware
through Dr. Rice of the strategy development that was going on.  And to the
extent we got guidance from him, it was, hurry up, this is a priority, get it
done.

     Q    He writes in the book that over the summer -- June, July and August --
he writes that over the summer -- June, July, August of 2001 -- there was
intelligence chatter that something big was going to happen against a U.S.
target.  So this is leading up to 9/11.  And he still says in the book that he
could not get the President and other senior people to focus on this.

     In the Clinton years when there was this kind of chatter, the President
directed everyone -- as Dick says -- to the battle stations.  And that meant
that whatever was going on at the lower levels was going to bubble up.  But
because President Bush didn't direct everybody to the battle stations when the
chatter came up then, things that were down in the bowels of the Departments --
at the FBI, at the CIA -- did not bubble up.

     MR. HADLEY:  We were at battle stations in the summer.  There was
intelligence reporting.  It was not intelligence reporting on an attack on the
United States, interestingly enough.  All the chatter was of an attack, a
potential al Qaeda attack overseas.  There was virtually no intelligence of a
specific threat to the homeland.  And so all our attention during that time
period was directed overseas.  We were at battle stations.

     But, interestingly enough, the President got concerned about whether there
was the possibility of an attack on the homeland.  And he asked the intelligence
community, look hard, see if we're missing something about a threat to the
homeland.  And, in addition, Dr. Rice, after talking to the President, came back
in that summer period and directed Mr. Clark to pull together all the domestic
agencies to make sure that we were prepared in the event that, despite the
absence of an intelligence warning, there was the likelihood of an attack on the
homeland.

     And at that point, various alerts went out, from the Federal Aviation
Administration to the FBI, saying, the intelligence suggests a threat overseas,
we don't want to be caught unprepared, we don't want to rule out the possibility
of a threat to the homeland and, therefore, preparatory steps need to be made.

     So the President put us on battle stations.  He worked through Dr. Rice,
who was in daily phone conversations with her colleagues -- Secretary Powell,
Secretary Rumsfeld, Director Tenet -- and she was giving guidance to Dick Clark
as to what we needed to do in that period.

     Q    Now, he's the top terrorism official in this administration at that
point.  He says you didn't go to battle stations.  He says you didn't.  In fact,
it's a big criticism in the book.

     MR. HADLEY:  Well, I think that's just wrong.  And the interesting thing
about it is that he was being given guidance and direction, he was very active
during that period.  The President --

     Q    No, he says that, but he says -- he says he was active and he did the
very things you say, but he says you didn't go to battle stations and it's a big
criticism in the book.

     MR. HADLEY:  I don't know what more we could have done in that period of
time.  We were getting the intelligence, we were directing the intelligence
agencies to try and identify threats not only overseas, here at home.  A series
of actions was taken to prepare our forces overseas for a potential attack, to
lock down our embassies, to give warnings to Americans overseas about the risk
of attack, and, again, the steps that, actually, Dr. Rice directed in
consultation with the President to try and increase our preparedness here at
home.

     So I just -- I can't --

     Q    He says --

     MR. HADLEY:  -- for every perception we have, we were at battle stations
trying to prepare for the possibility of an attack.

     Q    He says battle stations means the Cabinet meets every day on that
issue -- that's what Clinton did and he says that's what should have been done.

     MR. HADLEY:  In some sense, it was better, because Dr. Rice was on the
phone, not just every day but, if necessary, every hour with his Cabinet -- with
her Cabinet officials that are on the National Security Council.

     You know, one of the problems is you don't want to substitute --

     Q    With the Cabinet-level?

     MR. HADLEY:  -- you don't want to substitute meetings for action.  And in
that phase, we were in an active mode, taking intelligence, reacting to
intelligence; giving direction to the State Department to do things overseas
with embassies, to the Defense Department to do things overseas with forces.  We
didn't need formal meetings, we had a mechanism for action.  And that was -- Dr.
Rice was the coordinator on the policy side, she was in real-time communication
with Secretary Powell, Secretary Rumsfeld; and George Tenet was working the
issue hard on the intelligence side.

     Remember, this is a President who manages through his line managers,
through those individuals who the Congress of the United States has confirmed to
be responsible for state, defense and intelligence.  The National Security
Council staff is a staff function.  But these are the line managers that are
responsible for doing the things necessary to defend the country, and Dr. Rice,
at the President's direction, was working directly with them in real-time during
this period of the summer.

     Q    Okay, now we go up to 9/11, we've had the tragic attack.  Dick Clark
says that one day later, 9/12, the President pulls him aside and says, I want
you to go find this link between 9/11 and Iraq.  And according to the book, Dick
Clark says, there isn't a link.  And the President, in effect, says, go out,
look again and find one.

     MR. HADLEY:  Well, we've tried to find evidence of an incident that would
meet the description of Mr. Clark and so far, quite frankly, I haven't seen it.
Let me put in --

     Q    Well, it was just a communication between the two, according to the
book.

     MR. HADLEY:  I'm not sure that that happened.  The point, I think, is that
of course the President was trying to find out who  caused 9/11, that's what you
would expect him to do.  And he couldn't rule out the possibility that it might
have been Iraq, and he asked for the intelligence that we had on a possible link
between Iraq and 9/11.

     On or about the 15th of September, the President convened his Cabinet
ministers out at Camp David.  And the question on the table was what to do in
response to the 9/11 attack.  And at that time, the President was advised that
there was no intelligence that would link Iraq to the 9/11 attack.  And at that
meeting, therefore, despite suggestions from some that Iraq might be a target of
response to 9/11, the President decided that he was not going to do that -- he
was going to focus on al Qaeda, and he was going to focus on Afghanistan.  And
he made that judgment because, in part, there was no evidence linking Iraq to
9/11.

     Subsequent to that --

     Q    Yes, but --

     MR. HADLEY:  -- over the subsequent weeks, we obviously wanted to make sure
that there was no late emerging evidence that would link al Qaeda with the 9/11
attacks -- sorry, the 9/11 attack with Iraq.  And the reason we did that, of
course, was because if some evidence emerged that Iraq was behind the 9/11
attack, then that might change the decision that the President made, which was
not to take action against Iraq.  So we were worried about, and watching to make
sure that our intelligence judgment is right, so that the policy decision that
the President made, based on that intelligence, didn't need to be re-looked at.
And in those subsequent weeks, no evidence emerged linking Iraq to 9/11, and
therefore the President stood by his decision.  The response to 9/11 was going
to be against al Qaeda and to eliminate the sanctuary of al Qaeda in
Afghanistan.

     Q    Okay, let's go back and do a little parsing out.  According to Dick
Clark, when the President asked him to go look at it again, the link between
9/11 and Iraq, Clark said, we've already looked at it and there is no link;
we've done that.  And the President, according to Dick, was kind of angry, and
according to Dick, in effect said, go find me the link; that's the wrong answer.
And then he says he sent a memo again, after he did look again, saying, there is
no link.  And you bounced the memo back to him that said, in effect -- these may
not be the exact words, but in effect -- that's the wrong answer, that there's
no link; look yet again.

     MR. HADLEY:  That's just not true, just not true.  First, we cannot find
evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clark and the President ever
occurred.

     Q    Now can I interrupt you for one second?  We have done our own work on
that, ourselves.  And we have two sources who tell us, independently of Dick
Clark, that there was this encounter.  One of them was an actual witness.

     MR. HADLEY:  I stand on what I said.  A notion that the President met with
Mr. Clark in the Situation Room on September 12th, I just can't confirm that by
what we know about the President's movements that night.

     But the point I think we're missing in this is, of course the President
wanted to know if there was any evidence linking Iraq to 9/11.  The President
could not rule out any potential source, wanted the best intelligence he can --
he could get to find out who was responsible for this terrible act.

     On September 15th at Camp David he gets a report.  Everything indicates
it's al Qaeda, nothing indicates it's Iraq.  And he takes a decision on that
point not to go after Iraq.  The response to 9/11 is going to be al Qaeda and
Afghanistan.  And off course, after that, when Dick Clark comes forward with a
memo, saying there is no link, which is what the President had already been
told, I asked him to go back -- not, wrong answer, I asked him to go back and
check it again, a week or two later, to make sure there was no new emerging
evidence.  Because it would have been unfortunate, indeed, if the President had
said, we're not going to go after Iraq as a result of 9/11, we're only going to
go after Afghanistan, and two weeks later evidence emerged that Iraq was
involved.  That's what I was asking him to do, to make sure.  This is not a
trivial decision, to use military force a country -- against a country on the
basis that they're responsible for 9/11.  You don't want to be wrong.

     Q    Here's the -- here's what's in Dick's book, as you read it -- that the
administration did decide to go into Afghanistan, but they wanted to go to Iraq
as the second step, and they were almost desperate to get some evidence so that
they could do Iraq, because that's what they wanted to do.

     MR. HADLEY:  That's just not true, that's just not true.  Were we concerned
about Iraq during -- once the administration came into office?  Of course we
were.  Iraq had been a problem for 12 years, it had been the subject of 16
resolutions, it was under a sanctions regime that was falling apart, it was
shooting at our pilots.  Of course we were concerned about Iraq and needed an
Iraq strategy.

     But 9/11, the evidence was that Iraq was not involved, and, therefore, the
President was focused on Afghanistan, focused on al Qaeda.  And as you recall,
activities with respect to Iraq don't occur until over a year later.

     Q    But of course the impression, the impression that the President gave
and other officials gave, the impression was that there was a link.

     MR. HADLEY:  I don't agree with that.  I don't think he gave that
impression.  Obviously, what the President talked about was a link between Iraq
and al Qaeda --

     Q    Which he always mentioned right in conjunction with 9/11.

     MR. HADLEY:  -- and that is true.  That is true, there was a link.

     Q    Well, he'd be talking about 9/11, and then he would say, Saddam
Hussein and al Qaeda.  And that link has never been proved.

     MR. HADLEY:  Sure.  Because we learned something about -- from 9/11.  We
learned on 9/11 the United States was vulnerable to attack by terrorist groups.
We also learned from 9/11 that al Qaeda, in Afghanistan, was looking and trying
to acquire weapons of mass destruction.  And that put us on notice of a real
serious danger, of countries like Iraq, which were both involved in supporting
terror and seeking weapons of mass destruction.  And the concern that a place
like Iraq would be the location where those two things would come together,
terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, which would make the potential
damage -- which would make the actual damage of 9/11 pale in comparison.

     So what 9/11 taught us was -- taught the President, was that he needed to
deal with states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea, where there was a coincidence
of support for terror and efforts to get weapons of mass destruction.  And so
that became an agenda for the President, and you can -- as you know, we have
pursued different but aggressive policies with respect to all three.  Because
9/11 awakened us to the danger that those situations could present.  That's the
link between 9/11 and Iraq.

     Q    A major part of Dick Clark's criticism is that by going into Iraq, the
President and the administration distracted themselves from the war on terrorism
and al Qaeda, took resources away, and actually, he says, hurt the war on
terrorism.  And it's a huge point in his book.

     MR. HADLEY:  It's not correct.  Iraq, as the President has said, is at the
center in the war on terror.  What's the war on terror about?  It's really about
three things.  It's going after the terrorists, disrupting their operations,
capturing and killing those who are involved in terror.  That's step one.  Step
two is denying them the sanctuaries from which they acquire funds, acquire
recruits and train them.  And, three, it is to change the environment in the
Middle East, which at this point makes it a good recruiting ground for terror.
Iraq makes a contribution to all three.

     It was a potential, because of its support for terror and because of its
efforts to get weapons of mass destruction, it was a potential source of weapons
of mass destruction for terrorists.  That has been eliminated.  There were
terrorists involved in Iraq, supported by Iraq.  Zarqawi, which we hear a lot
about now, was active in Iraq before we took military action there.  We have
narrowed the ground available to al Qaeda and to the terrorists.  Their
sanctuary in Afghanistan is gone, their sanctuary in Iraq is gone.  Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan are now allies on the war on terror.  So Iraq has contributed in
that way to narrowing the sanctuaries available to terrorists.

     And, finally, if we can help the Iraqi people build a free, democratic
society in Iraq, that will be an example for the region and the Middle East and
will support those in the Middle East who want to bring democracy and freedom to
their own societies.  And it's democracy and freedom, and the hope and optimism
that that will bring that is the real long-term solution to the situation of
despair, which makes the Middle East, in some sense, a breeding ground for
terror.  So Iraq is central to the war on terror.

     Q    In the book, Dick Clark says that the administration botched the
response to Afghanistan, that you didn't go in soon enough and you didn't put
enough muscle in.

     MR. HADLEY:  Nine-eleven occurred.  Within a month, we were engaged in
Afghanistan.  And six weeks thereafter, Afghanistan had been liberated from the
Taliban.  That's no mean feat.  We did it by making common cause with the tribal
organizations in Afghanistan and convincing the Afghan people that we were the
liberators, and that the real outsiders were the al Qaeda.

     You know, as the Russians and the British have learned, Afghanistan is a
place that is very allergic to outsiders.  And one of the, I think, great
triumphs of our military activity was that we did it with a small footprint, in
alliance with tribes and others within Afghanistan who were liberating their own
country, and throwing out the true outsiders, which were al Qaeda.  And we did
it in record time.

     So I think, to the contrary, we moved quickly, we had a strategy which
engaged the bulk of the population on our side, and we liberated the country in
record time.

     Q    He says that special forces should have gone in immediately after
Osama bin Laden, and they didn't, they went and  hooked up with the, you know,
national -- with the Afghanis first, and that it was a mistake not to just go
right for Osama bin Laden.

     MR. HADLEY:  Of course they linked up with the Afghans first.  The Afghans
were -- again, the whole theory was to get the Afghans to take ownership of the
effort to overthrow the Taliban and expel al Qaeda.  We had Special Forces with
all those Afghan units.  The Afghan units, again, knew the people, knew the
terrain, were a very effective way against going after the Taliban and al Qaeda.
And remember what we got.  We were able to strip away the protection the Taliban
afforded to al Qaeda.  We captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda operatives in
the country.  And remember, today, over two-thirds of the leadership of al Qaeda
has either been killed or captured.  So we've made dramatic progress against al
Qaeda.

     Q    One final.  Dick Clark worked for Reagan, Bush "One," Clinton, and now
here.  He has a track record.  Why do you think a man with that kind of
knowledge and with those credentials, would be so completely critical of the way
this administration has handled the war on terrorism?  And he is, he was very
critical.

     MR. HADLEY:  Well, I don't know.  I have not read Dick's book.  I don't
know what he says about this administration.  I don't know what he said about
the prior administration, which again, was in office and dealing with this
problem for eight years.  We were in office dealing with this problem for 230
days.  I don't know what Dick's critique is, is involved.

     Obviously, he has views.  We gave him an opportunity in this administration
to come forward with some ideas that had been not adopted in the prior
administration.  We adopted a number of them.  We also gave him a chance to
participate with this President in developing a more aggressive strategy with
respect to al Qaeda.  And I think at the time when he left us, the conversations
I had with him was that he was pleased with the leadership provided by the
President.

     So, Leslie --

     Q    He did?

     MR. HADLEY:  -- you've had a chance to talk to him.  This is a question,
really, you need to ask him, not me.

     Q    He did tell you he was pleased when he left?

     MR. HADLEY:  My belief was that he appreciated the leadership that the
President had provided, and that he felt, in the end, that a lot of things he
had been recommending had been adopted by this President.  But what I would say
is that the contribution of this President was he went much further than
anything than was ever suggested by Mr. Clark.

     Mr. Clark was talking about arming Predator, supporting the Northern
Alliance, doing more with Uzbekistan.  Useful measures, but measures that by
themselves, or even in conjunction, were not going to eliminate al Qaeda, were
not going to eliminate Afghanistan as a safe-haven for terror.  That was
something that President Bush brought to the party, the direction he gave.  And
Mr. Clark had an opportunity to participate in that.  And I would have thought
that was actually a dream come true for Mr. Clark.

     Q    Do you at all question the timing of this book?

     MR. HADLEY:  Leslie, you've been in Washington a long  time.  That's a
question that you're probably better positioned to answer than me.  It's a
question you can put to Mr. Clark; it's not a question for me.

                                   * * * * *

     Q    So there was Intel chatter that came up over the summer, in the months
before 9/11.  And according to Dick, the President still didn't make this enough
of a priority.

     MR. HADLEY:  There was Intel chatter.  It was about threats overseas.  We
were very concerned about it.  We did go to battle stations.  We both tried to
mine the intelligence, to find out what was the nature of the threat, and to
take action to deal with it -- with our forces overseas, with our embassies
overseas, putting people on alert, putting people on notice.  But, remember, in
this period of time, all that chatter was about threats overseas, not to the
homeland.

     During that period, of course, we were developing a more aggressive
strategy to eliminate al Qaeda, to deny it safe havens.  The President was aware
of that.  That work had been launched in the first week of the administration.
Dr. Rice kept the President advised of the progress of that work.  And at one
point he indicated a certain amount of impatience, in April or May of 2001,
saying, I'm tired of swatting flies, where's my strategy?

     So the President was engaged, was informed, and was pushing us to get on
with the more aggressive strategy he wanted -- a strategy that wouldn't just
roll back al Qaeda, but would eliminate al Qaeda and end its sanctuaries in
Afghanistan and elsewhere.

                       END                   8:49 A.M. EST
_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)