Richard Clarke

RICHARD CLARKE

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I come to the Chamber this morning to talk about Richard Clarke's testimony yesterday.

We all now know who Richard Clarke is. He has sort of burst on the national scene with his effort to defeat President Bush. Richard Clarke was the man in charge of counterterrorism under the previous administration for 8 years. During those 8 years, we had three terrorist attacks against America: In 1993, the first attack against the World Trade Center in New York; against the U.S. Embassies in Africa in 1998; and against the USS Cole in 2000.

The most aggressive action, apparently, Mr. Clarke was able to convince his superiors to take during those years was to launch a few cruise missiles at a single terrorist camp in Afghanistan and take out a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan-not a really robust response to multiple terrorist acts against American interests both in the United States and overseas.

Now Mr. Clarke has the gall to come forward and suggest that President Bush was not particularly interested in the war on terrorism or in going after al-Qaida. But interestingly enough, back in an August 2002 interview with the news media, Mr. Clarke himself said the Bush administration, in the spring of 2001, sought to increase CIA resources for covert action fivefold to go after al-Qaida. Back in 2002, he was singing an entirely different tune than he was portraying either in his testimony yesterday before the 9/11 Commission or in his new book, which I am sure he hopes will be a best seller and help defeat President Bush.

But before he had some epiphany and went in a different direction, in August 2002, he said the Bush administration plan was actually more aggressive than Clinton's, and that the Bush administration changed the strategy from one of rollback by al-Qaida over the course of 5 years, which it had been under the Clinton years, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of the al-Qaida terrorist network.

That is what Mr. Clarke was saying in August of 2002-quite different from what he said yesterday before the 9/11 Commission or in his new book.

Also in this August 2002 interview, Clarke noted the Bush administration, in mid-January of 2001-before the 9/11 attack-decided to do two things to respond to the threat of terrorism: "One, to vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all the lethal covert action finds which we have now made public, to some extent; the second thing the administration decided to do was to initiate a process to look at these issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided."

In other words, what Clarke was saying in 2002 to members of the press was that the Bush administration's response to the war on terror was much more aggressive than it was under the Clinton years.

Now he is singing an entirely different tune. This is a man who lacks credibility. He may be an intelligent man, he may be a dedicated public servant, but clearly he has a grudge of some sort against the Bush administration. If he was unable to develop a more robust response during the Clinton years, he would only be able to blame himself. He was in charge of counterterrorism during those 8 years. How could the Bush administration be to blame in 8 months for the previous administration's failure over 8 years to truly declare war on al-Qaida?

Let me be clear, I do not believe the Clinton administration is responsible for September 11. Rather, I believe Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network are responsible. I also believe there exist other terrorists organizations that share al-Qaida's goal of murdering innocent civilians who oppose their violent and extremist ideology. These terrorists don't hate us because of our policies. They hate us because of who we are. And if we don't work together to bring the fight to the terrorists, they will almost certainly bring it to us.

Bringing the fight to the terrorists is, of course, exactly what President Bush has been doing.

Instead of partisan finger-pointing, we should instead be working to bolster our intelligence infrastructure, continue our aggressive efforts to monitor, apprehend and bring to justice terrorists around the world, and improve our ability to defend America and its ideals from attack.

Although work remains to be done, I believe the Bush administration has made truly admirable progress in the war on terrorism. Who could argue with a straight face that America is not safer today than it was on September 10, 2001? The Taliban is gone. Saddam Hussein is gone.

We have destroyed all-not just one-all of al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan. All of them are gone from that country.

We have apprehended or killed two-thirds of al-Qaida's leaders.

We have launched international efforts to make it difficult for terrorists to raise or transfer their funds to fund their deadly activities.

We have worked with allies across the world to break up al-Qaida cells and other terrorist networks.

We passed the PATRIOT Act, which provides U.S. law enforcement better capabilities to monitor, apprehend, and bring to justice terrorists plotting in the United States.

We have won new allies in Pakistan and Uzbekistan. And by engaging these countries we have scored further victories against terrorists.

As I said earlier, there has been the end of the regime of Saddam Hussein who provided direct material support to Palestinian terrorists and who offered safe haven to other Islamic terrorists.

We have rounded up and continue to kill foreign terrorists in Iraq. These terrorists would rather be blowing up buses in midtown Manhattan. Believe me, that is where the terrorists would rather be on the attack. Instead they are in Iraq. That is where the war on terror is going on, right in Iraq.

While we mourn the loss of every American soldier and innocent Iraqi citizen, we are glad we are dealing with al-Qaida over in the Middle East and not on American soil.

Finally, I think it is important to remember what is happening in Libya. Prime Minister Blair is meeting with the Libyan leader today. He has been somewhat born again. He is now denouncing terrorism. His weapons of mass destruction are now being eliminated.

It is noteworthy that Qadhafi seemed to have gotten religion in March 2003, the same month we launched the invasion of Iraq, and seemed to have fully converted shortly after Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a hole. Clearly, our Iraq policy is helping reduce or eliminate rogue regimes with weapons of mass destruction.

Let me conclude by saying by any objective standard, the war on terrorism is going well. I think Mr. Clarke's efforts to convince the American public somehow President Bush was inattentive to the war on terror or obsessed with Iraq are simply foolish and erroneous and will not be believed by the American people.

I yield the floor.