Bush Obsessed By Iraq
By Phillip Coorey
Mr Clarke has just released a book in which he contends the Bush Administration was so obsessed with Iraq in January 2001 that it ignored his warnings about al-Qaida.
He began his testimony by addressing relatives of September 11 victims at the hearing.
"Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you," he said. "And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness."
Mr Clarke said the Bush Administration in its first eight months considered terrorism an important issue but not an urgent issue.
He recounted sending a memo to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on January 25, 2001, proposing policy measures to eradicate al-Qaida but was told to take his concerns to a sub-Cabinet level.
His recommendations and warnings did not reach Cabinet level until September 4, 2001.
Frustrated, he sent Dr Rice a letter on September 4, urging policy makers "to imagine a day after hundreds of Americans lay dead at home and abroad after a terrorist attack and ask themselves what else they could have done".
He said his warnings earned him derision from the Administration, the FBI, CIA, Pentagon and Capitol Hill.
"Unfortunately this country needs body bags to make really tough decisions," he said.
Dr Rice, who refused to testify, angrily denounced Mr Clarke's "scurrilous behaviour".
The commission said yesterday CIA efforts to stop Osama bin Laden before the September 11 attacks were hindered by confusion over whether intelligence officers were allowed to kill him.
The CIA also had depended too much on Afghan indigenous groups to attack bin Laden. CIA director George Tenet understood its chances of succeeding were only 10-20 per cent, the commission's report said.
Mr Tenet told the panel yesterday: "Clearly there was no lack of care or focus in the face of one of the greatest dangers our country has ever faced."
In August 2001, the CIA gave Mr Bush a top secret assessment on whether terrorists might attack the US. It included no "specific, credible information about any threatened attacks in the United States".
The White House was not informed about investigations that revealed that two al-Qaida operatives -- both future hijackers -- were in the US or about the FBI investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the US with being a September 11 conspirator.
President Bill Clinton had issued several orders for "the CIA to use its proxies to capture or assault bin Laden and his lieutenants in operations in which they might be killed. The instructions, except in one defined contingency, were to capture bin Laden if possible".
While Clinton administration officials believed those orders authorised the CIA to kill bin Laden, many CIA officials, including Mr Tenet, believed they were authorised only to capture bin Laden.
PRESIDENT Bush has waived sanctions on Pakistan imposed after President Pervez Musharraf seized power in a 1999 bloodless coup. The waiver will allow Pakistan to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in direct US economic aid. - with AP
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