Republican attempts to discredit the administration’s former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke are continuing a week after Clarke first accused the Bush administration of failing to focus on the threat of Al Qaeda in the months leading up to Sept. 11.
On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist called for the declassification of testimony Clarke gave the House-Senate intelligence committee two years ago.
On the floor of the Senate, Frist, accused Clake of telling “two entirely different stories under oath.”
Frist later retreated from directly accusing Clarke of perjury. He told reporters that he personally had no knowledge that there were any discrepancies between Clarke’s two appearances.
Democratic Senator Bob Graham, who was co-chairman of the joint intelligence inquiry, said Clarke’s comments were not inconsistent. Graham said Clarke’s entire testimony should be declassified in order to prevent the White House from selectively declassifying portions. Clarke appeared on Meet the Press Sunday and encouraged the administration to declassify even more.
He said “The White House is selectively now finding my e-mails… and selectively leaking them to the press. Let’s take all of my e-mails and all of the memos that I sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20th to September 11th, and let’s declassify all of it.”
Meanwhile Rice went on 60 Minutes Sunday to again say she will not testify publicly before the 9/11 commission claiming there is a “long-standing principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.”
Rice also admitted that President Bush pressed Clarke on Sept. 12, to find out whether Iraq was involved in the attacks. In his book, Against All Enemies, Clarke accused the Bush administration with being fixated on Iraq before and after 9/11. Just a week ago on the same program Rice’s deputy Steve Hadley all but accused Clarke of lying about the Sept. 12.