Bush admn understated terror threat: Clarke

Former US counterterrorism official Richard Clarke told the commission probing the 9/11 attacks on Wednesday that President George W. Bush d...

Former US counterterrorism official Richard Clarke told the commission probing the 9/11 attacks on Wednesday that President George W. Bush did not take the terror threat seriously, and the head of CIA admitted more could have been done to foil the strikes.

Clarke, who served the last four US presidents, said the Clinton administration was active in tracking Osama bin Laden8217;s Al Qaeda network but the Bush administration did not consider the issue urgent.

Seeking to discredit Clarke, the White House released the transcript of a briefing he gave in August 2002 praising the way the Bush team had taken over the war against Al Qaeda. At the time, Clarke was only identified as a 8216;8216;senior official8217;8217; but the White House has now revealed his identity.

On the second of two dramatic days of open testimony, commissioner Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman, asked Clarke about a letter which showed he wrote to Bush8217;s National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, a week before the 9/11 attacks, asking them to imagine a day after hundreds of Americans lay dead after a terrorist attack and ask themselves what else they could have done. Rice said the letter was a theoretical rather than an actual warning. 8216;8216;Of course we knew that one day a catastrophic attack was possible,8217;8217; she said.

Earlier, CIA Director George Tenet dismissed criticism that his agency had a fear of conducting high-risk operations. Commission staff issued a report saying CIA officials from the top down were under the impression before 9/11 that the agency was only allowed to kill bin Laden as part of a covert operation.

Asked why the 2001 attacks were not prevented, Tenet said: 8216;8216;We didn8217;t steal the secret that told us what the plot was, we didn8217;t recruit the right people or technically collect the data, notwithstanding enormous effort to do so. 8216;8216;We didn8217;t integrate all the data we had properly, and probably we had a lot of data that we didn8217;t know about that if everybody knew about maybe we would have had a chance.8217;8217; 8212;Reuters