Bush Bashing

Salon.com reports on an interview set to air on 60 Minutes tonight (or next Sunday).

Richard A. Clarke, who also wrote a book set to be released on Monday, has commented that Bush has done a terrible job with terrorism. He was a counterterrorism coordinator.

"He said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Jan. 24, 2001, asking 'urgently' for a Cabinet-level meeting 'to deal with the impending al-Qaida attack.'"

"'Now he never said, "Make it up." But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said, "Iraq did this,"' said Clarke, who told the president that U.S. intelligence agencies had never found a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida.

'He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection," and in a very intimidating way,' Clarke said."

In the article, CBS claims to have found two supporters of this conversation.

"'Bin Laden had been saying for years, "America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country." This is part of his propaganda,' Clarke said. 'So what did we do after 9/11? We invade ... and occupy an oil-rich Arab country, which was doing nothing to threaten us.'