"CLarke:Clinton Worried about Al-Qaeda" /Homeland security plays politics

[BREMPRO]

Washington - The Clinton administration was deeply concerned in 2000 that al-Qaida sleeper cells existed in North America and considered ways to move against them, according to newly released testimony.

(snip)
"The release of Clarke's 2002 testimony stems from Republican attempts to undermine his criticism of the Bush administration.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Clarke's recently declassified testimony from 2002 is effusive in its praise of the Bush administration's efforts targeting al-Qaida before the Sept. 11 attacks. The declassified version neither criticizes nor strongly praises the Bush administration. It focuses instead primarily on the Clinton administration. I believed it was important to recognize that Mr. Clarke's character was unfairly attacked for political purposes," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who worked with the Senate Intelligence Committee to have the testimony released. "A detailed review"

(snip)

..."The indications that plotters linked to a big election-season terror alert actually were actively planning to attack Britain rather than the United States is at least the second revelation which seems to partly undermine administration assertions that the U.S. homeland faced a heightened risk of attack during the presidential campaign."


full article:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111904A.shtml