True or False? Richard Clarke giving order to release Saudi/Bin Ladens

[Homer12]

I was watching Vomit COuntry with Joe the Rethug (the only one I can stand to watch, at least he thanks his left wing guests most of the time).

And he said regarding this in F9/11 that Richard Clarke let the Saudi/Bin Ladens go after 9/11? Now he was using this in the mantra that Micheal Moore is a liar and went out of his way to fuzz the facts.

[smada]

1. True

Richard Clarke said so himself.

[rkc3]

4. Was Clarke fired for rounding up the bin Laden's and getting them out?

If this was such a terrible thing to do, he would have been fired - unless it came from Bush or Cheney - then the right is splitting hairs.

I know this much, you put this in a business context - like taking your competitor out to dinner - and your ass would be in the sling.

[Sparkly]

6. Not true, smada

Clarke took responsibility for HIS decision. His was not the only decision about the Saudis' flights, nor did he initiate the directive. This is spin.

[dennis4868]

8. based on the transcript posted in this thread...

Clarke refused to approve it....WTF?

[Sparkly]

10. Right, at first

Then it came back to him again; he wanted to make sure the FBI didn't want to interrogate these people before sending them out, but was told, basically, "It's okay, let them go." So he did, and he said he takes responsibility for having given the okay. But again, the spin is that HE and he alone came up with the idea, wrote the passenger lists, approved their departure, etc. etc... which is simply not true.

[smada]

14. How about we all quit pretending to know the inner workings

All of us are speculating on what we think might have happened based on what we want to believe.

I'm saying Richard Clarke gave the order because he said himself that he gave the order. Is that spin? Did Bush himself give the order? Possibly, but unless you were working inside the White House on 9/11 with a high level clearance, we're all just speculating.

[H2O Man]

16. I think that you and Sparkly are both right....

(with the exception of his original statement that you were "wrong") Clarke has taken responsibility for giving a specific order. However, that order must be seen in the context of all the related orders and instructions that we know of.Sparkly is absolutely correct that the republicans are trying to isolate Clarke's order, in an effort to focus blame on him and deflect attention from what occured. Something like Clarke's order did not -- and, indeed, could not -- have occured in a vacuum.

[Sparkly]

20. I'm not speculating

I heard what Clarke said, and the transcript is available. As I said, Clarke made his decision, and others made theirs. Clarke did not initiate the directive; it came to him from others. So it's rather deceptive to talk about "The Order" as if this was all one decision by one person giving one order.

More from the transcript:


MR. ROEMER: I've been very impressed with your memory, sitting through all these interviews that the 9/11 Commission has conducted with you. I press you again to try to recall how this request originated, who might have passed this on to you at the White House Situation Room, or who might have originated that request for the United States government to fly out -- how many people on this plane?

MR. CLARKE: I don't know.

MR. ROEMER: We don't know how many people were on a plane that flew out of this country. Who gave the final approval, then, to say "Yes, you're clear to go, it's all right with the United States government to go to Saudi Arabia"?

MR. CLARKE: I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all of these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the Interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference.

I was making -- or coordinating a lot of decisions on 9/11 in the days immediately after. And I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don't know. The two -- since you press me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State of the White House Chief of Staff's Office. But I don't know.

MR. ROEMER: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. KEAN: Senator Gorton?

MR. GORTON: One more question on that subject. When the approvals were finally made, and when the flight left, was the flight embargo still in effect or were we flying -- or was that over? We were flying once again?

MR. CLARKE: No, sir. No, Senator. The reason that a decision was needed was because the flight embargo -- the grounding was still in effect.

[Zorra]

27. Hey, cool...."smada" is Adams spelled backwards.

An admirer of John Adams,the federalist?

[tom_paine]

29. You are still making statements AND NOT BACKING THEM UP.

You know what that sounds like, Adams (the First Bushevik, the First Federalist, the First Leader of America who hated the People of America...sound familiar, Federalist?)?

That sounds like something one would hear on Faux "News".

Oh, right, it was on Faux "News".

Also a LIE just lik you are telling. Also un-backed up.

But we're on to you Totalitarian Bootlickers and Water-Carriers for the Chimperial Family.

Back it up. But you can't. I know, cite the uncited and unsupported Faux "News" article you are reading from!

That will show us lib'ruls! You citation of the uncited Faux citation will be clearly citaed and citation for your citation, even though they have no supprting citation...

Stop lying. Stop repeating lies.

You expose yourself as to what you are. Of course, I imagine you have a difficult time hiding what you are, especially in person.

[smada]

35. You're a little unbalanced I think

I didn't say that much, and what I did say certainly didn't merit such a meticulous and vitriolic retort.

Thanks anyway.

[tom_paine]

41. Always the Whiny Victim, eh? What is it with you people?

Clark DID not say he alone gave the order. Quite the opposite, as it always is with Bushevik lies. Read his book. Not that I'd expect you to do that any more than I'd a Nazi to read a Jewish Book.

Hey, and I like the use of the Bushevik-Bolshevik "mentanlly unbalanced" bit.

You guys are SOOOOO much like the Commies you profess to hate it's funny.

Yes, Comrade, the Mentally Unblanced should be shipped to the Heinrich A$$croft Re-Education and Re-Christianization Camps.

You gonna be a guard? You know you want to.

I also noticed that you didn;t back up your fraudlent claims.

Why is that?

LIARS and CREEPERS certainly deserve all the vitriol Free American can muster.

So, are you going to back up your fraudulent statements or are you going to go all Soviet (like you know you are Bushevik=Free-Market Bolshevik) and report me to Homeland Security like a good (C)reeper?

[Zorra]

37. Hey, Tom - I saw Elvis yesterday!

Why do I suspect that you don't believe me?

Um, guess you might want some proof, huh?;-)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

46. Do you really think Clarke would have done something of that magnitude....

...WITHOUT the okay from FratBoy?

Give it a rest.

[kentuck]

2. True but....

As I recall in his testimony, he did forward the request to the FBI for approval. Is that incorrect?

[dennis4868]

3. More importantly....

who in the government initiated the request to allow the Saudis to fly? Richard Clarke did not intitiate that request. He had no ties and did not care about the damn Saudis on 911. Someone in our government (Bush?) put that request into the FBI/Clarke....who that person is is what I want to know. Moore's film is correct...Saudis were given special treatment....who went out of their way to make that happen?

[Spazito]

5. Here is Mr. Clarke's testimony from the 9/11 Commission's

archives so you can read his response to this very question:

Mr. Clarke, let me ask you some difficult questions for you to get at the complexity of our relationship with the Saudis. On the one hand, I think it's fairly -- there's a great deal of unanimity that the Saudis were not doing everything they could before 9/11 to help us in a host of different areas. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers came from there. We had trouble tracking some of the financing for terrorist operations, that we still have too many of the madrassas and the teachings of hatred of Christians and Jews and others coming out of some of these madrassas. We need to broaden and deepen this relationship. I will ask you a part A and a part B. Part A is where do we go in this difficult relationship? And part B is, to further look at that difficulty here, you made a decision after 9/11. And I'd like to ask you more about this -- to allow a plane of Saudis to fly out of the country. And when most other planes were grounded, this plane flew from the United States back to Saudi Arabia. I'd like to know why you made that decision, who was on this plane, and if the FBI ever had the opportunity to interview those people.

MR. CLARKE: You're absolutely right that the Saudi Arabian government did not cooperate with us significantly in the fight against terrorism prior to 9/11. Indeed, it didn't really cooperate until after bombs blew up in Riyadh.

Now, as to this controversy about the Saudi evacuation aircraft, let me -- let me tell you everything I know, which is that some -- in the days following 9/11, whether it was on 9/12 or 9/15 I can't tell you, we were in a constant crisis management meeting that had started the morning of 9/11 and ran for days on end. We were making lots of decisions, but we were coordinating them with all the agencies through the video teleconference procedure. Someone -- and I wish I could tell you who, but I don't know who -- someone brought to that group a proposal that we authorize a request from the Saudi embassy. The Saudi embassy had apparently said that they feared for the lives of Saudi citizens, because they thought there would be retribution against Saudis in the United States as it became obvious to Americans that this attack was essentially done by Saudis, and that there were even Saudi citizens in the United States who were part of the bin Ladin family, which is a very large family -- very large family.

The Saudi embassy, therefore, asked for these people to be evacuated; the same sort of thing that we do all the time in similar crises, evacuating Americans.

The request came to me and I refused to approve it. I suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look at the names of the individuals who were going to be on the passenger manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with the at that time the number-two person in the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then approved -- after some period of time, and I can't tell you how long -- approved the flight.

Now, what degree of review the FBI did of those names, I cannot tell you. How many people there are on the plane, I cannot tell you. But I have asked since, were there any individuals on that flight that in retrospect the FBI wishes they could have interviewed in this country, and the answer I've been given is no, that there was no one who left on that flight who the FBI now wants to interview.

MR. ROEMER: Despite the fact that we don't know if Dale Watson interviewed them in the first place.

MR. CLARKE: I don't think they were ever interviewed in this country.

MR. ROEMER: So they were not interviewed here. We have all their names. We don't know if there has been any follow-up to interview those people that were here and flown out of the country.

MR. CLARKE: The last time I asked that question, I was informed the FBI still had no desire to interview any of these people.

MR. ROEMER: Would you have a desire to interview some of these people that --

MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are.

MR. ROEMER: We don't know who they are.

MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are. The FBI knew who they were, because they --

MR. ROEMER: Given your confidence and your statements on the FBI, what's your level of comfort with this?

MR. CLARKE: Well, I will tell you in particular about the ones that get the most attention here in the press, and they are members of the bin Ladin family. I was aware for some time that there were members of the bin Ladin family living in the United States. And, let's see, in open session I can say that I was very well aware of the members of the bin Ladin family and what they were doing in the United States, and the FBI was extraordinarily well aware of what they were doing in the United States. And I was informed by the FBI that none of the members of the bin Ladin family, this large clan, were doing anything in this country that was illegal or that raised their suspicions. And I believe the FBI had very good information and good sources of information about what the members of the bin Ladin family were doing.

MR. ROEMER: I've been very impressed with your memory, sitting through all these interviews that the 9/11 Commission has conducted with you. I press you again to try to recall how this request originated, who might have passed this on to you at the White House Situation Room, or who might have originated that request for the United States government to fly out -- how many people on this plane?

MR. CLARKE: I don't know.

MR. ROEMER: We don't know how many people were on a plane that flew out of this country. Who gave the final approval, then, to say "Yes, you're clear to go, it's all right with the United States government to go to Saudi Arabia"?

MR. CLARKE: I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all of these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the Interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference.

I was making -- or coordinating a lot of decisions on 9/11 in the days immediately after. And I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don't know. The two -- since you press me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State of the White House Chief of Staff's Office. But I don't know.

MR. ROEMER: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman

(and this interesting bit as well)

MR. GORTON: One more question on that subject. When the approvals were finally made, and when the flight left, was the flight embargo still in effect or were we flying -- or was that over? We were flying once again?

MR. CLARKE: No, sir. No, Senator. The reason that a decision was needed was because the flight embargo -- the grounding was still in effect.

Here is the link:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing8/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-03-24.htm#clarke

[dennis4868]

7. based on this transcript....

clarke did not approve it but instead it was Bush's FBI....am I reading this correctly?

[Spazito]

12. When the request came through, Clarke initially refused it, kicked it

over to the FBI asking if they approved of the request, the FBI came back saying yes so Clarke then approved it. The key issues, imo, are not who gave the final okay, it is who requested it in the first place and why was the flight from Florida allowed to fly during the embargo period and why did the bush admin lie about that flight for 3 years.

[Carni]

13. Technically

Clarke DID approve the flights, but ONLY because he deferred the matter to the FBI...Clarke put the matter in the FBI's hands and they dropped the ball.

Given his position one could say TECHNICALLY that Clarke should have seen to it personally, that the Saudis were checked out before they were allowed to leave, but he assumed he was putting the matter in capable hands.

The order to evacuate them did not originate with Clarke.

The order I am sure came from Bush himself and filtered on down the chain of command.

Common sense tells me that the prescence of "Bandhar Bush" at the WH on 9-13 for dinner, cigars and drinks on the veranda and the flights moving Saudis which began on the evening of 9-13 are connected.

Moore and Unger have their facts straight no matter how much "dead intern found in his in office before he resigned to spend time with his family" Scarborough tries to spin it.

[Killarney]

9. Two points

Clarke and the FBI "approved it" but the actually proposal that went to Clarke for approval came from either the State Dept or the White House, Clarke says he doesn't remember.

So, most likely shrub asked for this to happen and Clarke approved it.

[PaDUer]

42. Looks like they're trying

to "frame" whoever they can to hide bunnypants, or was it "sheeney" wanting to get them out of the US..but remember, "pops" was meeting with the saudi's at the WH also..

[killbotfactory]

11. Wasn't Clarke part of the White House?

Uh.. yeah... he was, wasn't he? So Moore's claim is right.

Anyway, it looks like the Saudi's were the ones to "give the order". We complied because they have us by the short and curlies.

[wadestock]

17. This is the best comment yet....

And fully supported by the Tim Russert interview with Prince Bandar when they talked about this careful exit. It was conceived of exactly for the reason to protect their asses....and who do you think was scared chitless in the first place....

This was a clear move, initiated by them wanting to get the hell out and approved by the Bush Admin in one way or another. No matter how you spin the issue....either they were approved to go or the chain of command could not stop them. Either way it looks like crap.

[PurityOfEssence]

40. Bush "attacked" Iraq, but he didn't carry a rifle

His Administration provided the Bin Ladens their airlift, so HE did it. Did he suggest it? Did Clarke suggest it? It matters somewhat, but only somewhat. Bush either approved it or tacitly approved it. If there's any wiggling over the latter, that proves Junior's incompetence, since he should have had serious matters like this under his sway.

Clarke goes on to say that he agrees with much of what Moore has to say, but the talking heads never mention that. Talk about selective...

[Cronus Protagonist]

45. Ding Ding Ding

You hit the nail on the head with that comment. Clark was in the administration and he also stated during some interviews later that he put the best face he could on the workings of the 9/11 event, as any good employee would have to do - he couldn't say anything bad about the Bush administraiton while he was on their payroll. He quit to be able to be truthful, as I understand it.

Drop Bush Not Bombs - Fuck Bush - Who Would Jesus Bomb?
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[ewagner]

15. Questions.

The first one that comes to mind is:

When...moreover, on what day did Clarke receive the request to let the Saudi citizens out of the country?

Who provided the list of people to be flown out?

When did that list get to the FBI?

How long did it take for the FBI to "approve" that list? When did they tell Clarke that they had no interest?

Clarke said he did not know how many people were on the list. Did he ever personally see the list?

All these questions make Moore's portrayal of the events sound. IMHO

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Individualist]

19. How you wish what you're saying is true

Go see Fahrenheit 9/11 and learn something for a change. You won't last long here, and that's a fact.

[Sparkly]

21. Got an example of Moore's "lies?"

Come on, just one.

[Bridget Burke]

22. Please....

Give us a detailed list of Moore's "lies".

[bossfish]

23. Oh, please, tell us what a "real Progressive" is...

Give me three points...

[Carni]

24. Freepers

If they had half a brain they would be dangerous.

[Zorra]

25. (Pssssst......Your desperation is showing.)

[TryingToWarnYou]

26. You seem to be ignoring the facts...

Did you bother to read any of the transcripts reproduced here for your convenience?

Its very obvious that the facts are as alleged.

[tom_paine]

30. HEE HEE HA HA Jeepers Creeper, where'd you get those Peepers?

Jeepers Creeper, where'd you get those LIES!

You're not fooling anybody, Monster.

[Cheswick2.0]

39. CAN'T WE GET SMARTER FREEPERS HERE?

"make real progressives look bad."

D'oh!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

47. You make yourself look bad by posting crap like this.

[TexasSissy]

28. Clarke says he did, BUT someone had to tell him to....

Why does no Democrat make that argument back when this stupid statement keeps being made?

Yes, Clarke said he "arranged" getting them out of the country. But, DUH....someone had to tell him the bin Ladens were here, where they were, and tell him to get them out of the country. Then SOMEONE besides Clarke made the decision NOT to interrogate all of them, like everyone else who left the country soon after 9/11 was. That was not in Clarke's province, so someone else had to have passed those instructions along.

It's my understanding that the Saudi government made the request to our government (or someone----most assuredly they didn't pick up the phone and call Clarke for this). Someone in our government told Clarke. And my understanding is that Clarke assigned the actual details of and physical parts of doing it to the FBI, but I'm not sure about that last part.

There they go again. Making incomplete, partial statements as an excuse for a substantive, factual argument.

[Mandate My Ass]

31. According to Snopes the FBI had cleared them so Clarke

gave it the official stamp but not before double checking:

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flight.htm

according to former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, the FBI itself gave the go-ahead:
"Somebody brought to us for approval the decision to let an airplane filled with Saudis, including members of the bin Laden family, leave the country," he told Vanity Fair magazine.

Mr Clarke said he checked with FBI officials, who gave the go ahead. "So I said, 'Fine, let it happen'."6
And, as noted, the FBI was directly involved in the process of collecting bin Laden family members and ferrying them to departure points from which they could leave the country:
The young members of the bin Laden clan were driven or flown under F.B.I. supervision to a secret assembly point in Texas.

[RafterMan]

32. Clarke did say he okayed the plane leaving the States

The interesting question is who conceived of the plan to pick up all of them and try to get them out?

Don't get sidetracked.

[PaDUer]

43. Pops, sheeney, or bunnypants...n/t

[fob]

33. Let's accept for this debate that the answer is yes, Richard Clarke

gave the final release order for the bin laden flights. All this means is that the rwers are using a typical ploy. The question they don't ask, because they don't have/won't like the answer, is how did the situation arise that the bin laden family was in a position to fly out of the US at that time and NEEDED a final release decision?

They also so this to obscure the point of the film anyway. The overall point was the bush*/bin laden relationship was in full swing here. At the time of the flights 15 of 19 alleged hijackers were id'd as Saudis and OBL id'd as responsible. Yet the bin laden family was able to come together and get permission to fly away. As Moore points out, do you think Khaddafy sould get on the phone and have his family get permission? How about Castro?

How did the situation come to Clarke's attention? Even Sparkly's posts below show in Clarke's own words that he doesn't recall who brought the info to him in the first place.

edit - Sparkly for Smada(credited wrong post-er)

[F.Gordon]

34. But....Clarke was demoted and "out of the loop"

When Clarke came out with his book the RWers, and Cheney, hit the airwaves telling us how Clarke was demoted and "out of the loop". He wasn't part of the White House decision making process.

But then, F911. Suddenly Clarke is "back in the loop"!!!

So confusing.

[librechik]

36. Daily Howler has an analysis of Clarke's testimony in light of F9/11 today

www.dailyhowler.com

check it out

[IkeWarnedUs]

38. The real issue

Michael Moore doesn't say Bush gave the order personally. Yes, Richard Clarke said he allowed the Saudi's to fly right after 9/11, after being told by the FBI that they didn't want to speak with them first. But MM doesn't dispute that.

MM then questions why the FBI wouldn't want to speak with family members of UBL and shows how it goes against long standing investigative processes.

MM's point is that the Saudi's get special treatment and access. The flights during the aviation lockdown is only one aspect of this. He documents the various ways the Saudi relationship is closer than that of other nations in many ways.

It is interesting that this has become the mantra for the naysayers. Out of the dozens (hundreds?) of facts, documents, news clips, interviews, etc. MM includes in F911, this is the best they can do? Notice Joe the Rethug doesn't dispute that the Saudi's were given preferential treatment. He's trying to find a loophole and it is a pathetic effort.

[JayS]

44. What is it with the family members of UBL? They got a free...

...flight out of the country after the OK City bombing but it was not as big a story then...pretty much a non-story. This was the dawn of the "popular Internet" but I'll see if I can find the story from a reputable site.