Condiliesalot

When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently told the New York Post that, "We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda.", she was lying and I think the mainstream press ought to say so.

It is as bald-faced a lie as you can tell in public, and it is exposed as such by these two publicly available facts:

Fact One
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The Clinton administration (under the direction of Richard A. Clarke) prepared a document for the Bush administration titled, "Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida: Status and Prospects."

It expresses a series of ideas, including actionable items, which ought to satisfy any reasonable person's definition of the word "plan".

Fact Two
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There is this memo from Richard A. Clarke to Condoleezza Rice with the subject, "Presidential Policy Initiative/Review -- The al Qida Network". In the memo Mr. Clarke seeks to get the Bush administration to pay urgent attention to the al Qida Network.

Let us examine a quote from this memo:

"Attached to the memo was the year-end 2000 strategy on al Qida developed to give to you [Ms. Rice]. Also attached is the 1998 strategy. Neither was a "covert action only" approach. Both incorporated diplomatic, economic, military, public diplomacy, and intelligence tools."


I would like to thank the folks at No Quarter for posting the links to these documents. Hopefully the mainstream press notices them in between Stingray attacks and Paris Hilton escapades.