Last March, Frist rose on the Senate floor to
demonstrate his fealty to the White House by attacking Richard Clarke
in the ugliest and most personal terms. Seeking
to discredit the former counter-terrorism chief after his stunning appearance
before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States, Frist essentially accused the former
counter-terrorism chief of committing perjury.
But now we know who was telling the truth and
who wasn't, thanks to the release of a newly declassified document.
That document is the transcript of Clarke's testimony
before a closed, joint congressional hearing in June 2002, when he
discussed "the evolution of the terrorist threat"
leading up to 9/11 with members of the Senate and House Intelligence
Committees. While the declassified text contains
lengthy redactions, it also shows conclusively that Frist slandered Clarke
last spring.
The Frist assault was among the most publicized
fusillades in a concerted effort to destroy Clarke, who had dared to
criticize the Bush administration's halting,
inadequate response to the looming threat from al-Qaida. Predictably, Frist
echoed the White House sniping at Mr. Clarke's
credibility, but went much further. In his furious floor speech, the senator
mocked Clarke for acknowledging his own responsibility
in the government's failure to prevent the 9/11 disaster, berated
his "profiteering" from the tragedy with his
revealing memoir, "Against All Enemies," and went on to insinuate that
the star
witness had lied and might be prosecuted:
"Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories
under oath," said Frist. "In July 2002, in front of the Congressional Joint
Inquiry on the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Clarke testified
under oath that the administration actively sought to address the threat
posed by al-Qaida during its first seven months
in office ... .[It] is one thing for Mr. Clarke to dissemble in front of
the media.
But if he lied under oath to the United States
Congress it is a far more serious matter. As I mentioned, the intelligence
committee is seeking to have Mr. Clarke's previous
testimony declassified so as to permit an examination of Mr. Clarke's
two different accounts. Loyalty to any administration
will be no defense if it is found that he has lied before Congress."
Clarke reacted by urging the immediate declassification
of the entire six-hour transcript of his secret testimony, confident that
he would be vindicated. Eventually, Frist's own
spokesman admitted that his boss hadn't read Clarke's testimony -- and
that
his only "evidence" was gossip from other unnamed
legislators who had called the majority leader to complain that Clarke's
"tone" differed from what he had said two years
earlier. Some Republicans who had heard Clarke's testimony quietly suggested
that Frist didn't know what he was talking about,
including Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas.
At the time, though, Roberts declined to release
the declassified testimony, despite repeated requests from his ranking
minority
colleague, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V. Perhaps
Roberts thought it wiser to wait until after Election Day to revive this
sore subject.
In fact, Clarke's declassified testimony contains
very few references to the Bush administration -- but what he did say wasn't
flattering. Neither criticizing nor praising
the administration's efforts, Clarke offered a dry factual account of the
bureaucratic
approach toward terrorism taken by the president's
appointees and advisors during the months that preceded 9/11. Clarke
allowed the lawmakers to draw their own conclusions
-- if they chose to do so -- by contrasting the slow official process
with his vivid recollection of CIA warnings during
the summer of 2001, when al-Qaida was preparing an "imminent" offensive
that might include "multiple, simultaneous attacks,
some overseas and some in the U.S." He didn't say one word that was later
contradicted by his far more dramatic testimony
before the 9/11 Commission.
Clarke's circumspect attitude toward the Bush
administration was understandable, since he was still working for the president
in 2002. But perhaps to the annoyance of the
Republican legislators in attendance at the closed hearing, he went out
of his way
to praise the counter-terror efforts of the prior
occupant of the Oval Office.
"You know," said Clarke, whose government résumé
dates back to the Nixon era, "it is very rare in my experience when the
President of the United States picks an issue
after his administration has begun because the world has changed, and says,
'This is a priority, guys. I want you to create
some new programs and deal with it.' But that happened, and I think both
[of Clinton's] national security advisers and
the Clinton administration spent an enormous amount of time on the overall
issue
of counterterrorism and the new threats."
His detailed description of those efforts, which
explodes Republican attempts to blame Clinton for 9/11 and confirms both
his
testimony and his book, should be required reading
for mythologizers like the Senate majority leader. And when Frist has finished
reading the 103 pages, the majority leader ought
to be decent enough to apologize publicly for lying about this remarkable
public servant.