White House says ex-terror czar has it all wrong

1.00pm

WASHINGTON - The White House has sought to brand its former anti-terrorism czar as a disgruntled employee bent on damaging US President George W Bush's war image with politically motivated assertions about the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Former counter-terror official Richard Clarke said Bush ignored the threat of al Qaeda before the attacks and focused on Iraq rather than the Islamic militant group afterward. He is the second former top official to criticise the administration's overriding focus on Iraq.

Clarke, who quit his White House job a year ago after serving in four administrations, made the bombshell assertions in a new book and on Sunday in an interview with "60 Minutes" on US television. He said he found it "outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan vehemently denied the assertion, stating, "This is Dick Clarke's 'American Grandstand.' He just keeps changing the tune."

He also asked why Clarke had waited so long to raise his concerns.

"Why did he wait till the beginning of a presidential campaign?" McClellan said. "Clearly, this is more about politics and a book promotion than it is about policy."

Bush's leadership on security and his war against terrorism is a main plank of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice earlier made the rounds of morning news shows, saying Clarke was not in the loop on top discussions at the White House.

"Dick Clarke just does not know what he is talking about. He wasn't involved in most of the meetings of the administration," Rice told ABC's "Good Morning America."

McClellan said Clarke refused to join daily meetings with senior national security officials and later was turned down for the No. 2 post at the Department of Homeland Security.

The White House also took aim at Clarke's assertion that Bush pressed him in a "very intimidating way" to find an Iraq connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3000 people and were ultimately blamed on al Qaeda.

McClellan said Bush did not recall such a meeting but that White House records show the president was not in the Situation Room where Clarke said he was Sept. 12 when the discussion took place.

Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies," being released this week, follows one by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who asserted earlier this year that Iraq was an overriding priority for the Bush White House from the time it took office.

Clarke is one of several former Clinton administration officials scheduled to testify on Tuesday and on Wednesday before the independent commission investigating the 2001 attacks. He held a top counter-terrorism job in the Clinton White House, and served former Republican President George Bush and Ronald Reagan as well.

- REUTERS