Richard Clarke: White House Wrong On Telecom Immunity

TPMmuckraker:

You've heard from President Bush over and over and over and over again about the imminent danger the country is in. And you've heard from the director of national intelligence and attorney general about how the telecoms are quaking over the uncertainty created by not securing retroactive immunity.

Yesterday, four former top national security officials put forward a different line in a letter to Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. The officials -- Richard Clarke (former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council), Rand Beers (former Senior Director for Combating Terrorism at the National Security Council), Lt. Gen. Don Kerrick (former Deputy National Security Advisor), and Suzanne Spaulding (former assistant general counsel at the CIA) -- all worked with McConnell in the past. McConnell led the National Security Agency from 1992 through 1996. The letter was distributed today by the National Security Network.

Read the whole story: TPMmuckraker

Comments

[incontempt]

Welcome back Mr Clark, we need a respectable character in the media and your presence has been missed.

[incontempt]

We Have reached the point that we all automatically assumee the white house is on the wrong side of everything...just have to find where the evidence is hidden.

[bigdaddyvike]

Yup. What qualifies Clarke to make that call? Gee, the same guy who kept telling everyone there was going to be an attack by airplanes? The guy privy to all the top secret info/tactics being used by the government? They threw him under the bus when he started squawking and wrote a book...this is as Repuggy as it gets, and is disgraceful that, in the name of "homeland (fatherland) security" and the "war against tirrer" they are trying to cover the telecom's asses hanging out in the wind (with their own). Course there will pardons all around in the end. Probably "secrit" pardons in some "secrit" court. Secrit pardons for secrit reasons. Retroactive pardons for all! Seven years' worth for thousands! KBR, Haliburton, Carlysle, Ashcroft, Turd, Darth, Abramoff, Lott, geeze the list is ENDLESS.

[wm1066]

Thank you Richard Clarke and the rest of you for speaking up. Richard, I was wondering where you had been, I thought someone might have bottled you up, this Administration is good at that unamerican sort of thing.
Since our elected officials are laying down on the job (Reid&Pelosi), it's depressing to see our liberties being trampled on so freely.
You give me hope.

[mediamarv]

Imagine someone like him runnin for president.

A real truth teller...

Never happen.

[imusintheevening]

The administration is desperate for immunity, not to protect Telecom CEO's and their legal counsel, but to protect their own illegal activities. It is that simple.

[Macready]

you are so right imus . . . thank you Richard Clarke et al . . . time to impeach pelosi . . . put it on the agenda . . stop kow-towing the the chimp and the DLC

[incontempt]

Thats the truth as i see it also.

[Liam]

Yeah, but just because Richard Clarke knows more about counter terrorism than everyone currently working in the Bush administration combined, why should we listen to him?

Liam.

[dotmafia]

Bush and Cheney started spying on American illegally soon after taking office in January 2001. Whistleblowers have spoken. They are trying to distort and evade the truth by stating the surveillance was needed because of 9/11. Why isn't the media calling these criminals on this? If Bush and Cheney thought that surveillance was necessary to protect America in early 2001, what was it that was threatening the country? Did they have prior knowledge of impending threats and attacks, aside from the many briefs they were given about impending plane hijackings in the summer of 2001? And if so, why was the American public kept in the dark about the looming threat. The fact that they went right to work as soon as they took office, mapping Iraq's oilfields and creating internal spy networks proves that Bush and Cheney KNEW what was coming. And they wanted to take advantage of it. Bush and Cheney are criminally responsible for allowing 9/11 to happen. They should be tried and convicted for dereliction of duty, and their asses hauled off to Gitmo, the prison of their own making, for being both American traitors and American terrorists.

[incontempt]

sounds good, make it so