Bush ignored threats, says ex-aide
US: Former chief counter-terrorism adviser accuses Bush of doing "a terrible job" in protecting America against attack. [Guardian Unlimited]

George Bush's re-election campaign suffered a blow yesterday when the president's former chief counter-terrorism adviser accused him of doing "a terrible job" in protecting America against attack, largely because of a fixation on Iraq.

Richard Clarke, who retired as the White House counter-terrorism coordinator last year, accused the president of putting pressure on him to find evidence of Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks, despite being told repeatedly that there was no link.

"I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism," said Mr Clarke.

"Frankly, I find 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. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."

Mr Clarke made his allegations in an interview last night on a CBS current affairs programme, 60 Minutes, and in greater detail in a book, Against All Enemies, published today. He is also expected to deliver a blistering critique of the administration's performance tomorrow to a bipartisan commission investigating US preparedness for the 2001 attacks.

Mr Clarke's book is the latest in a trickle of unflattering accounts of the Bush White House to emerge from people leaving the administration. It confirms the view provided by a former treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, of an ideological clique fixated on Iraq.

and

One of Mr Clarke's tasks was to chair the administration's counter-terrorism and security group, a panel of CIA, FBI and White House experts that met several times a week to assess foreign threats.

He depicted the Bush White House as being uninterested in the threat from al-Qaida in its first eight months in office, and more concerned about Iraq. He said his urgent request in January that year for a cabinet-level meeting on the possibility of an attack was only granted a few days before 9/11. At crisis meetings in the White House the day after those attacks, Mr Clarke said he expected to discuss how to strike back at al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan, and was surprised when the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, quickly shifted the subject to Iraq.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Mr Clarke said in last night's interview. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaida is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq."

Mr Clarke initially thought that Mr Rumsfeld was joking, but quickly discovered he had the backing of Mr Bush.

"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this," he said.

"I said, 'Mr President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection ...' He came back at me and said, 'Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean, that we should come back with that answer."

Mr Clarke coordinated the writing of a report by the CIA, FBI, and his own staff, concluding that Iraq had few links with al-Qaida and no involvement in the September 11 attacks. He said: "We sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the national security adviser or deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer ... Do it again.'"

Mr Clarke's comments came as former US president Jimmy Carter launched a withering attack, claiming that George Bush and Tony Blair had waged a war in Iraq based on "lies".

"There was no reason for us to become involved _ That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks," he told the Independent newspaper.



Now playing: I Could Have Lied, from the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers (released 1991)