THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, as we sit here this afternoon, we have your book and we have your press briefing of August 2002. Which is true?
CLARKE: Well, I think the question is a little misleading.
The press briefing you're referring to comes in the following context: Time magazine had published a cover story article highlighting what your staff briefing talks about. They had learned that, as your staff briefing notes, that there was a strategy or a plan and a series of additional options that were presented to the national security adviser and the new Bush team when they came into office.
Time magazine ran a somewhat sensational story that implied that the Bush administration hadn't worked on that plan. And this, of course, coming after 9/11 caused the Bush White House a great deal of concern.
So I was asked by several people in senior levels of the Bush White House to do a press backgrounder to try to explain that set of facts in a way that minimized criticism of the administration. And so I did.
Now, we can get into semantic games of whether it was a strategy, or whether it was a plan, or whether it was a series of options to be decided upon. I think the facts are as they were outlined in your staff briefing.
THOMPSON: Well, let's take a look, then, at your press briefing, because I don't want to engage in semantic games. You said, the Bush administration decided, then, you know, mid-January -- that's mid- January, 2001 -- to do 2 things: one, vigorously pursue the existing the policy -- that would be the Clinton policy -- including all of the lethal covert action findings which we've now made public to some extent. Is that so? Did they decide in January of 2001 to vigorously pursue the existing Clinton policy?
CLARKE: They decided that the existing covert action findings would remain in effect.
THOMPSON: OK. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided. Now, that seems to indicate to me that proposals had been sitting on the table in the Clinton administration for a couple of years, but that the Bush administration was going to get them done. Is that a correct assumption?
CLARKE: Well, that was my hope at the time. It turned out not to be the case.
THOMPSON: Well, then why in August of 2002, over a year later, did you say that it was the case?
CLARKE: I was asked to make that case to the press. I was a special assistant to the president, and I made the case I was asked to make.
:
:
:
KEAN: Governor, one more question.
THOMPSON: When was that presented to the president? And you answered: the president was briefed throughout this process.
CLARKE: Yes. The president apparently asked, on one occasion that I'm aware of, for a strategy. And when he asked that, he apparently didn't know there was a strategy in the works. I, therefore, was told about this by the national security adviser.
I came back to her and said, well, there is a strategy; after all, it's basically what I showed you in January. It stuck in the deputies committee. She said she would tell the president that, and she said she would try to break it out of the deputies committee.
THOMPSON: So you believed that your conference with the press in August of 2002 is consistent with what you've said in your book and what you've said in press interviews the last five days about your book?
CLARKE: I do. I think the think that's obviously bothering you is the tenor and the tone. And I've tried to explain to you, sir, that when you're on the staff of the president of the United States, you try to make his policies look as good as possible.
===============================================================
Then, Senator Kerrey blasts FOX News:
KERREY: Well, Mr. Clarke, let me say at the beginning that everything that you've said today and done has not damaged my view of your integrity. It's very much intact as far as I'm concerned. And I hope that your pledge earlier not to be a part of the Kerry administration did not preclude you from coming to New York sometime and teaching at the new schools.
(LAUGHTER)
And let me also say this document of Fox News earlier, this transcript that they had, this is a background briefing. And all of us that have provided background briefings for the press before should beware. I mean, Fox should say occasionally fair and balanced after putting something like this out.
(LAUGHTER)
Because they violated a serious trust.
(APPLAUSE)
All of us that come into this kind of an environment and provide background briefings for the press I think will always have this as a reminder that sometimes it isn't going to happen, that it's background.
Sometimes, if it suits their interest, they're going to go back, pull the tape, convert it into transcript and send it out in the public arena and try to embarrass us or discredit us.
So I object to what they've done, and I think it's an unfortunate thing they did.
=======================================================
Then:
THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, in this background briefing, as Senator Kerrey has now described it, for the press in August of 2002, you intended to mislead the press, did you not?
THOMPSON: Why was that, Mr. Clarke? You finally resigned because you were frustrated.
CLARKE: I was, at that time, at the request of the president, preparing a national strategy to defend America's cyberspace, something which I thought then and think now is vitally important. I thought that completing that strategy was a lot more important than whether or not I had to provide emphasis in one place or other while discussing the facts on this particular news story.
The second choice one has, Governor, is whether or not to say things that are untruthful. And no one in the Bush White House asked me to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have said them.
In any event, the third choice that one has is to put the best face you can for the administration on the facts as they were, and that is what I did.
I think that is what most people in the White House in any administration do when they're asked to explain something that is embarrassing to the administration.
THOMPSON: But you will admit that what you said in August of 2002 is inconsistent with what you say in your book?
CLARKE: No, I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I think, as I said in your last round of questioning, Governor, that it's really a matter here of emphasis and tone. I mean, what you're suggesting, perhaps, is that as special assistant to the president of the United States when asked to give a press backgrounder I should spend my time in that press backgrounder criticizing him. I think that's somewhat of an unrealistic thing to expect.
THOMPSON: Well, what it suggests to me is that there is one standard of candor and morality for White House special assistants and another standard of candor and morality for the rest of America.
THOMPSON: I don't think it's a question of morality at all. I think it's a question of politics.
CLARKE: Well, I...
(APPLAUSE)
THOMPSON: I'm not a Washington insider. I've never been a special assistant in the White House. I'm from the Midwest. So I think I'll leave it there.
CLARKE: Well, I think the question is a little misleading.
The press briefing you're referring to comes in the following context: Time magazine had published a cover story article highlighting what your staff briefing talks about. They had learned that, as your staff briefing notes, that there was a strategy or a plan and a series of additional options that were presented to the national security adviser and the new Bush team when they came into office.
Time magazine ran a somewhat sensational story that implied that the Bush administration hadn't worked on that plan. And this, of course, coming after 9/11 caused the Bush White House a great deal of concern.
So I was asked by several people in senior levels of the Bush White House to do a press backgrounder to try to explain that set of facts in a way that minimized criticism of the administration. And so I did.
Now, we can get into semantic games of whether it was a strategy, or whether it was a plan, or whether it was a series of options to be decided upon. I think the facts are as they were outlined in your staff briefing.
THOMPSON: Well, let's take a look, then, at your press briefing, because I don't want to engage in semantic games. You said, the Bush administration decided, then, you know, mid-January -- that's mid- January, 2001 -- to do 2 things: one, vigorously pursue the existing the policy -- that would be the Clinton policy -- including all of the lethal covert action findings which we've now made public to some extent. Is that so? Did they decide in January of 2001 to vigorously pursue the existing Clinton policy?
CLARKE: They decided that the existing covert action findings would remain in effect.
THOMPSON: OK. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided. Now, that seems to indicate to me that proposals had been sitting on the table in the Clinton administration for a couple of years, but that the Bush administration was going to get them done. Is that a correct assumption?
CLARKE: Well, that was my hope at the time. It turned out not to be the case.
THOMPSON: Well, then why in August of 2002, over a year later, did you say that it was the case?
CLARKE: I was asked to make that case to the press. I was a special assistant to the president, and I made the case I was asked to make.
:
:
:
KEAN: Governor, one more question.
THOMPSON: When was that presented to the president? And you answered: the president was briefed throughout this process.
CLARKE: Yes. The president apparently asked, on one occasion that I'm aware of, for a strategy. And when he asked that, he apparently didn't know there was a strategy in the works. I, therefore, was told about this by the national security adviser.
I came back to her and said, well, there is a strategy; after all, it's basically what I showed you in January. It stuck in the deputies committee. She said she would tell the president that, and she said she would try to break it out of the deputies committee.
THOMPSON: So you believed that your conference with the press in August of 2002 is consistent with what you've said in your book and what you've said in press interviews the last five days about your book?
CLARKE: I do. I think the think that's obviously bothering you is the tenor and the tone. And I've tried to explain to you, sir, that when you're on the staff of the president of the United States, you try to make his policies look as good as possible.
===============================================================
Then, Senator Kerrey blasts FOX News:
KERREY: Well, Mr. Clarke, let me say at the beginning that everything that you've said today and done has not damaged my view of your integrity. It's very much intact as far as I'm concerned. And I hope that your pledge earlier not to be a part of the Kerry administration did not preclude you from coming to New York sometime and teaching at the new schools.
(LAUGHTER)
And let me also say this document of Fox News earlier, this transcript that they had, this is a background briefing. And all of us that have provided background briefings for the press before should beware. I mean, Fox should say occasionally fair and balanced after putting something like this out.
(LAUGHTER)
Because they violated a serious trust.
(APPLAUSE)
All of us that come into this kind of an environment and provide background briefings for the press I think will always have this as a reminder that sometimes it isn't going to happen, that it's background.
Sometimes, if it suits their interest, they're going to go back, pull the tape, convert it into transcript and send it out in the public arena and try to embarrass us or discredit us.
So I object to what they've done, and I think it's an unfortunate thing they did.
=======================================================
Then:
THOMPSON: Mr. Clarke, in this background briefing, as Senator Kerrey has now described it, for the press in August of 2002, you intended to mislead the press, did you not?
THOMPSON: Why was that, Mr. Clarke? You finally resigned because you were frustrated.
CLARKE: I was, at that time, at the request of the president, preparing a national strategy to defend America's cyberspace, something which I thought then and think now is vitally important. I thought that completing that strategy was a lot more important than whether or not I had to provide emphasis in one place or other while discussing the facts on this particular news story.
The second choice one has, Governor, is whether or not to say things that are untruthful. And no one in the Bush White House asked me to say things that were untruthful, and I would not have said them.
In any event, the third choice that one has is to put the best face you can for the administration on the facts as they were, and that is what I did.
I think that is what most people in the White House in any administration do when they're asked to explain something that is embarrassing to the administration.
THOMPSON: But you will admit that what you said in August of 2002 is inconsistent with what you say in your book?
CLARKE: No, I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I think, as I said in your last round of questioning, Governor, that it's really a matter here of emphasis and tone. I mean, what you're suggesting, perhaps, is that as special assistant to the president of the United States when asked to give a press backgrounder I should spend my time in that press backgrounder criticizing him. I think that's somewhat of an unrealistic thing to expect.
THOMPSON: Well, what it suggests to me is that there is one standard of candor and morality for White House special assistants and another standard of candor and morality for the rest of America.
THOMPSON: I don't think it's a question of morality at all. I think it's a question of politics.
CLARKE: Well, I...
(APPLAUSE)
THOMPSON: I'm not a Washington insider. I've never been a special assistant in the White House. I'm from the Midwest. So I think I'll leave it there.
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