Seems also, as Mr. Clarke knew more then Dick Cheney.
GWB was re-occupied with Iraq and had no time to listen to warnings about
terrorist atacks.
His comment "If I had known, I would have done everything",
sounds like "If I knew the lottery numbers, I would play".

Report Details Bush-Blair Meeting on Iraq    Sun Apr 4,11:35 PM ET

LONDON - President Bush made clear at a dinner with Prime Minister Tony
Blair nine days after the Sept. 11 attacks that he wanted to confront Iraq,
the former British ambassador to the United States reportedly told a
magazine.

The president raised Iraq at a White House meeting on Sept. 20, 2001,
Christopher Meyer, the former envoy, told Vanity Fair. The magazine,
published in New York, released an advance copy of its story to The
Associated Press on Sunday.

"Rumors were already flying that Bush would use 9/11 as a pretext to attack
Iraq," Meyer, who attended the dinner, reportedly said. "On the one hand,
Blair came with a very strong message — don't get distracted; the
priorities were al-Qaida, Afghanistan, the Taliban."

"Bush said, 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when
we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq,'" Meyer said,
according to Vanity Fair.

Meyer's statements appear to echo claims by Richard Clarke, the former
White House counterterrorism chief who said Bush was preoccupied with Iraq
before and after the terror attacks at the expense of fighting al-Qaida.

Clarke, whose book "Against All Enemies" and public testimony have ignited
a political storm in Washington, said Bush pressed him the day after the
attacks to establish a link to Iraq.

The White House has dismissed Clarke's allegations, saying Iraq was
considered one of many possible terror threats and in planning retaliation
for Sept. 11, a map of Afghanistan, not Iraq was put on a table at Camp
David.

A spokesman in Blair's office declined to specify whether the two leaders
discussed Iraq at the Sept. 20 meeting or give any details of the dinner.

"The focus of discussions post 9/11 was on the need to take action against
al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, but Iraq has been a foreign policy
priority for many years and would have been discussed by the two leaders at
most meetings," an official in Blair's office told AP on condition of
anonymity.

He said Blair did not decide to go to war then.

The Vanity Fair article, quoting an unidentified White House official,
alleged that Bush and Blair discussed clear plans to topple Saddam Hussein
in the summer of 2002 and that Blair misled his Cabinet by insisting for
months that he had not made a decision to fight.

Meyer was in Paris Sunday and did not immediately return a request for
comment made by the AP through Stephen Abell, spokesman for the Press
Complaints Commission, the newspaper self-regulating body that the former
ambassador now heads.


On Mon, 5 Apr 2004 13:06:50 EDT, Wirt Atmar <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Bush Loyalists Pack Coalition Press Office in Iraq
>
>By JIM KRANE, AP
>
>BAGHDAD, Iraq (April 4) - Inside the marble-floored palace hall that serves
>as the press office of the U.S.-led coalition, Republican Party operatives
lead
>a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq.
>
>Dan Senor, a former press secretary for Spencer Abraham, the Michigan
>Republican who's now Energy Secretary, heads the office packed with former
Bush
>campaign workers, political appointees and ex-Capitol Hill staffers.
>
>One-third of the U.S. civilian workers in the press office have GOP ties,
>running an enterprise that critics see as an outpost of Bush's re-election
effort
>with Iraq a top concern. Senor and others inside the coalition say they
>follow strict guidelines that steer clear of politics.
>
>One of the main goals of the Office of Strategic Communications - known as
>stratcom - is to ensure Americans see the positive side of the Bush
>administration's invasion, occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, where
600 U.S. soldiers
>have died and a deadly insurgency thrives.
>
>''Beautification Plan for Baghdad Ready to Begin,'' one press release in
late
>March said in its headline. Another statement last month cautioned, ''The
>Reality is Nothing Like What You See on Television.''
>
>Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, said his
>office is guided by ethical ''red lines'' that prevent it from crossing
into
>the Bush campaign.
>
>''We have an obligation to communicate with the U.S. Congress and the
>American people, given that they're spending almost $20 billion in Iraq
and have
>committed over 100,000 U.S. troops here,'' Senor said in an interview with
The
>Associated Press.
>
>Earlier in his career, after Hebrew University and Harvard Business School,
>Senor was with the Carlyle Group, an investment firm with Bush family ties
and
>big defense industry holdings. Senor jogged in a Thanksgiving Day race here
>wearing a ''Bush-Cheney 2004'' T-shirt.
>
>Known as the Green Room, the press office is inside coalition headquarters
in
>the Republican Palace that used to belong to Saddam Hussein. The palace is
in
>central Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
>
>The office counts 21 Republicans - 11 of whom have worked inside the Bush
>administration before their Iraq posting - among its 58 U.S. civilian
staffers,
>according to figures Senor provided.
>
>More than half a dozen CPA officials in the press office worked on Bush's
>2000 presidential campaign or are related to Bush campaign workers,
according to
>payroll records filed with the Federal Elections Commission.
>
>Republican figures also permeate the wider CPA staff, including top
advisers
>to U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and the Iraqi ministries.
>
>The U.S. team stands in deep contrast to the British team that works
>alongside it, almost all of whom are civil or foreign service employees,
not political
>appointees. Many of the British in Iraq display regional knowledge or
>language skills that most of the Americans lack.
>
>The drive to re-elect Bush is a sensitive topic. Several coalition
officials
>angered by what they see as CPA politicking - with U.S. accomplishments in
>Iraq being trumpeted to help Bush - grumbled privately, but would not go on
>record with complaints.
>
>But Gordon Robison, a former CPA contractor who helped build the
>Pentagon-funded Al-Iraqiya television station in Baghdad, said Republicans
in the press
>room intensely followed the Democratic presidential primaries as John Kerry
>emerged as the presumed nominee.
>
>''Iraq is in danger of costing George W. Bush his presidency and the CPA's
>media staff are determined to see that does not happen,'' Robison
said. ''I had
>the impression in dealing with the civilians in the Green Room that they
>viewed their job as essentially political, promoting what the Coalition
Provisional
>Authority is doing in Iraq as a political arm of the Bush administration,''
>he added.
>
>Robison, a journalist who said his political affiliation is a private
matter,
>left Baghdad in March after finishing his contract with U.S. defense
>contractor Science Applications International Corp. A new U.S. contractor,
Harris
>Corp., has taken over the Al-Iraqiya operations.
>
>One CPA staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the press office
had
>sent targeted ''good news'' releases to American television, radio and
>newspaper outlets that were timed to deflect criticism of Bush during the
Democratic
>primaries.
>
>Stratcom's schedule of news releases shows that stories were sent to media
>outlets in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia and other
states in
>the days before their Democratic primaries. But the schedule also shows
>releases sent to Virginia, Ohio and Florida after the primaries were over.
Senor said
>any correlation to the vote was a coincidence.
>
>Rich Galen, 57, a well-known Republican strategist, oversees the daily news
>releases sent directly to media outlets in the United States. Before
joining
>the CPA press operation late last year, Galen wrote a GOP insider column
and
>appeared on Fox News to harpoon liberal critics of Bush.
>
>Now, he's still writing an Internet column, but he's turned it into what he
>calls a travelogue about Iraq. And he still appears on Fox - but long-
distance
>via satellite and as a CPA spokesman.
>
>Galen has been press secretary for both former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
>and former Vice President Dan Quayle during their careers. Galen's 27-year-
old
>son, Reed, is involved in the Bush re-election effort.
>
>Since arriving in Iraq, Galen said he has made sure not to veer into
politics
>in his work in the Green Room, in his column or during his television
>appearances.
>
>''I understand when the game clock is on and when the game clock is off,''
>Galen said. ''The clock is off.''
>
>Were he to get directly involved in the Bush campaign, Galen said he'd be
far
>more effective working at an office in Virginia outside of Washington D.C.
>than from the Iraqi capital. ''It's as inefficient a way to run a campaign
as I
>can imagine,'' he said of being in Baghdad.
>
>Outside political analysts, however, said Galen's vast expertise lies in
>political campaigning, not shipping radio and TV spots to local audiences.
Putting
>a sharp strategist like him in the press room is a campaign masterstroke,
>said Bob Boorstin of the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan
political
>think-tank in Washington.
>
>''You know they're in trouble if they shipped Rich Galen over there,'' said
>Boorstin, who worked on four presidential campaigns, all Democratic.
>
>''They're desperate to control the story over there. It's a very smart
thing
>on their part. He knows what he's doing.''
>
>Still, Boorstin said the shaping of the American message out of Iraq should
>come as no surprise. The rigors of election year politics demand the best
>possible portrayal of key policies, and Bush has staked his presidency on
the
>notion that he's a war president.
>
>''There's some deep questions about whether (the U.S. invasion) was a good
>idea. Wherever and whenever they can, Bush's political people are
manipulating
>whatever they can,'' he said.
>
>''Is that a surprise? No. Would Democrats do it? Yes. But it's particularly
>noxious because people's lives are on the line.''
>
>(Associated Press Writer Aparna H. Kumar contributed to this report from
>Washington.)
>
>AP-NY-04-04-04 1358EDT
>
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