Clarke vs inter alia Rice part XXIII
I could have skipped this entry.

I could certainly skip this post. My worst case of delusional megalomania so far was a link to Atrios. Now I am linking to an absolutely unambigiuous Washington Post article by MilbanK and Pincus cited in Atrios.

The article includes

it depends on your definition of the word "including"

"Rice wrote that "through the spring and summer of 2001, the national security team developed a strategy to eliminate al Qaeda" that included "sufficient military options to remove the Taliban regime" including the use of ground forces. ... McCormack said Rice's statement is accurate because the team discussed including orders for such military plans to be drawn up."

Oh I get it. if a policy development team discusses whether to include a proposal and decides not include it, it is reasonable to say it was included. Hmm by that standard the Supeme court included Gore on the list of US presidents. Hell, by that standard, the people o fthe United States of America included Lyndon Larouche in the list of
US presidents.


In the same article in the Washington Post
Rice Vs Rice
" In the same article [in the Washington Post], Rice belittled Clarke's proposals by writing: "The president wanted more than a laundry list of ideas simply to contain al Qaeda or 'roll back' the threat. Once in office, we quickly began crafting a comprehensive new strategy to 'eliminate' the al Qaeda network." Rice asserted that while Clarke and others provided ideas, "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration." That same day, she said most of Clarke's ideas "had been already tried or rejected in the Clinton administration."

But in her interview with NBC two days later, Rice appeared to take a different view of Clarke's proposals. "He sent us a set of ideas that would perhaps help to roll back al Qaeda over a three- to five-year period; we acted on those ideas very quickly. And what's very interesting is that . . . Dick Clarke now says that we ignored his ideas or we didn't follow them up." "

I might add that, although Rice hasn't yet declassified it, I am currently willing to bet my ass that the September 4 2001 proposal did not contain the word "eliminate" as proposed by Clarke, but rather the phrase "significantly erode."This is, indeed, as stressed ad naseum by Rice et al, a change from Clarke's original "roll back," But not in the direction claimed by Rice.

With respect for mr Milbank. I think he is a hero. It is widely claimed that he has struggled to report on the White House even though they responded to his refusal to toe the line by frozing him out -- refusing to return his phone calls or answer his questions. One nice thing about Milbank is that he is very modest. He once wrote that his wife "very charitably" compared his appearance to that of Rick Moranis. I hope he gets to entitle his biography
"Honey I Blew up the Bush presidency" he has already gotten to "Honey I shrunk the credibility of Rice"