WASHINGTON — Seven days before Sept. 11, 2001, then-White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke was so alarmed at the threats posed by Al Qaeda that he urged administration colleagues to visualize a terrorist attack that left hundreds of Americans dead, it was disclosed Wednesday.
Clarke urged policymakers "to imagine a day after hundreds of Americans lay dead at home and abroad after a terrorist attack, and ask themselves what else they could have done," according to a portion of the confidential memo to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that was paraphrased during a hearing of the commission investigating the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
The disclosure capped two days of often-contentious charges and countercharges about whether federal officials stumbled in the U.S. war against Al Qaeda.
And it provoked furious rebuttals from Bush administration officials.
"I really don't know what to make of this, what is a kind of a shifting story," Rice said of Clarke's contentions in a new book, television appearances and in his testimony before the commission Wednesday.
Clarke testified that while the Clinton administration treated Al Qaeda as an urgent and growing threat, the Bush administration did not, preferring to focus on going to war in Iraq and on other issues.
"The Bush administration saw terrorism policy as important, but not urgent, prior to 9/11," Clarke told members of the panel formally named the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
Clarke, speaking before a hushed and packed hearing room, testified in a deliberate, measured manner about how he and CIA Director George J. Tenet had tried to create a sense of urgency about the terrorist threat. Both men were rare holdovers, Clinton officials kept on by the Bush administration for their expertise.
Clarke said he continued to tell the new administration that Al Qaeda was an urgent problem, but "I don't think it was ever treated that way."
Tenet also testified Wednesday. In contrast, he insisted under oath that the Bush administration took very seriously the growing threat posed by Al Qaeda and did all it could to counter that, despite long-standing problems finding "actionable intelligence" to pursue Osama bin Laden and his top aides in Afghanistan.
But Tenet also conveyed dire warnings, saying that despite the best efforts of the last two administrations -- including a prolonged war in Afghanistan -- Al Qaeda remained strong, deadly and intent on launching more Sept. 11-style attacks.
