WSJ compares Rice and Clarke testimonies

[question everything]

On the administration's sense of urgency in tackling terrorism:

RICE
(snip) Our goal was to ensure continuity of operations while
we developed new and more aggressive policies.

CLARKE
I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months considered terrorism an important issue but not an urgent issue.
(snip)

On forming a strategy to fight al Qaeda:

RICE
(snip) We recognized that America's counterterrorism policy
had to be connected to our regional strategies and to our overall foreign policy.

CLARKE
... he deputies committee didn't meet urgently in January or February. Then, when the deputies committee did meet, it took the issue of al Qaeda as part of a cluster of policy issues, including nuclear proliferation in South Asia, democratization in Pakistan, how to treat the problems, the various problems, including narcotics and other problems in Afghanistan, (snip)

On Iraq within the larger strategy of the terrorism war:

RICE
... ver the long run ... we will change the nature of the Middle East, particularly if there are examples that this can work in the Middle East. And this is why Iraq is so important. The Iraqi people are struggling to find a way to create a multiethnic
democracy that works. (snip)

CLARKE
(snip) by invading Iraq, the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism.

On briefing the president directly on counterterrorism:

RICE
Dick Clarke never asked me to brief the president on counterterrorism. He did brief the president later on cybersecurity, in July, but he, to my recollection, never asked.
(snip)

CLARKE
(snip) I was given a briefing opportunity to brief on cybersecurity in June. I was told I could brief the president on terrorism after this policy-development process was complete. (snip)

On the heightened alert in the summer of 2001:

RICE
...ne of the problems here was there really was nothing that looked like it was going to happen inside the United States. The ... specific threat reporting was about external threats: (snip)

CLARKE
(snip) On one of those occasions, he (Bush) asked for a strategy to deal with the threat. Condi Rice came back from that meeting, called
me and relayed what the president had requested. And I said, "...We can have a meeting on the strategy any time you want." She said she would look into it. (snip) And as far as I know, the president
never asked again.

On the response to the USS Cole bombing:

RICE
We really thought that the Cole incident was past, that you didn't want to respond tit for tat. As I've said, there is strategic response and there's tactical response. (snip) I still believe to this day that the al Qaeda were prepared for a response to the Cole and that, as some of the intelligence suggested, bin Laden was intending to show that he'd yet survived another one, and that it might have been counterproductive.

CLARKE
(snip) I was told on a couple of occasions, well, that — you know — that happened on the Clinton administration's watch. (snip)