Philip Shenon's recent book has restarted the Rice vs. Clarke debate. Soon Clarke will release a new book about the Bush administration's failures which will likely keep the partisan debate going through the November elections. I can't argue with Clarke's take on Rice. IMO her conduct is indicative of something along the lines of dereliction of duty or criminal negligence (at best).
There is some circumstantial evidence that suggests Clarke isn't being honest:
1) Clarke was a counterterrorism bigshot during the Clinton years so it seems likely he would have been in the loop during the January 5-8, 2000 al Qaeda summit. This was a big deal considering the concern of al Qaeda attacks in the lead up to 2000. Clarke would have been in position to know why CIA failed to alert the FBI when CIA discovered al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar has US visas. For example, was he told at the time that they were GID operatives?
2) Clarke attended the July 10, 2001 briefing in which Tenet warned Rice of an impending attack possibly in the US. Some have suggested a turf war explains CIA's failure to share intel with the FBI. Since they weren't CIA, Clarke, Rice and Hadley cannot resort to such an excuse (which IMO is idiotic in the first place). One is left to wonder why Clarke didn't bombard the FBI with emails. Couldn't he have carbon copied Pickard, Watson, Middleton and Frasca? After all, the FBI was the agency tasked with preventing terrorist attacks in the US.
Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke is told in private by Dale Watson, the head of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, “We got the passenger manifests from the airlines. We recognize some names, Dick. They’re al-Qaeda.” Clarke replies, “How the f_ck did they get on board then?” He is told, “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, friend. CIA forgot to tell us about them.”
LinkForgot? Rice and Clarke were supposed to make sure intel was shared. Clarke can't have it both ways. If he was as concerned as his emails to Rice indicate, he should have made sure CIA didn't 'forget' to share a damn thing.