Cleland on Now

NOW Cleland transcript --

Well, the independent, bi-partisan commission, hello, didn't even get the stuff 'til a few weeks ago.

I'm saying that's deliberate. I am saying that the delay in relating this information to the American public out of a hearing… series of hearings, that several members of Congress knew eight or ten months ago, including Bob Graham and others, that was deliberately slow walked… the 9/11 Commission was deliberately slow walked, because the Administration's policy was, and its priority was, we're gonna take Saddam Hussein out.
This executive summary of the intelligence inquiry… the joint intelligence inquiry, the executive summary, was available December 10th. Why did it take nine months to go over what ought to be held out of that?

Now, I'm saying that that was slow walked. I am also saying why did it take eight months to get this 9/11 Commission really cranked up and going, and the first step was to use the Intelligence Committee report as a jumping off point? Why did all of this take so long?

Because the real priority of the White House was not the 9/11 Commission — they fought it. And it was just, and it really was their interest was to delay the revelation of this report.

One of the reasons they didn't want it is they didn't want all this stuff out there.

But who declared war on the country? It was Osama bin Laden, and his terrorist cadre. And Islamic fanatics. That's what 9/11 was all about. It was not about Saddam Hussein. Who has the worst or, the greatest… who is the greatest threat in the world today to us, in terms of weapons of mass destruction? It's not Saddam Hussein. It's North Korea. So, why are we making this big deal? We should've found Osama bin Laden. We should've destroyed his network around the world. That was gonna take time.

It wasn't gonna make headlines. You can't do that war in three weeks, and say "Major combat's over."

What you're really up against here is Islamic fundamental terrorism that is infiltrating now not only back into Afghanistan, but into Iraq as well.

And that's what we're really up against. That's what the 9/11 Commission was designed to explore. And we're just getting into that.

Step number one, where in the world is Osama bin Laden?

Step number two, what is the al Qaeda? Why did they do this? Why did they shift their target from the monarchy in Saudi Arabia, and the leadership in Egypt, why did they shift their target to America? They shifted their target, we know that.

And years ago, Osama bin Laden declared open war on the United States, why? Because we support the monarchy in Saudi Arabia, we support the leadership in Egypt. And that tees off a whole lot of folks out there.

You get the big land force in there. You know. You don't cure the problem. And you're exposed. And then the guerrilla warfare comes after you. That's Vietnam. That's the quagmire we're in in Iraq. There is no exit strategy. Why? Because we want to do a pre-emptive war. We want to do it all alone.

You can't force or impose democracy with 150,000 troops. We tried to do it in South Vietnam. There was an election there, and all this kind of stuff. But it never worked.

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