FC: AP's Ted Bridis: Dick Clarke to resign as WH cybersecurity adviser

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Fri Jan 24 2003 - 13:18:17 PST

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    From: "Ted Bridis" <tbridisat_private>
    To: <declanat_private>
    Subject: Dick Clarke to resign as White House cyber-security adviser
    Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 15:27:13 -0500
    Organization: The Associated Press
    
    <http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&ncid=703&e=6&u=/ap/20030124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terrorism_adviser>http<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&ncid=703&e=6&u=/ap/20030124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terrorism_adviser>://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=544&ncid=703&e=6&u=/ap/20030124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terrorism_adviser
    
    By TED BRIDIS
    Associated Press Writer
    
    WASHINGTON - Richard A. Clarke, a blunt-spoken White House adviser who 
    raised warnings about Islamic terrorism and biological weapons years before 
    they became nightmare headlines, will resign from government soon, people 
    familiar with his plans said.
    
      Clarke, the president's counterterrorism coordinator at the time of the 
    Sept. 11 attacks, was disinclined to accept a senior position in the new 
    Homeland Security Department and planned to retire after three decades with 
    the government, these people said. He has not yet solicited an outside job, 
    they said.
    
    These people, working both inside and outside government, spoke on 
    condition of anonymity but said Clarke personally described his plans to 
    them. Clarke did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press over 
    three days.
    
    Clarke, currently the nation's top cyber-security adviser, is best known 
    for his success in identifying emerging issues and outlasting his critics. 
    He has focused most recently on preventing disruptions to important 
    computer networks from Internet attacks. But he has tempered warnings about 
    a "digital Pearl Harbor" after some industry experts mocked them as overblown.
    
    With much of the White House evacuated for safety in the hours after the 
    Sept. 11 attacks, Clarke worked in the situation room there with National 
    Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney as stunned 
    leaders planned what to do next. His supporters said Clarke played a 
    central role in the unprecedented decision to quickly ground the nation's 
    airliners.
    
    Clarke previously led the government's secretive Counterterrorism and 
    Security Group, made up of senior officials from the FBI, CIA, Justice 
    Department and armed services, who met several times each week to discuss 
    foreign threats.
    
    "It was really the engine room of the anti-terrorism effort," said Sandy 
    Berger, Clinton's former national security adviser and Clarke's former 
    boss. "He's not an easy guy. He's very demanding. More than once people 
    would come to me and complain, but that's why I wanted Dick in that job: He 
    was pushing the bureaucracy."
    
    Clarke also had the ear of President Clinton about the risks from a 
    biological attack, years before anthrax poisoned the U.S. mail.
    
    "Dick was the single most effective person I worked with in the federal 
    government," said Jonathan M. Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of 
    state. "When he was given the authority, he would stay with something every 
    day until it got done. He's efficient and tough-minded. I never saw anyone 
    else as good."
    
    Clarke is known for his aggressive sometimes abrasive personality and for 
    his willingness to bypass bureaucratic channels. Under Clinton, he was 
    known to contact Special Forces and other military commanders in the field 
    directly, irritating the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon.
    
    Clarke was "a bulldog of a bureaucrat," wrote former national security 
    adviser Anthony Lake in a book two years ago. He said Clarke has "a 
    bluntness toward those at his level that has not earned him universal 
    affection."
    
    Some senior CIA officials under Clinton complained that Clarke pressed them 
    to launch covert programs without adequate preparation or study, said 
    Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief.
    
    "He gave the impression he was somewhat of a cowboy," Cannistraro said. 
    "There was no love lost between Clarke and the CIA."
    
    Clarke managed largely to avoid Washington's finger-pointing over failures 
    to anticipate the Sept. 11 attacks, even though he was the top 
    counterterrorism adviser and he was replaced by the White House in that 
    role less than one month later.
    
    "Dick in both the Clinton and Bush administrations was the voice pushing 
    this forward, calling out about the dangers," said William Wechsler, a 
    former director for transnational threats on the National Security Council.
    
    "There's an easy reason why no one is pointing the finger at him."
    
    The security council's director for counterterrorism under Clinton, Daniel 
    Benjamin, described Clarke as "a visionary in terms of pushing hard to 
    recognize the dangers of al-Qaida; certainly the new administration should 
    have attended to his thoughts a little more."
    
    Clarke already has submitted his resignation letter to the president, one 
    person said. Clarke is among the country's longest-serving White House 
    staffers, hired in 1992 from the State Department to deal with threats from 
    terrorism and narcotics.
    
    A spokeswoman, Tiffany Olson, said Clarke, who reports to Rice and Homeland 
    Security chief Tom Ridge, hasn't told White House staff at the President's 
    Critical Infrastructure Protection Board that he plans to leave.
    
    
    
    
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