Sounds like there wasn't a plan to me:
Finally, Richard Clarke himself debunked the story in a background briefing with reporters. He said he presented two things to the incoming Bush administration: "One, what the existing strategy had been. And two, a series of issues - like aiding the Northern Alliance, changing Pakistan policy, changing Uzbek policy - that they had been unable to come to any new conclusions from '98 on."And then there's this by someone who should know:
A reporter asked: "Were all of those issues part of an alleged plan that was late December and the Clinton team decided not to pursue because it was too close to -"
"There was never a plan, Andrea," Clarke answered. "What there was was these two things: One, a description of the existing strategy, which included a description of the threat. And two, those things which had been looked at over the course of two years, and which were still on the table."
"So there was nothing that developed, no documents or no new plan of any sort?"
"“There was no new plan."
"No new strategy? I mean, I mean, I don't want to get into a semantics -"
"Plan, strategy - there was no, nothing new."
"Had those issues evolved at all from October of '98 until December of 2000?"
"Had they evolved? Not appreciably."
At the National Press Club today, former Secretary of State Madelaine Albright was asked: "Secretary Rice alleges that you did not leave a comprehensive plan behind to deal with the events in later transpired Afghanistan, Pakistan facing al Qaeda. What did you leave for your successors in the Bush administration?"Leaving them a "sense" does not sound like a plan to me. So, on the one hand Clinton, a known liar is saying there was a plan and on the other hand Clarke and Rice are saying that there wasn't. Who do we believe? Hmmmm, decisions, decisions. I guess since Clinton himself said to trust Clark, I think I will :-)
Her response: "Well, what we left was a sense that fighting terrorism was very important and ask Secretary Rice how much attention they paid to terrorism in the first 8 months, ask them how many meetings they had about terrorism, ask them what they did with Dick Clark. We made very clear, (Clinton National Security Adviser) Sandy Berger and I, to both brief our successors about how much time we spent on terrorism and how it occupied many ideas on things that we had to do how many terrorist attacks we had foiled, and frankly they were both surprised that it was going to take that much time. So ask them how they spent their time when they got into office."
And btw, how many terrorists attempts did they foil??? I haven't heard of one (and don't even try to say the Millennium bomber since that plot was foiled because of a border guard who thought Ressam was acting suspicious).
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