The tie that binds Clarke, Tenet, and Pavitt (besides resigning from the Bush administration)

Richard Clarke warned Bush about Bin Laden.
George Tenet warned Bush about Bin Laden.
James Pavitt warned Bush about Bin Laden.

Bush spent the month of August on vacation.

Back when we were watching Condoleezza Rice trying to side step the 911 Commission, this little ditty appeared in print:

``Almost inevitably, Richard Clarke's appearances on television have made this a direct challenge to the president and Condoleezza Rice,'' [Anthony] Cordesman (CSIS) said.

As national security adviser, Rice was a central player in the handoff of U.S. antiterrorism policy from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.

According to a report by the Sept. 11 commission's staff, James Pavitt, the CIA's deputy director for operations, recalled giving a briefing to Bush, Cheney and Rice shortly before they took office in which he said that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden ``was one of the gravest threats to the country.''

The report said Clarke, days after the new administration took over, forwarded to Rice a policy paper calling for ``urgent action by the new administration,'' including covert assistance to the opposition Northern Alliance in Afghanistan -- where the al- Qaeda terrorist network had found safe harbor -- plus more funding for the CIA and a resumption of missions by the unmanned reconnaissance aircraft while an armed version was being developed.

Clarke told the commission that the administration responded to his proposal by directing him to the deputies of Cabinet-level national security officials rather than to the officials themselves. That ``slowed it down enormously, by months,'' Clarke said.

In March 2001, Rice asked the CIA to draw up a new document for covert action in Afghanistan. At the end of May, Rice asked about ``taking the offensive'' against al-Qaeda in a meeting that included Clarke and Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, the report says.

Top administration officials approved a new presidential directive on al-Qaeda on Sept. 4, just a week before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

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