Simply Politics & News

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The day after Clinton's interview on Fox, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a meeting with writers and editors at The New York Post , said the idea that the Bush Administration took no action on terrorism pre-9/11 was "flatly false," calling the Bush efforts "at least as aggressive" as what Clinton had done, and denied Clinton's claim that the Bush team had been left a plan by the previous Administration.

Rice: We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda.

False: Rice's statement is not supported by the 9/11 Report, which describes the plans Clarke drew up and says they were conveyed to Bush's aides, as we noted earlier. The 9/11 Report says that as the Clinton Administration drew to a close in December 2000, Clarke and his staff developed a policy paper on eliminating the al Qaeda threat, "the first such comprehensive effort" since a 1998 plan known as Delenda (p. 197). The Report also says (p. 201): "After Rice requested that all senior staff identify desirable major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He attached to it his 1998 Delenda Plan and the December 2000 strategy paper."