White House made post-9/11 Iraq plans
From John King
CNN Washington Bureau
 |  Former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke has said the Bush administration focused on Iraq instead of al Qaeda following the 9/11 attacks. |
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House acknowledged Wednesday that a top-secret presidential directive signed days after the September 11, 2001, attacks called for military contingency planning in the event Iraq took provocative steps in response to U.S. military action in Afghanistan.
But the Bush administration stood by its assertion that former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke was engaging in "revisionist history" by saying that the president had directed the military to prepare for the invasion of Iraq in the weeks after the terrorist attacks.
The presidential directive was signed September 17. It instructed the Pentagon to draw up military plans to invade Afghanistan and remove the Taliban from power as part of an assault on al Qaeda, which was using the country as a base of operations.
In his new book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," Clarke accuses the administration of ignoring repeated warnings about an al Qaeda threat in 2001 and looking for an excuse to attack Iraq at the expense of battling terrorism. (Full story)
The White House has vehemently denied those assertions. (Full story)
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday that he could not discuss the classified document in any detail but said it was common sense to consider the potential fallout in the region as plans got under way for military action in Afghanistan.
McClellan also pointed out that Iraq routinely fired at U.S. pilots patrolling the "no-fly" zones over northern and southern Iraq at the time.
"Yes, you would look at contingency planning related to Iraq, who might try to take advantage" if the Pentagon focused major U.S. military resources on Afghanistan, he said.
In a CNN interview Tuesday, Clarke said that "in the weeks immediately after 9/11, the president signed a national security directive instructing the Pentagon to prepare for the invasion of Iraq." (CNN Access: Clarke: 'White House is papering over facts')
McClellan said any characterization of the directive he cited Wednesday as an invasion of Iraq was false.
"The assertion that Clarke made is revisionist history," he said.
