NEW YORK, March 21: A former White House anti-terrorism adviser has accused US President George W.Bush of ignoring terrorism threats before the Sept. 11 attacks and of making America less safe.
Richard Clarke, Bush's top official on counter-terrorism who headed a cyber security board, told CBS "60 minutes" in an interview on Sunday he thought Bush had "done a terrible job on the war against terrorism."
"I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11," Clarke told CBS.
Clarke, who was an adviser to four presidents, says in a book to be published next week that the Bush administration should have taken out Al Qaeda and its training camps in Afghanistan long before the attacks of Sept. 11, for which the militant network was blamed.
"I think the way he has responded to Al Qaeda, both before 9/11 by doing nothing, and by what he's done after 9/11, has made us less safe," Clarke told CBS.
Clarke left his position in February 2003 after 30 years in government service when the White House transferred functions of the cyber security board to Homeland Security. -Reuters
