by TChris

Republicans seeking to discredit the testimony of Richard Clarke about the Bush administration's inattention to the Al Qaeda threat prior to 9/11 have called for Clarke's July 2002 testimony before the Senate and House Intelligence committees to be declassified. They contend that his testimony in 2002 contradicts his testimony this year.

Clarke's response: bring it on. But he doesn't want the testimony to be declassified selectively to remove individual statements from their larger context in an effort to mislead.

"I would welcome it being declassified, but not just a little line here or there. Let's declassify all six hours of my testimony," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Clarke wants Condoleezza Rice's testimony declassified, as well, and he wants the White House to release all of his emails, not merely those that, taken out of context, can be used to attack his credibility.

"The White House is selectively now finding my e-mails, which I would have assumed were covered by some privacy regulations, and selectively leaking them to the press. Let's take all of my e-mails and all of the memos that I sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20th to September 11th, and let's declassify all of it," he said.

Having whacked the ball firmly back into the Republican court, we now have the chance to see whether the Bush administration and its Congressional supporters will respond to Clarke's challenge.