Showstoppers (How Clinton shirked his duty to protect America from al Qaeda)

The Weekly Standard ^ | January 26, 2004 | Richard H. Shultz Jr.

[quidnunc]

Nine reasons why we never sent our Special Operations Forces after al Qaeda before 9/11.

Since 9/11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has repeatedly declared that the United States is in a new kind of war, one requiring new military forces to hunt down and capture or kill terrorists. In fact, for some years, the Department of Defense has gone to the trouble of selecting and training an array of Special Operations Forces, whose forte is precisely this. One president after another has invested resources to hone lethal "special mission units" for offensive — that is, preemptive — counterterrorism strikes, with the result that these units are the best of their kind in the world. While their activities are highly classified, two of them — the Army's Delta Force and the Navy's SEAL Team 6 — have become the stuff of novels and movies.

Prior to 9/11, these units were never used even once to hunt down terrorists who had taken American lives. Putting the units to their intended use proved impossible — even after al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, bombed two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, and nearly sank the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. As a result of these and other attacks, operations were planned to capture or kill the ultimate perpetrators, Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, but each time the missions were blocked. A plethora of self-imposed constraints — I call them showstoppers — kept the counterterrorism units on the shelf.

I first began to learn of this in the summer of 2001, after George W. Bush's election brought a changing of the guard to the Department of Defense. Joining the new team as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict was Bob Andrews, an old hand at the black arts of unconventional warfare. During Vietnam, Andrews had served in a top-secret Special Forces outfit codenamed the Studies and Observations Group that had carried out America's largest and most complex covert paramilitary operation in the Cold War. Afterwards, Andrews had joined the CIA, then moved to Congress as a staffer, then to the defense industry.

I'd first met him while I was writing a book about the secret war against Hanoi, and we hit it off. He returned to the Pentagon with the new administration, and in June 2001 he called and asked me to be his consultant. I agreed, and subsequently proposed looking into counterterrorism policy. Specifically, I wondered why had we created these superbly trained Special Operations Forces to fight terrorists, but had never used them for their primary mission. What had kept them out of action?

-snip-

[US_MilitaryRules]

bttt

[marron]

This is a very good analysis of what is wrong with the American military, pre- and post- 9/11. Long but worth the read.

What do you think?

[VOA]

AS TERRORIST ATTACKS escalated in the 1990s, White House rhetoric intensified.
President Clinton met each successive outrage with a vow to punish the perpetrators.
After the Cole bombing in 2000, for example, he pledged to "find out who is responsible
and hold them accountable." And to prove he was serious, he issued an
increasingly tough series of Presidential Decision Directives.

Words, words, and more words.
All that Clinton really did...as documented in "Losing bin Laden" by Miniter (sp?).

But I do appreciate something about Bubba.
After his flaccid response to terrorism, even against embassies and a US Navy destroyer...
combined with all the mainstream press painting Dubya as an impotent simpleton...
Osama, Mullah Omar, Saddam and an army of Islamo-facist thugs thought they
could attack the Great Satan for sport and without paying a price.

Suprise, suprise, suprise!

[LibertarianInExile]

bump for later reading

[Luke FReeman]

Excellent read, BTTT!

[sport]

bill clinton and al Qaeda were] and still are] on the same side.

Both consider it their duty to destroy America.

Ever since he was run out of England for organizing protests against the United States during the Vietnam War up to and including this very minute, bill clinton's sole desire was and still is the total and complete destruction of the United States of America.

In this endevor he has been aided by the voters of America who twice elected him as their President, [the second time knowing full well what a pervert and sob he is]. The mainstream media, the democrat party. The voters from the State of New York who elected his wife to the United States Senate in order that she could continue his work.

No, bill clinton has never considered it his duty to protect the United States of america.

He has and still does consider it his duty to destroy the United States of America.

For that matter so do the mainstream media and the democrat party.

[expatpat]

While everything you say about Bubba is true IMO, this article suggests that the problem was more the Pentagon brass than any other group.

[gaspar]

Fascinating. It sheds new light on the activity of Richard Clarke in the NSC. It is interesting to note that the author does not once refer to Sandy Berger or Madeline Albright (the weakest NSC chairman and Secretary of State appointments in the 20th Century).

[freekitty]

"Fascinating. It sheds new light on the activity of Richard Clarke in the NSC. It is interesting to note that the author does not once refer to Sandy Berger or Madeline Albright (the weakest NSC chairman and Secretary of State appointments in the 20th Century)."

I wondered the same thing. What role did they play and what roles are they still playing to destroy America as a free country?

[VOA]

While everything you say about Bubba is true IMO, this article suggests that the
problem was more the Pentagon brass than any other group.

While the Pentagon brass may have contributed...the passage in "Losing bin Laden"
about the meeting of all the head poobahs to determine the response to the
USS Cole incident is just stunning.

About the only Clinton Administration official that came away looking like
an actual citizen of the USA was Richard Clark, at least according to Miniter's
accounting of the meeting and the interviews he had with all the participants.

[expatpat]

Can't disagree with any of that.

[VOA]

I hope I didn't sound too vindictive about the limp response of Bubba et al to
the USS Cole incident.
A US President and executive appointees carry responsibilities that I'd neve
be able to bear.

But, even if it's the result of human reportage...and even if it's not 100% accurate...
that account that Miniter has about the virtual unanimous "punt" by Bubba and Co.
(with Richard Clark the valiant exception) should be dramatized and broadcast
on primetime TV.

To let folks see Bubba and fellow travelers as they really were...and as an
object-lesson to future executive officers!