What Clinton didn't do about terror, and...when he didn't do it.

Bill Clinton's outburst on Fox News was something of a public service... This is important because every George W. Bush policy that arouses the ire of Democrats--the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, detention without trial, pre-emptive war--is a departure from his predecessor.

With that in mind, let us examine Mr. Clinton's war on terror. Some 38 days after he was sworn in, al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center. He did not visit the twin towers that year, even though four days after the attack he was just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, talking about job training. He made no attempt to rally the public against terrorism. His only public speech on the bombing was a few paragraphs inserted into a radio address mostly devoted an economic stimulus package.

• In 1999, the Clinton administration disrupted al Qaeda's Millennium plots, a series of bombings stretching from Amman to Los Angeles. This shining success was mostly the work of Richard Clarke, a NSC senior director who forced agencies to work together. But the Millennium approach was shortlived. Over Mr. Clarke's objections, policy reverted to the status quo.

When Mr. Clarke presented a plan to launch a massive cruise missile strike on al Qaeda and Taliban facilities in Afghanistan, the Clinton cabinet voted against it. After the meeting, a State Department counterterrorism official, Michael Sheehan, sought out Mr. Clarke. Both told me that they were stunned. Mr. Sheehan asked Mr. Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"

Berger, for Hillary Clinton, let bin Laden go
both from the Sudanese and when he was briefly vulnerable to missile attack.
[e.g. US News & World Report, Paul Bedard, 15 Mar 2003]

CODE-level thief and DOJ-accepted-document-destroyer Sandy Berger,
to please Hillary, personally allowed bin Laden and his top lieutenants to escape to Afghanistan.
NewsMax, "Aide: Clinton Unleashed bin Laden", Chuck Noe

Berger repeatedly rebuffed Sudanese offers to hand Osama bin Laden
to the United States in a deal brokered by a $900,000 contributor to Democrat campaigns.
Source 1 - National Review, "Clinton & Khobar", Rich Lowry

Source 2 - Washington Times, "Miniter Responds", Richard Miniter

Berger was singled-out by UN Inspector Scott Ritter for the collapse of UN inspections efforts in Iraq].
"Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem - Once and for All" by Scott Ritter

Berger admitted that the Clinton Administration failed to develop a war plan to fight al Qaeda
National Review, "Warning B.S.", Rich Lowry

Berger was not qualified as NSA.
He was a millionaire lawyer and lobbyist with a career centered on expanding trade with China.
Tom Laughlin, http://www.billyjack.com/jung/08_politics/articles/990515_spy.html

Berger was the "go-to" man regarding China policy
when Communist Chinese money was being funneled into Democrat Party coffers
in exchange for policy concessions, strategic nuclear technology,
and all pending patent applications at the US Patent Office.
The Hill, "Fundraiser resurfaces from 1996", Sam Dealey

Berger stonewalled the Energy Department about Chinese spying in Los Alamos for three years.

Sandy Berger-Burglar was a key beneficiary of "Gorelick’s Wall"
TIME, "The Ubiquitous Mr. Fix-It", Adam Cohen

John Kerry was a key beneficiary of Berger's Burglaries
Rescued: Data the Kerry/Edwards Campaign Tried to DELETE from its site! (grandpa dave found cache)

Berger purloined all draft revisions of a key critique of the government's response
to the millennium terrorism threat, a document that detailed Administration knowledge
– and inaction – regarding al Qaeda presence in the U.S. in 1999
and 2000. Stolen were crucial notes in the margins of these drafts
which reveal the thinking and agendas of the
Clinton Administration relating to the mounting terrorist threat.
Washington Post, "Berger Quits as Advisor to Kerry", Susan Schmidt

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh opined that
Burger “was a public-relations hack, interested in how something would play in the press” .
The New Yorker, per http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200311030753.asp

Dick Morris noted Berger “seemed to work overtime
at opposing tough measures against terror”,
advising vetoes of legislation aimed at crippling Iranian terror funding
and working to block antiterror sanctions.
Wall Street Journal, "While Clinton Fiddled", Dick Morris, http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=95001824

***** BUT TO BE FAIR, THE CLINTONOIDS WERE FOCUSING ON SOMETHING
THEY THOUGHT IMPORTANT:

"I was summoned to the office of National Security adviser Sandy Berger,
who chewed me out for not having a national security adviser (on the West Wing).
So I opened the next season with Anna Deavere Smith as the national security adviser" -
Aaron Sorkin

When Mr. Clarke presented a plan to launch a massive cruise missile strike on al Qaeda and Taliban facilities in Afghanistan, the Clinton cabinet voted against it.

(IIRC) When Clinton did the first Wag the Dog with cruise missiles just before Lewinsky's testimony to the Grand Jury, the stock of missiles was only around 100. They cost around $1 million each at the time.

When Clinton did the second Wag the Dog the night before the Senate vote of him impeachment trial, the number of cruise missiles had been depleted to something like 45.

The Clinton Administration was not putting any funds into resupplying and replenishing the munitions and equipment used by the military.

[I remember some news casts at the time talking about the depletion of cruise/Tomahawk missiles, and excusing Clinton for not being more aggressive because of the depletion. He couldn't widen a war with such an insufficient number of munitions.]

[Recall that one of the reasons for the delay in attacking Taliban in Afghanistan shortly after 911 was the lack of munitions. Munitions plants went on 24/7 production schedules to build up the supply. Clinton failed to mention how he let the munitions and armaments deplete during his terms.]

Please note the connection between Clinton's only apparent terror achievement and Sandy Berger's theft of documents. What were they trying to conceal from the public?

From the WSJ article:

In 1999, the Clinton administration disrupted al Qaeda's Millennium plots, a series of bombings stretching from Amman to Los Angeles. This shining success was mostly the work of Richard Clarke, a NSC senior director who forced agencies to work together. But the Millennium approach was shortlived.

From Fox News:

Berger acknowledged to U.S. Magistrate Deborah Robinson that he intentionally took and deliberately destroyed three copies of the same document dealing with terror threats during the 2000 millennium celebration. He then lied about it to Archives staff when they told him the documents were missing.

In 1998, al Qaeda simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224, including 12 U.S. diplomats. Mr. Clinton ordered cruise-missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan in response. Here Mr. Clinton's critics are wrong: The president was right to retaliate when America was attacked, irrespective of the Monica Lewinsky case.

Clinton may have been right to retaliate, but did it have to be the very day that Monica was testifying before the grand jury, and was it really necessary for the President of the United States himself to go on national television to announce the missile strikes?

IMHO, any retaliatory attack by the US against al Qaeda was justified then as it is now. But I don't believe that Clinton's decision to send those missiles had any purpose other than to get Monica off the day's front page.

"In 1999, the Clinton administration disrupted al Qaeda's Millennium plots, a series of bombings stretching from Amman to Los Angeles. This shining success was mostly the work of Richard Clarke..."

This "shining success" claimed by Clintonistas is credit entirely undeserved.

The Los Angeles part of the attack was stopped only by alert Customs Inspectors who, after conducting a routine search of the terrorist's car-truck on the US/Canadian border, at 1st thought they discovered drugs and drug equipment.

The Jordanian end of the plot was discovered by a Jordanian Police phone tap and their round up and "interrogation" of ALL associates of those whose phones were tapped.

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