Posted on 03/16/2003 1:59:13 AM PST by kattracks
Ex-President Bill Clinton kept a squadron of F-117 stealth fighter-bombers and B-52s waiting to launch a critical 1996 airstrike on Iraq while he finished watching a golf tournament - dithering so long that U.S. pilots lost the cover of darkness and the mission had to be scrubbed.
That's the explosive charge leveled in a brand new book by Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, a key Clinton military aide from 1996 through 1998 whose primary mission was to carry the president's copy of America's nuclear launch codes.
"We dispatched eight F-117 stealth fighter-bombers capable of carrying 2,000-pound bombs into the region and sent B-52s to Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, in preparation for action," reveals Lt. Col. Patterson in his bombshell security scandal tell-all, "Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America's National Security."
The Sept. 13, 1996 airstrike was planned as the U.S.'s response to an August 31 tank attack launched by Saddam Hussein on the northern Kurdish city of Irbil, a blatant violation of the 1991 Gulf War surrender accords that had an estimated 300,000 Kurdish refugees fleeing for their lives.
At the same time Saddam's Republican Guard had executed an estimated one hundred Iraqi dissidents and arrested fifteen hundred more - extinguishing whatever opposition the Iraqi dictator might have faced from within.
Two days before he attended the President's Cup golf tournament, Clinton had warned the world that "action is imminent" and that "the determination of the United States in dealing with the problem of Iraq should not be underestimated," reports the national security whistleblower.
With the F-117s and B-52s ready to take off and the cover of darkness in Iraq slipping away, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger placed a series of desperate phone calls to the Manassas, Virginia golf course seeking clearance from Clinton. But the president refused to come to the phone.
"Sir, Mr. Berger is on the line and needs a decision about the proposed attack on Iraq," Lt. Col. Patterson remembers telling the president.
Clinton's response? "Tell him I'll get back with him later."
As mission critical minutes evaporated, an anxious Berger called again.
"This time he was animated, obviously upset," remembers Patterson. "Pilots were in the cockpits waiting to launch, targets were identified, everything was in place, all he needed was the go-ahead."
The presidential military aide promised the National Security Advisor that he would do everything he could to get Clinton to pay attention to the mission at hand.
"This time, the president was engaged in conversations with several people and was less approachable," Patterson reports. "I maneuvered through the crowd and caught his eye. When President Clinton saw me, he seemed disturbed at being interrupted again with something unimportant. He frowned as I neared him."
Still Patterson persisted. "'Mr. President, Mr. Berger has called again and needs a decision soon.' I explained in a low tone, 'We have our pilots in cockpits, ready to launch, and we're running out of the protective cover of nighttime over there.'"
But Clinton seemed unmoved. "I'll call Berger when I get the chance," he told the aide.
Less than fifteen minutes later Berger called back. "This time he was irate," Patterson recalls.
"Where is the president? What is he doing? Can I talk to him?"
The presidential military aide was forced to explain:
"Sir, he is watching the golf tournament with several friends. I've approached him twice with your request. I've communicated your concerns about the window of opportunity and about the pilots being prepared and ready to go.
"I'm an Air Force pilot myself, sir." Patterson told Berger. "I understand the ramifications. I'll try again."
For the third time in an hour, the military aide desperately tried to get Clinton to focus on the mission - hoping he would appreciate that further delay could jeopardize the lives of U.S. pilots now waiting for his order.
But Clinton remained oblivious. "Tell Berger that I'll give him a call on my way back to the White House," he said, in what Patterson describes as an "indifferent" tone of voice. "That's all," Clinton added, in words the military man understood to mean the president didn't want to hear any more about the problem.
"I called Mr. Berger and explained that the president would contact him from the limo," Patterson recalled. "We both knew what that meant. We'd missed our opportunity."
The trusted soldier says he remains haunted by the episode. "Human lives were at stake - the lives of American service members and the lives of our allies who opposed Saddam at our behest and were now under attack.
"At a time when America's honor and grander principles were being challenged and the world was watching our every move...the president was watching golf."
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
He left a bunch of bombers spun up while he chatted? And he wouldn't even take Bergers phone call personally?
Amazing.
I mean I would trust "Bob" from the local gas station to have more respect and concern about our affairs than this.
(Of course, anyone who would discuss troop deployments while getting a hummer would probably think nothing of such a minor thing as getting missions scrubbed and wasting peoples time..)
Rather..
I remember an interview shortly after 9/11 where George Snuffalupagus was ticking off a list of terror incidents on one hand.. He calmly (and unthinkingly, I am sure) listed TWA 800 as a terror attack.
It was real subtle.. sounded like such a natural conversation that I almost missed it. But that's clearly what he said.
From Clinton's interview with the New York Times, January 21, 1999:
Q: Does one of these threats worry you more than another, and does any one in particular keep you awake at night?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have spent some late nights thinking a lot about this and reading a lot about it. I think in terms of offense versus defense, if you go back to where we started, the thing that I'm most interested in -- and you will see we've allocated several hundred million dollars basically to research and to applied research -- the thing that I'm most interested in is developing the ability to quickly contain biological agents.
A chemical attack would be horrible, but it would be finite. You know, it's just like -- for the people who went through Oklahoma City, nothing could be more horrible. But it didn't spread. And the thing that bothers people about biological agents is that, unless they're properly diagnosed, contained and treated, that it could spread.
For example, we know that if all of us went to a rally on the Mall tomorrow with 10,000 people, and somebody flew a low-flying crop duster and sprayed us all with biological agents from, let's say, 200 feet, that, no matter how toxic it were, half of us would walk away for reasons no one quite understands. You know, either we wouldn't breathe it, or we'd have some miraculous resistance to it. And the other half of us, somebody would have to diagnose in a hurry and then contain and treat. Otherwise it would be kind of like the gift that keeps on giving, you know. (Laughter.)
And I don't mean that -- I'm not trying to be macabre, but you asked me what keeps me awake at night, and that bothers me. And that's why the thing that I thought was most important about what we did last year, and what we learned a little bit from our defense scare -- even though it was on a computer issue, we had this defense issue, plus we were dealing with all this -- we'd studied for a year all this -- especially this biological issue -- is we had this work going on in 12 different places in the government. So we had to organize our efforts, so that we could be accessible to local governments, so we could work with them, to set up their own preventive mechanisms.
And I have to tell you, it may be -- we may have to await -- it's a note I made to myself that we may have to have a perfect defense. I mean, instantaneous. We may have to depend upon the Genome Project, interestingly enough, because once the human genes' secrets are unlocked, then -- if you and I think we've been infected, they could take a blood sample, and there would be a computer program which would show us if we had -- let's say we had a variant of anthrax. Let's suppose some terrorist hired a genius scientist and a laboratory to take basic anthrax and put some variant in it that would be resistant to all known anthrax antidotes.
Q: Okay. Or a Russian scientist.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. So let's just suppose that happened. And what you would want is to be able to take a blood sample, do an analysis, put it through a software program that had already been developed, and say, okay, here is -- this is how the genes are different, this is the difference. And then, presumably, not too long after we've developed this, they will already know, well, therefore, this is how you should -- how you should change the vaccine.
And we know now -- I know this is kind of bewildering, but keep in mind this is actually good news because, if there were no Genome Project, if there were no rapid way to do quick analysis that would go right to the tiniest variant, we would be in trouble.
...
Q: What do you do if the nightmare comes to pass, and some country hits us, hits us hard, with a biological weapon? What kind of response would you do?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, if some country were thinking about doing that, I would certainly hope that they wouldn't have the capacity to do it before we could stop them, or interrupt them, if it was a -- that is, if you're talking about somebody lobbing a missile over here, or something like that.
I think if it happened, it would be an act of war and there would be a very strong response. But I think we've demonstrated that. But I think the far more likely thing is somebody representing some interest -- maybe it could be a rogue state, maybe it could be a terrorist network -- walking around a city with a briefcase full of vials, or in spray cans, you know.
So what we have to do -- any country with any sense, if they wanted to attack us, would try to do it through a terrorist network, because if they did it with a missile we'd know who did it and then they'd be sunk. It would be -- that's a deal where they're bound to lose. Big time.
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