Posted on 03/18/2003 10:26:57 AM PST by kattracks
It didn't take long for the press to begin trashing Lt. Col Robert Patterson (USAF Ret.), the most important Clinton administration national security whistle-blower since the FBI's Gary Aldrich and Chinagate insider Johnny Chung.
Tuesday morning's New York Daily News describes Patterson's blockbuster new book, "Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised National Security," as "the latest title from the Bubba-bashers at Regnery Press."
However, as this space chronicled over the weekend, the bombshells dropped by Lt. Col. Patterson not only transcend "Bubba-bashing," they also offer key insights into how President Clinton's leadership left America vulnerable to terrorist attack both at home and abroad - and should be of interest to anyone who wonders why the U.S. suddenly finds itself facing one crisis after another around the globe.
The former military man's account offers stunning new evidence of Clinton's on-the-job contempt for America's armed forces, including allegations that he lost the top secret codes that protect America from nuclear attack, "sexually molested" a female Air Force officer aboard Air Force One and was too distracted by a golf game to answer urgent calls from his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, who was desperately trying to get the commander in chief to OK critical military action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
That last charge is of particular relevance, since Clinton has set himself up as one of the most prominent critics of the Bush administration's Iraq war policy.
Given the gravity of the allegations, the News decided to check with Mr. Berger himself, who said that Patterson's Iraq story - and another one involving Clinton's inability to make a decision on a military action to take out Osama bin Laden - never happened.
"The two incidents described in this book that involve me regarding Iraq and bin Laden simply are false," he told the paper.
Of course, the Daily News might have further tested Berger's veracity on national security matters by quizzing him about his own denial - in sworn testimony to Congress last September - that his boss had turned down a 1996 deal for bin Laden's extradition to the U.S.
"There was never such an offer," Berger insisted while under oath on Sept. 19.
Berger's account, however, stands in stark contrast to the version offered by his own boss, who seven months earlier had unambiguously confessed to nixing the bin Laden extradition deal.
"We'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again," the ex-president told a New York business group in February 2002.
"They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."
Clinton further admitted, "So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."
A smoking-gun audiotape of Clinton's remarks was made available to dozens of congressmen on Capitol Hill at the time of Berger's testimony, but none decided to challenge the former White House aide on why his account differed so starkly from Clinton's.
Now that the trashing of Lt. Col. Patterson has begun in earnest, it's worth remembering that he was so highly trusted by the Clinton administration that he was assigned to carry the nuclear football, a job that carries with it perhaps the most stringent background screening of any in government.
Patterson's critics will have to do better than relying on the word of folks like Sandy Berger, whose relationship to truth-telling seems tenuous at best.
To listen to the audio of ex-President Clinton confirming the bin Laden offer that Sandy Berger insisted under oath never took place – Click here.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Gee. Who would have seen THAT coming?
Actually, eh, Berger's phone handset was shaped just like ... you know ... bent at just the right angle ...
Hmmm, given the fact that we are dealing with a Clintonista here you have to wonder what Berger means when he says the two incidents are "false". Does that mean that the incidents did not happen at all or that Berger's versions of what happened differs with LTC Patterson's versions of what happened only in small, insignificant details? I find it very hard to believe that Patterson would make these stories up.
. . .Libs pick carefully, words that carry strong feelings/associations of revulsion or fear; it is the easiest, cheapest way for them to discredit truth.
Of course, we see this talent raised to 'high art' by way of their virtuous 'political correctness'. Just the association of 'PC' is enough to kill honesty and silence a majority.
. . .add my voice of gratitude;
. . .and would add as well, that gratitude can be shown by buying a copy of his book and hope many who can, will do just that.
Wonder if he will appear on NBC. . .Larry King and Lib Media et al. . .remember well how Gary Aldrich was treated.
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