Posted on 08/22/2005 8:54:14 AM PDT by george76
The U.S. intelligence community is palsied by lawyers.
We had at least eight to 10 chances to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in 1998 and 1999. And the government on all occasions decided that the information was not good enough to act. . . .
The lawyers are the bane of the intelligence community. . . .
It is quite depressing...how investigations or captures of Osama Bin Laden or other Al Qaeda were hindered by lawyers, rules developed by lawyers, or fears of lawyers. For example, there were the FBI lawyers who wouldn't allow seeking a search warrant to look into Zacarias Moussaoui's laptop computer in Minnesota just before 9/11/2001.
Sandy Berger and Mr. Clarke—Richard Clarke, had the information from 1996 forward that bin Laden intended to attack the United States. There‘s no question of that. And in terms of which administration had more chances, Mr. Clinton‘s administration had far more chances to kill Osama bin Laden than Mr. Bush has until this day.
The latest set of lawyers' restrictions to be alleged grew out of a plan to capture Bin Laden.
So great was the lawyers' concern for Bin Laden's comfort that a special chair was built to hold him and they were concerned whether the tape used to hold him would hurt his beard. This latest nonsense was revealed by the man who for 10 years headed the CIA's desk tracking Bin Laden, Michael Scheuer...
(Excerpt) Read more at volokh.com ...
If we can't blame Bush, let's just blame lawyers.
Well, Bill and Hillary are both lawyers.
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