NBC: Clinton Ordered Bin Laden Spared

Newsmax ^ | 3/16/04 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

A secret CIA videotape shows that the Clinton administration had pinpointed the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden a year before the 9/11 attacks, but declined to kill him because of White House orders that he should be taken alive.

The video, obtained and broadcast by NBC News, "illustrates an enormous opportunity the Clinton administration had to kill or capture bin Laden," the network reported Tuesday.

Images filmed in Afghanistan by CIA Predator Drones show a man clad in white robes who towers over his entourage. [Bin Laden is 6' 5" tall.]

The film was shot over Tarnak Farm, the walled compound where bin Laden was believed to live at the time. The layout of the buildings in the Predator video perfectly matches previous photos and diagrams of Tarnak Farm prepared by U.S. intelligence.

The clip left CIA analysts convinced they had located the man who in 1998 had bombed U.S. embassies in East Africa and whose agents, four years earlier, had detonated a bomb in the parking garage of the World Trade Center.

"It’s dynamite. It’s putting together all of the pieces, and that doesn’t happen every day," said William Arkin, a former intelligence officer and now military analyst for NBC.

Though President Clinton has boasted repeatedly that he issued orders to kill bin Laden, no action was taken when the White House finally got its chance.

Why not?

Gary Schroen, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, told NBC that the White House had in fact ordered the CIA to do just the opposite - take bin Laden alive or not at all.

The order "reduced the odds from, say, a 50 percent chance down to, say, 25 percent chance that we were going to be able to get him,” Schroen told the network.

The directive effectively killed the plan and, along with it, the U.S.'s best chance to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

[Zack Nguyen]

President Clinton, like most Presidents since the intelligence investigations of the 1970's, were terrified of having foreign enemies killed. It is amazingly namby-pamby in my view. 9/11 changed all that.

[HarryCaul]

Yikes. I can't even imagine the implications politically if this turns out to be true.

[ladyinred]

Am I dreaming? Did NBC really report this?

[Diogenesis]

PARTIAL LIST OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES

1968 Robert Kennedy assassinated
1972 Munich Olympic Massacure Sep-5,1972 (Black September)
1976 Entebbe Hostage Crisis, June 27, 1976
1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, Nov. 4, 1979 444 days
1979 Grand Mosque Seizure, Nov 20,1979
1981 Assassination of Egyptian President, Oct 6,1981
1982 Assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister, Sept 14, 1982
1983 Bombing of US Embassy in Beirut6, April 18,1983
1983 Bombing of Maring Barricks, Beruit, Oct 23,1983
1984 Hizballah Restaurant Bombing, April 12,1984
1985 Egyptian Airliner Hijacking, Nov 23,1985
1985 Rome Airport murders
1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacked, U.S. Navy diver murdered
1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, Homacidal maniac lived in saddams Iraq
1986 Aircraft Bombing in Greece, March 30, 1986
1988 Pan Am 747 Flight 103 Bombing, Lockerbie, 100's murdered
1988 Berlin Discoteque Bombing, Dec 21,1988
1992 Bombing in Israeli Embassy in Argentina, March 17,1992
1993 Attempted Assassination of Pres. Bush Sr., April 14,1993
1993 First World Trade Center bombing, February 26th, 7 Killed, Hundreds injured, Billions
1994 Air France Hijacking, Dec 24,1994
1995 Attack on US Diplomats in Pakistan, Mar 8,1995
1995 Saudi Military Installation Attack, Nov 13, 1995
1995 Kashmiri Hostage taking, July 4,1995
1996 Khobar Towers attack
1996 Sudanese Missionarys Kidnapping, Aug 17,1996
1996 Paris Subway Explosion, Dec 3,1996
1997 Israeli Shopping Mall Bombing, Sept 4, 1997
1997 Yemeni Kidnappings, Oct 30,1997
1998 Somali Hostage taking crisis, April 15,1998
1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing in Peru, Jan 15, 1998
1998 U.S. Kenya Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1998 U.S. Tanzania Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1999 Plot to blow up Space Needle (thwarted)
2000 USS Cole attacked, many U.S. Navy sailors murdered
2000-2003 Intifada against Israel - 100's dead and injured
2000 Manila Bombing, Dec 30,2000
2001 4 Commercial airliners hijacked, 250+ murdered
2001 World Trade Center attacked, 2800+ murdered
2001 Flight 93 murders
2001 Pentagon attacked, 180+ murdered
2002 Reporter Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and murdered
2002 Philippines American missionary, Filipino nurse killed
2002 July 4, El Al attack Los Angeles LAX, several murdered
2002 Bali bombing - 200 dead, 300 injured
2002 Yemen, French Oil Tanker attacked
2002 Marines attacked / murdered in Kuwait
2002 Washington D.C. sniper
2002 Russian Theater attacked, 100+ dead
2002 Nigerian riots against Miss World Pageant, 200 dead, dozens injured
2002 Mombasa Hotel Attacked, 12 dead, dozens injured
2002 Israeli Boeing 757 attacked by missiles, fortunately no one injured
2002 August Hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia. 12 dead, dozens injured.
2003 Rusian concert bombing
2003 Phillipines airport and market bombing
2003 Foiled SAM plot in the USA
2003 UN Baghdad HQ Bombing

[CindyDawg]

Yikes. I can't even imagine the implications politically if this turns out to be true.

A big yawn from half the country?

[new cruelty]

Seeing how clinton is a democrat, this will amount to very little.

Though I would be pleasantly surprised if it did amount to something.

[InvisibleChurch]

well, well, well

[oceanview]

if? it is true, but the media will spin it as something else and it will be a 2 day story.

if the Rs had any guts, they would replay the exact Lisa Yyers report during the televised questioning of Clinton by the 9/11 commission.

[conservativecorner]

So the truth may finally come out. BUMP!!

[The G Man]

The blood of 3000 innocent Americans is on the hands of those who decided to pass on the opportunity to take him out. It's that simple.

[Defender2]

And the clintoon just endorsed fellow demoCommiecRAT, kerry(All these creeps not capitolised on purpose)!!!!

[oceanview]

Yyers = Myers

[Keith in Iowa]

What did Kerry know about this and when did he know it?

[oceanview]

not sure if they replay Scarborugh Country, tape it if you can find it, its worth watching. and the DNC may be sending people out to burn the tape of this segment.

[Libloather]

A secret CIA videotape shows that the Clinton administration had pinpointed the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden a year before the 9/11 attacks...

I bet we find ABL in the same place Hillary found those lost Rose law firm billing records...

[The G Man]

[Defender2]

#15. Appropriate Question!!!! Thanks for posting it. And it definitely needs to be answered!!!!

[byteback]

It's even on their web site!!!!

msnbcwebsite