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.

[HighWheeler]

Have anything to say about this, DUfus?

[kylaka]

Bookends... uh well, maybe an intern sandwich with the ham gone missing.

[kjam22]

You can read the whole article at MSNBC. It speaks badly of the Clinton administration.... but it also tries to put some blame on the Bush administration.

This story came from Kerry.

[knak]

at the end of the story on msnbc it says:
wednesday: what more could Bush have done?

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

The pictures should have shut the left up. Now the evidence reveals the true issue. To disregard the facts is to welcome yet more attacks. Their "plan" doesn't work.

[cwb]

What's amazing is how the media helps democrats look for any "out" that helps them explain their incompetence. As Meyer's admitted, she wasn't able to get a response from 3 top-rank Clinton officials that she sought out...and yet her response was exactly what we would've heard from them.

It is now clear that the 9/11 commisson set up to see what failures led to 9/11, must concentrate on this specific event. And the so-called victims of 9/11, that have been accusing Bush of all sorts of nefarious motives, must now be asked how they feel about this latest revelation. Will the media chase them down the same way they did to get their reaction on Bush's latest campaign ads? I doubt it.

[Law is not justice but process]

The question isn't whether Clinton will be harmed politically, but whether this will further erode the electorate's confidence in a Democrat to protect them from terrorists. That is an open question, but this will make it nearly impossible for the Democrats to criticize Bush for failing to prevent 9-11 (well, not impossible for them to try, just impossible for reasonable people to listen to them).

[tbird1]

Maybe the ACLU can figure out a way to IMPEACH "what's his name" again.
tabird1

[centexan]

waiting to see how this ultimately turns out to be Bush's fault

From the end of the MSNBC article

Wednesday: What more could the Bush administration have done to get bin Laden?

You won't have to wait long......

[binger]

The Clintons were too busy...

[Becki]

Oh my GOD!

Did you have to show those two together?

I can't decide which is sleazier!!

Becki

[cincy29]

And that will be what the rest of the media picks up: Bush's failings, not Clinton's.

MSNBC can pretend to balanced by putting it on their website and their cable TV shows. I think on a good night Scarborough gets a 0.2 rating or something like that. Some nights, the test pattern gets better ratings!

Will Katie talk about it on the Today show? Will Tom (VP) Brokaw talk about it on the nightly news? I seriously doubt it.

Will any of the other networks touch it in any way, shape, or form? (besides maybe Foxnews) Again, I seriously doubt it.

The Wednesday installment, on Bush's shortcomings, will be the lead story for AT LEAST part of the day.

[Prince Charles]

The ghost of eight years of Rodham & Gommorrah once again comes into view...

[Bullish]

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

In the White House?

[isthisnickcool]

What are you smoking?

Actually, kjam22 may be on to something. This is very interesting. This is not a usual event. It does mean someone is up to something. Bush? I don't know. Kerry? Hmm. Maybe. Maybe there is more. Maybe Kerry has it. He's a ruthless SOB. Maybe that's why Bill Clinton just said he was going to raise 10 million for Kerry.

This kind of information does not fall out of the sky. it gets pushed. And then it may not get picked up by someone like NBC unless they are motivated.

Oh, I'd like to think some "good guy" on the inside dropped a dime on Clinton. But the odds are not. Very interesting.

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

What, you mean it effected his ability to govern?

All this time the RATS have been saying it DIDN'T...

Wasn't it ALL ABOUT SEX?!?

[knak]

yep, Bush is in charge now, so it's HIS fault. Coming wednesday to a crappy liberal tv station near you!

[M. Thatcher]

this will make it nearly impossible for the Democrats to criticize Bush

Oh, puhleeze. Don't make me laugh. It will make not a dent on the proclivity of Democrats to criticize Bush.

In addition, this will go nowhere. It will disappear in less than one news cycle. The public at large will never hear about it. Far more damning info than this has routinely disappeared into the ether.

[woofie]

As I understand it it is all the Republicans fault for pesecuting that poor President so he couldnt get anything done.

[sarasmom]

Does anyone even care what the "media" says anymore?
I get the feeling a lot of my fellow FReepers are just as elitist as the Socialist Democrats and the TV & print media.