Here's Clarke's report. Not one mention of Al-Qaeda or bin Laden. Since the Clinton administration wrongly took terrorism to be a crime-control problem, it shows just how little significance they were placing on bin Laden during the transition period.
Meanwhile, while we're on the topic of the Clinton cruise missile attack on Sudan and Afghanistan, here's a very interesting exchange that occurred on Moneyline News Hour with Lou Dobbs on August 20, 1998, the day of the attacks:
DOBBS: Today's attack was also based in part on information provided by Mohammed Saddiq Odeh. Odeh is a suspect in the Kenyan bombing. He was captured in Pakistan while trying to win entry into Afghanistan. Odeh told Pakistani officials he was involved in the embassy bombings, and was affiliated with Osama bin Laden. Journalist Kasra Naji is in Pakistan and joins me now by phone from Islamabad -- Kasra.
KASRA NAJI, JOURNALIST (by telephone): Yes, Lou, from inside Afghanistan, early reactions from the Taliban have given sanctuary to Osama bin Laden are angry and defiant in a sense, and early indications are, in fact, that the man may have escaped unhurt. Mullah Mohammed Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban is reported to have strongly condemned the U.S. bombings and speaking from Qandahar, the southern Afghan city of Qandahar where he is based he spoke to an Afghan news agency. He said that Osama bin Laden had in fact been moved to a safe place before the bombings and that he was unhurt. Omar, who is the top leader of the Taliban, also said the U.S. bombings were not aimed at Osama bin Laden rather they were directed at Afghan people and they showed amnity towards the people of Afghanistan. He definitely added that the Taliban would never hand over bin Laden. He says we will protect him with our blood at any cost -- he is reported to have said. So a defiant reaction from him, the top leader of the Taliban. The attacks came at about 10:00 local time in the evening, and when most of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban is under curfew, it is -- I think it's about 4:30 in the morning local time in Afghanistan, and I think it is too early to get any good indication of, you know, the extent of the damage to the base. And you know, what has actually happened. But also, let me add that the attacks did not come as a complete surprise, because for days both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, people expected such an attack in a sense because -- and on Wednesday, when the State Department issued a statement calling on international aid agencies to pull out their international staff because of a serious threat to them, these rumors, the rumors that the United States would attack gained strength.
DOBBS: Kasra, I have to interrupt you. Thank you and I appreciate you continuing to follow that story and of course tomorrow at daylight we will have better assessments from you. Kasra Naji, from Islamabad, thank you very much.
You have just heard the statement -- the report from Pakistan that Osama bin Laden is safe. His voice has been heard and the head of your organization, Islamic Taliban says they will hold him onto themselves until death.
Here's the relevant passage from the Washington Post story of January 22, 1999:
Clarke did provide new information in defense of Clinton's decision to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, in retaliation for bin Laden's role in the Aug. 7 embassy bombings.(Excerpted from "Embassy Attacks Thwarted, U.S. Says; Official Cites Gains Against Bin Laden; Clinton Seeks $10 Billion to Fight Terrorism," Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, A02, January 23, 1999.)While U.S. intelligence officials disclosed shortly after the missile attack that they had obtained a soil sample from the El Shifa site that contained a precursor of VX nerve gas, Clarke said that the U.S. government is "sure" that Iraqi nerve gas experts actually produced a powdered VX-like substance at the plant that, when mixed with bleach and water, would have become fully active VX nerve gas.
Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at El Shifa or what happened to it. But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan.
Given the evidence presented to the White House before the airstrike, Clarke said, the president "would have been derelict in his duties if he didn't blow up the facility."
Clarke said the U.S. does not believe that bin Laden has been able to acquire chemical agents, biological toxins or nuclear weapons. If evidence of such an acquisition existed, he said, "we would be in the process of doing something."