Berger rejected four plans to kill or capture bin Laden

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | July 24, 2004 | James G. Lakely

[neverdem]

President Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger, rejected four plans to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, worrying once that if the plans failed and al Qaeda launched a counterattack, "we're blamed."

According to the September 11 commission's 567-page report, released Thursday, Mr. Berger was told in June 1999 that U.S. intelligence agents were confident about bin Laden's presence in a terrorist training camp called Tarnak Farms in Afghanistan.

Mr. Berger's "hand-written notes on the meeting paper," the report says, showed that Mr. Berger was worried about injuring or killing civilians located near the camp.

Additionally, "If [bin Laden] responds" to the attack, "we're blamed," Mr. Berger wrote.

The report also says that Richard Clarke, Mr. Berger's expert on counterterrorism, presented that plan to get bin Laden because he was worried about the al Qaeda leader's "ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction."

These revelations come as Mr. Berger is under investigation by the Justice Department for smuggling several copies of classified documents that dealt with the Clinton administration's anti-terror policies out of the National Archives.

Commission Co-chairman Lee Hamilton said Thursday, however, that the missing documents Mr. Berger has acknowledged taking doesn't affect "the integrity" of the final report.

According to the report, the first plan of action against bin Laden presented to Mr. Berger was a briefing by CIA Director George J. Tenet on May 1, 1998. Mr. Berger took no action, the report says, because he was "focused most" on legal questions.

[neverdem]

"If you keep asking me these questions, I may spill the beans right here on live TV."

Is that an actual quote from Reno?

[angkor]

Is that an actual quote from Reno?

No, but the message was loud and clear. IIRC it was something "I'm not sure what is and isn't classified to discuss."

[Matchett-PI]

"A return to the politics that marked the eight years of the Clintons would be awfully hard for me to stomach at my age!"

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - President John F. Kennedy

[GoodWithBarbarians JustForKaos]

bttt