Posted on 07/24/2004 11:51:52 AM PDT by dread78645
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Sept. 11 commission's final report says there's no evidence suggesting President Bill Clinton ordered airstrikes on Osama bin Laden targets to distract attention from his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
But the report says the affair, coupled with other issues, likely affected later discussions about using force against the terrorist leader.
Following U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the Clinton administration planned and launched cruise missile strikes on alleged terrorist assets of bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan. The report said reaction to the Aug. 20, 1998, strikes included "scalding criticism" that the action was "too aggressive."
"At the time, President Clinton was embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal, which continued to consume public attention for the rest of that year and the first months of 1999," the report said. "As it happened, a popular 1997 movie, 'Wag the Dog,' features a president who fakes a war to distract public attention from a domestic scandal. Some Republicans in Congress raised questions about the timing of the strikes."
In testimony, Clinton aides told the commissioners that their advice to Clinton about the airstrikes was based solely on national security considerations. "We have found no reason to question their statements," the commissioners said.
The commission's final report treads lightly on Clinton's affair with the one-time White House intern, which led to his impeachment and later acquittal by the Senate. Although only tiny sections of the report refer to the affair, the commissioners spent a lot of time discussing how and whether to discuss it in the report, deciding, in the end, that it was important to do so.
"The language was carefully chosen," Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, said Friday. "We wanted to flag it and note its significance."
In a chapter cataloguing initial U.S. responses to al-Qaida assaults, the report said that by the early morning hours of Aug. 20, 1998, Clinton and all his principal advisers were agreed to strike the bin Laden camps in Afghanistan near Khowst, as well as al Shifa, a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan.
Intelligence reports said the plant was "manufacturing a precursor ingredient for nerve gas with bin Laden's financial support," although the commission said no independent evidence has emerged to corroborate this assessment.
"The air strikes marked the climax of an intense 48-hour period in which (former national security adviser Sandy) Berger notified congressional leaders, the principals called their foreign counterparts, and President Clinton flew back from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard to address the nation from the Oval Office," the report said.
The report said everyone involved in the decision to strike were aware of Clinton's problems. "He told them to ignore them," the report said. Berger recalled the president saying to him "that they were going to get crap either way, so they should do the right thing."
While the commission said it found no reason to doubt the motivation of Clinton and his advisers, their report stated: "The failure of the strikes, the 'wag the dog' slur, the intense partisanship of the period and the nature of the al Shifa evidence likely had a cumulative effect on future decisions about the use of force against bin Laden. Berger told us that he did not feel any sense of constraint."
Don't say anything, or take any action, against a Dimocrat President or he just won't be able to concentrate.
Bill Clinton was grateful for "Monicagate." It kept the press talking about everything but our national security.
And up until this finding, the commission held sooo much credibility.
I've lost all faith in their work now!
And they weren't looking for any, either.
We just picked up our copy of the report, and just from the skimming I've done so far it's easy to see there's a lot the commission didn't want to know about.
The nation deserved better.
Perhaps, however, the compulsive behavior of the hummer recipient, a lame and misdirected voting public, politics, and Osama were complicit to it.
However, I like your explanation the best! hehehe....
I'm remembering the events of that "Wag the Dog" session with Cohen, BillyJeff, Albright and Berger. A reporter asked "Was this a 'Wag the Dog situation?'"
BillyJeff answered in words to the effect, To do that would involve the complicity of SecState, SecDefense, JointChiefs, etc.'
I took that for a "YES!"
Back when WJC was governor, journalist Paul Greenberg wrote that you'd always had to watch for the 'Clinton clause'
That business with Monica Lewinsky HAD to be skewing the judgment of the "Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-200l", and distracting him from serious considerations at hand. Guys just don't have very clear thinking while the tension is building on those very intense acts. None of them. And by all indications, there was a sizable number of incidents when his judgment may have been, shall we say, less directed at external situations.
He was in heat. And creatures in heat don't know ANYTHING.
In fairness to Bill Clinton, I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on my work much either if Hillary was running around my office screeching every single day.
Oh, what's the word for that? It's right on the tip of my tongue....
The commission was a joke. One must look at the make-up of the staff for my conclusion. The one problem was gorelick, who was instrumental in causing the intelligence failure. Ben viste(mob boss) a klintooon damage control officer and bob kerrey a total idiot with other matters on his mind. The majority were there to protect slime-ball billy blythe's failure as a president, man and human being. Simply, window dressing my friend's. Last of all, they thought they could blame President Bush for klintoon's failure in office. Confucis say, man who run around white house with drawers down around ankles will likely fall on face. Bush Cheney 2004
I hate to nitpick, but the story says Mr. Clinton was "acquitted" by the Senate.
The term "impeach" is a constitutional term. Thus, it is historically accurate to say that Mr. Clinton was impeached.
However, the term "acquit" appears nowhere in the constitution, least of all in the context of impeachment powers.
The view that Mr. Clinton was "acquitted" is editorial, not historical. The writer would have been historically accurate if he and/or she said that the Senate "failed to remove" Mr. Clinton.
In other words, the outcome of the Senate vote had nothing to do with Mr. Clinton's merit as an impeached President; it had to do with the FAILURE of the Senate to remove the President from office.
I believe my description is constitutionally, historically, and morally more accurate.
Am I over-reacting or splitting hairs?
Have fool will travel. Bush/Cheney2004
Should have pimp slapped her ugly ass, but too scared of the consequences.Bush/Cheney 2004
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