Posted on 10/29/2004 7:20:58 PM PDT by bluesagewoman
DERELICTION OF DUTY
Many Americans are blaming President Bush for the tragedy of 911 and Osama bin Laden. In reading the book, "Dereliction of Duty," by Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson USAF (Ret.) Carrier of the "Nuclear football," many parallels can be drawn comparing President Clinton’s past administration, and one Senator John Kerry promises to install if he is elected. As you read the circumstances and warnings, merely adjust the time-table forward and the possibilities become frighteningly obvious. Sandy Berger’s involvement, given his current situation, is also fascinating.
The following is a review of some of the most hair-raising and shockingly true happenings taken from the book, "Dereliction of Duty,” with the author’s own words addressing “the cavalier disregard with which the former president treated our nation's most sensitive military secrets [and] the extreme and low disregard with which the former president treated our nation's most sensitive military secrets.”
Since only a small portion of the book is addressed here, consider reading the whole book for further proof of dereliction of duty (see teasers below). All these points are still valid considerations while contemplating who we elect to lead our country the next four years.
1. “The author reveals how former President Clinton LOST THE NUCLEAR CODES-- AND NEVER FOUND THEM!!!
2. How the former president kept American pilots in the air waiting for the go-ahead to strike Iraq- while he watched golf. Result: mission scrapped.
3. Why military officers in uniform were a "problem" for the Clinton White House.
4. Why military aides attached to the White House seriously considered resigning en- masse.”
5. AND, A WHOLE LOT MORE...............................................!!!!
The author of this book, Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson, worked for President William Jefferson Clinton from May 1996 to May 1998. He was his Air Force aide, one of five trusted officers, serving the President in the most sensitive and classified areas, including-- and most importantly-- being the officer responsible for carrying out any nuclear strike.
Lt. Col. Robert Patterson had a front-row seat in the Clinton Administration, during a highly turbulent time in our history. The author explains-- that he dealt with President Clinton and his chief advisors personally and on a daily basis during challenging times.
Throughout this report the focus will be on two main serious issues. 1) Failing to permanently remove Osama bin Laden when the former president had a golden opportunity to do so, and 2) The severe and careless downsizing of our military, which left us as a nation much like a sitting duck as an open and easy target for attack by our enemies.
Dealing with the failure to remove Osama bin Laden the author points out almost from the very beginning of this book that he is in NO WAY trying to undermine the former president. Instead he is simply stating the hard, cold facts, and what he himself personally witnessed and experienced as a military aide having had very close, direct, and personal contact with the former president during that time period.
The many details are important, so extensive quotes are used (with permission from the publisher) from the book itself concerning the episode with Osama bin Laden outlining the pernicious path resulting in the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, as well as the conclusions and warnings gleaned from the analysis.
From Chapter 7…"THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM was buzzing. It was fall 1998 and the National Security Council (NSC) and the "intelligence community" were tracking the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, the shadowy mastermind of terrorist attacks on American targets overseas. "They've successfully triangulated his location," yelled a "Sit Room" watch stander. "We've got him."
“Beneath the West Wing of the White House, behind a vaulted steel door, the Sit Room staff sprang into action. The watch officer notified National Security Advisor Sandy Berger. "Sir, we've located bin Laden. We have a two-hour window to strike."
“Berger ambled down the stairwell and entered the Sit Room. He picked up the phone at one of the busy controller consoles and called the president. Amazingly, President Clinton was not available. Berger tried again and again. BIN LADEN WAS WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE. The window of opportunity was closing fast. The plan of attack was set and the Tomahawk crews were ready. For about an hour Berger couldn't get the commander in chief on the line. Though the president was always accompanied by military aides and the Secret Service, he was somehow unavailable. Berger stalked the Sit Room, anxious and impatient.”
“Finally, the president accepted Berger's call. There were discussions; there were pauses-- and no decision. The president wanted to talk with his secretaries of defense and state. He wanted to STUDY the issue further. Berger was forced to wait. The clock was ticking. The president eventually called back. He was still INDECISIVE. He wanted more discussion. Berger alternated between phone calls and watching the clock.”
“The NSC watch officer was convinced we had the right target. The intelligence sources were conclusive. The president, however, wanted a guaranteed hit or nothing at all.”
“This time, it was nothing at all. We didn't pull the trigger. We STUDIED the issue until it was too late-- the window of opportunity closed. Al-Qaeda's spiritual and organizational leader slipped through the noose.”
“This lost bin Laden hit typified the Clinton administration's ambivalent, indecisive way of dealing with terrorism. Ideologically, the Clinton administration was committed to the idea that most terrorists were misunderstood, had legitimate grievances, and could be APPEASED, which is why such military action as the administration authorized was so halfhearted, and ineffective, and designed more for "show" than for honestly eliminating a threat.”
“When on February 29, 1993, Egyptian and Palestinian terrorist blew a hole six stories deep under the North Tower of the World Trade Center, President Clinton had been in office thirty-eight days. Eight months after President Clinton left office, Al-Qaeda terrorists flew hijacked U.S. commercial airliners into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon. The towers came down, as the terrorists finished the job begun eight (8) years earlier. From 1993 to 2001, Islamic terrorists attacked American targets ten (10) separate times. If there’s anything beyond scandal that we should most remember about the Clinton years, this is it: they were the years that terrorists brought their war to the United States.”
“By failing to answer the threat as it should have, the Clinton administration was guilty of gross negligence and dereliction of duty to the safety of our country, which the president was sworn to defend."
The author well describes in detail the horrible but true story of how the former president remained "unavailable" and missed a golden opportunity to take out Osama bin Laden LONG BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. And, along with that, he also makes it crystal clear that the purpose of this book is meant to be a WARNING about just what harm an irresponsible president can do to our national security—“harm, the author shows, that made the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, almost inevitable.”
Now, let’s turn our attention to the downsizing of our military. The author, Lt. Col. Patterson states as follows:
"During his command, President Clinton reduced the active-duty force by one-third to one-half, eliminating approximately 800,000 personnel. He reduced the Army from eighteen divisions to ten. He cut half of the Air Force combat fighter wings, chopping twelve from the existing twenty-four. He eliminated 232 strategic bombers and 2,000 Air Force and Navy combat aircraft. He reduced the Navy's battle ships, a traditional symbol of America's ability to "show the flag" off the coast of international trouble spots, as well as providing accurate long-range naval artillery fire in support of Marines and soldiers during beach landings and littoral combat operations. He eliminated thirteen ballistic submarines, four aircraft carriers, 121 surface combat ships and submarines, and most of the support bases, shipyards, and logistical assets needed to sustain these forces.”
“Footnote from Chapter Five: NATIONAL DEFENSE OR SOCIAL PETRI DISH? 11. Rowan Scarborough, "Record Deployments Take Toll on Military" 48 Missions in '90s Totaling $30 Billion Strain Personnel, Equipment, Study Finds," Washington Times, March 28, 2000, A6. See also, Geoff Metcalf, "The Excrement of Propaganda," World Net Daily, March 29, 1999.”
The author also points out, "He (former president Clinton) left his successor with a fighting force incapable of prosecuting more than one regional conflict at a time, and in dire need of reconstitution and resupply.”
We are reminded (or maybe it’s a prediction), "The true measure of the Clinton-Gore team and its views toward military men and women can be summed up in its actions during the presidential campaign of 2000. With the race down to the hotly disputed electoral votes in Florida, the Gore Campaign attempted to disallow the votes of military personnel stationed overseas who had voted via absentee ballot. While the Democrats screamed disenfranchisement on the part of minority and elderly voters in Palm Beach, they were attempting to disenfranchise the men and women whose lives were on the line serving their country in a combat zone in the Middle East. The Gore Campaign’s lawyers asked the court to throw away the service member’s votes, claiming the technicality that the absentee ballot needed post marks.”
"That was sordid and unjust. But what was even worse was that President Clinton left his successor with an American foreign policy that was not adequately responding to the world's hornets' nests and with a military that was a shadow of the force that had won the Gulf War. And, as with so many scandals of the Clinton administration, it wasn't Clinton, but our nation, THAT PAID THE PRICE."
From the final chapter A TIME TO MOVE ON, the author says, "There was only the sense that the man in the Oval Office had sown a whirlwind of destruction upon the integrity of our government, endangered our national security, and done enormous harm to the American military which he served. He inherited a New World Order, where peace and opportunity were expected for the foreseeable future. But he left behind a world of disarray, where the symbol of America’s wealth and modern prosperity – The World Trade Center Towers in New York – would be destroyed within months of his departure.”
Earlier in the book, the author had bluntly opined:
"I could regard it only as arrant irresponsibility toward our national security and foreign policy which, in my opinion, exposed us to the disaster of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.”
Unfortunately, these dangers still exist into our present time and beyond. The author states in Appendix A, THE DANGERS WE STILL FACE, "President Clinton, inclined as he was to conduct policy by poll, should have noted that polls showed that a horrified majority of Americans were unaware that we CURRENTLY HAVE NO EFFECTIVE DEFENSE AGAINST NUCLEAR MISSILE ATTACK."
In Appendix B, PRESIDENT CLINTON FOREIGN POLICY CHRONOLOGY, 1993-2001, the author gives a sequence of events that led up to the terrible tragedy of 911. The author, in describing the attack says, "2001 September 11: Terrorists, coordinated by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda Network, attack New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon by flying hijacked American commercial passenger airplanes into the buildings.”
Al Santoli states it well regarding the lessons to be learned as he writes the Foreword of this book. He states, "We are now reaping what those years of irresponsibility sowed.”
Further, "The lessons within these pages remind us not only of the consequences but also of the essential responsibilities of leadership to which all Commanders in Chief should be held accountable. Above all, that mandate is a sacred trust between elected leaders and the American people that should never again be violated or forgotten.”
In conclusion, the author, Lt. Col. Patterson issues the crux and the purpose of his book, with this plea, "This book, I hope, explains how one serving military officer saw the groundwork for that reckoning being laid. I hope it is also a WARNING to the American people that we must never allow the purveyors of such dangerous military policy and irresponsible foreign policy claim the power of the presidency again. I would not come forward now if I didn't think the message was so vitally important to our future as a nation. But as we now fight a global war on terror, we need to remember what plunged us into it. And from my experience in the Clinton White House, I have no doubt of the cause.”
In the last chapter A TIME TO MOVE ON, the author concludes with these two powerful sentences. "And now, after those years of destruction, there is so much work to be done. I pray that it will.”
PERSONAL COMMENTS:
We must also pray for that, and especially for our President at this time and trust that many others will continue to lift him up daily in their prayers, too, at such a time as this as he endeavors and strives to lead our country in the right way in such perilous times.
My overall reaction to this book, "Dereliction of Duty" by Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson, USAF (Ret.) Carrier of the "nuclear football" is that it was a very good book and well worth the time to read it. It was enlightening and a huge eye-opener to me especially in showing how all the events during the presidency from 1993-2001 led up to the tragedy of September 11, 2001-- and, on top of that to learn it could have all been avoided by the former president during that time period, but was not.
The author of this book does a very good job of showing how the president's successor, President George W. Bush, INHERITED the many problems created by the former presidency, which led to the ultimate tragedy of 911.
Reading this book helped me better understand how extremely VULNERABLE as a nation we still are to the hostile, blood thirsty enemies throughout this world whom still hate and despise us as a nation, and still desire and still seek to totally destroy our nation. You and I should not be, nor remain naive to that fact, as that is potentially fatal.
This book also reinforces my strong convictions that ignorance is not bliss, and neither is trying to please the enemy in order to supposedly try to achieve what is really a pseudo/false peace, or so-called peace, that so many today are so blindly, ignorantly and futilely promoting. To me it's like the blind leading the blind.
I would strongly recommend this book to any concerned person who genuinely cares anything about the future, safety, welfare and security of our country, which I believe is still teetering in the balance. It is evident that the many problems that our current President inherited from the former administration are not automatically going to go away. There will be no shortcuts, easy, quick fixes or magic solutions, like so many seem to want and expect.
The words of the author keep ringing in my ears: ALL OF US AS A NATION AND PEOPLE MUST NEVER ALLOW THE PURVEYOR OF SUCH DANGEROUS MILITARY POLICY AND IRRESPONSIBLE FOREIGN POLICY CLAIM THE POWER OF THE PRESIDENCY AGAIN!!! We would all do well to take careful and diligent heed to those words of warning, and now even more so at such a critical time in this extremely changeable, volatile and highly dangerous world!
Will we elect another such PURVEYOR to repeat the appeasement and avoidance policies that led up to such a horrifying attack? An appeaser whom has already proven his capacity for dereliction of duty?
THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
At this time, I would like to thank you for your time and attention, and for reading this report.
I would like to thank Nicolette Costanino, Marketing Assistant to Alex Novak at Regnery Publishing in Washington, D.C. for granting me permission to post this report and photo!
Many thanks to all, and may we not forget to heed the warning given by Lt. Col. Patterson.
Bump!
Ping from The Snowflake.
The Snowflake worked many hours putting together that report. She started thinking about doing this earlier this summer and even wrote the publisher to get permission to post it, and to post some photos from the book. She hopes the refresher on the book will help motive folks to vote.
So what else is new. WJC had something more important on his mind. Did I say he had something on his mind?
Ping!!!!
May the majority of voting Americans hear, and heed, the warnings. Please Lord....
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