Clinton: I Would Have Attacked Bin Laden

Losing bin Laden
Gary Aldrich (archive)

September 2, 2003 | printer friendly version Print | email to a friend Send

On September 1, 2003 syndicated columnist Robert Novak wrote an article announcing a new book entitled, Losing Bin Laden. Mr. Novak revealed a secret meeting discovered and reported in the book, by its author, Richard Miniter which took place in the Clinton White House after the bombing of the USS Cole.

The meeting in October, 2000, occurred twenty-six days before voters decided who would succeed Bill Clinton. Why did Clinton and his advisors ignore a proper military response and allow Osama Bin Laden to live on? Could it be so that Al Gore would have an easy transition to the White House? After all, military actions can produce messy political ramifications if done wrong. Clinton had already bombed one aspirin factory – was he worried about bombing a second?

It’s important to note that what happened during that remarkable meeting may have sealed the fate of more than 3,000 innocent Americans. Those lives were lost in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon in Virginia as a result of Osama Bin Laden’s carefully orchestrated attack. After the USS Cole bombing, Bill Clinton had a prime opportunity to kill Osama, and possessed solid evidence about his location.

In fact, according to Miniter, Clinton passed up 11 other chances to kill Osama Bin Laden. Some would say Clinton’s failure to take out this deadly terrorist is his real legacy.

Today, Bill Clinton is quick to disclose how he “obsessed” over the problem of Osama Bin Laden. But was his obsession, as he puts it, more about how to avoid possibly unpopular and dangerous foreign policy decisions?

I hope Mr. Clinton and his advisors never forget that September 11, 2001 changed our lives forever. We live in constant fear, while we agonize about the latest bombings and assassinations of our military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the many dangers facing Americans in these and other Middle Eastern countries.

Mr. Novak’s article was certainly news by any measure, but why isn’t anybody except The Washington Times and some Internet sites covering it? The fact that it’s a book critical of the Clinton Administration should not play a part in whether major news organizations cover the bigger story. Yet, a quick scan of the major U.S. newspapers for news about this remarkable meeting failed to produce any evidence that they’ve even heard about it.

The Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, and Boston Herald are all silent on the matter. Major newspapers have a responsibility to help citizens understand how it was possible for the U.S. to be attacked on 9/11 in such a spectacular fashion. Citizens are still worried about how the U.S. government failed to accurately assess Bin Laden as a deadly threat.

But even if some newspapers believed this news to be “old”, The Washington Post and the Miami Herald certainly have a stake in reporting it, considering participants in the October 2000 meeting are members of their own communities, and one still serves a sitting president in a senior position.

A key participant in the meeting was current C.I.A. Director George Tenet. Can one assume that The Washington Post will eventually report that President Bush’s current C.I.A. director attended a meeting during which counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke recommended attacks on well-researched sites in Afghanistan, hoping to take out Osama and his training camps?

Janet Reno, George Tenet, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright all said “no” to the attack possibilities, each for different reasons. Of course, Attorney General Janet Reno is a prominent member of the Miami community, and citizens who live there certainly have an interest in knowing how influential she was in discouraging the president from acting when Osama Bin Laden succeeded in blowing up our warship. So, where is the Miami Herald’s story?

Isn’t it news that all of these senior Clinton advisors, and the president himself, declined a military response when there was ample evidence to support one? The fact that we did not kill Osama Bin Laden when we had the cause and the opportunity is newsworthy, especially in light of the world we are now forced to live in.

Director Tenet, according to witness reports, wanted to conduct more investigation, even though Mr. Clarke thought there was sufficient evidence to blame Osama. Cohen was quoted as saying that the attack on our ship which nearly caused it to sink, and took the lives of 17 sailors, “was not sufficiently provocative.” Cohen now denies he said this, but one wonders what it would take to provoke him.

Major news organizations should not avoid reporting news simply because a conservative book publisher is the source. When I released my book in 1996, I alleged a national security collapse taking place in the Clinton White House. I also presented facts that Bill Clinton continued to behave as a reckless womanizer. The mainstream media first attacked me and my book, using Clinton Administration talking points, then completely ignored my allegations.

But, history has proven that Clinton was a national security disaster and a reckless womanizer.

It’s irresponsible for the mainstream media to ignore a major news story simply because they don’t care for the politics of a book publisher. Their failure to cover this breaking story will just add to a growing stack of evidence that the mainstream media is hopelessly biased.

" (remember the Ponytail Guy?) "

Yes I do and that ABC b*tch who "moderated" that debate.

What a pair of airheads. After 40 years of being committed pacifists, they're now trying to convince us that they're General Patton and Bull Halsey. Please stop the bullshit, Clintons, you're giving me a headache.

If not for BJ's cowardace in Black Hawk Down, Bin Laden would have been a 2 bit punk. His defeat of America gave him hero status.

How could he have attacked Bin Laden when we were enemies with Pakastan while BJ was pervident??

Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters

His comments are cyclical, as a means of getting him back into the media and the public psychie. Having said that, I saw an article similar to this back in the Summer of 2004 (during the 9/11 Commission), and shortly after 9/11 in 2001.

does anyone know when oliver north testified before congress warning about osama bin laden and algore laughed at him? what hearings were those?

Thank you. It is as clear as the nose on my face and, yet, I missed the Clinton admission.
Keep repeating the obvious, please.

Wow! I didn't even know that. I wasn't paying attention then.

I won't vote Republican again until the Clintonistas are behind bars. The Bush administration had better start rounding up up these traitorous b@st@rds before the lame duck begins to limp.

Elections are about the assignment of power. At this point, a third party vote is a vote to assign power to a Dem.

Whether he points a finger at himself, Clinton is still the master of convoluted political rhetoric. ("It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.") It really doesn't matter much at this point. You won't convince the leftwing that der schlickmeister is anything but a liberal icon and you won't convince the rightwing Clinton is anything but a scumbag.

Yes, yes, yes!

This guy truly is a first class, grandstanding piece of human excrement.

Clinton: I Would Have Attacked Bin Laden

Question: Would that be before or after your daily bj?

sigh....I know...just like I know that despite all of the crapola that Hillary has pulled...she could just get der schlickmeister back in the White House...

Bullsh*t.

Actually, it's unbelievable bullsh*t.

He never ceases to amaze us!

Had he known that he'd get caught, he probably would not have had sex with "that woman" either.

Red6

Damage control.

WOW. Looks like someones putting a a little weight

CONTINUING DISHONESTY ON SUDAN BY MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, SUSAN RICE et al

The European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council
Date of Publication: 17 April, 2002

In December 2001, 'Vanity Fair' published a devastating expose of the
Clinton Administration's mishandling of repeated offers by the Sudanese
government, some dating back to 1996, to provide Washington intelligence
on terrorism - particularly with regard to the al-Qaeda terrorist
network.(1) Part of what was offered to the Clinton Administration were
several hundred Sudanese files on al-Qaeda and its members.(2) The
Administration also passed up the opportunity of interrogating two al-
Qaeda members who had clearly been involved in the 1998 bombings of the
U.S. embassies in east Africa. In keeping with its very questionable
Sudan policy (3), the Clinton Administration rejected all of Sudan's
repeated offers. The implications of this studied indifference are
clear. As 'Vanity Fair' stated: "September 11 might have been prevented
if the U.S. had accepted Sudan's offers to share its intelligence files
on Osama bin Laden and the growing al-Qaeda files." It had also earlier
been revealed that in addition to offering the Clinton Administration
intelligence on al-Qaeda, the Sudanese government had in 1996 also
offered to extradite Osama bin-Laden - just as Khartoum had extradited
the international terrorism known as "Carlos the Jackal" to France.(4)
This offer was also rejected by the Clinton Administration.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, prominent members of the Clinton
Administration's foreign policy and national security team rejected the
conclusions of the 'Vanity Fair' article, denying the sincerity of the
offers. Madeleine Albright, the former US Secretary of State; Samuel
Berger, the former national security adviser; Thomas Pickering, former
undersecretary of state for political affairs; and Susan Rice, former
assistant secretary of state for African affairs claimed that Osama bin
Laden had been involved in an attempted attack on U.S. forces in Yemen
in 1992; had assisted with attacks on U.S. forces in Mogadishu in 1993;
had "financed" the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993; and
had "planned and prepared a car-bomb attack on U.S. soldiers in Saudi
Arabia" in 1995. (5) Susan Rice has also attempted to address her badly
damaged reputation in, of all places, the May 2002 edition of 'Elle'
magazine.

There are three points that should be made.

Firstly, the Clinton Administration, and its officials, have long shown
remarkable dishonesty with regard to Sudan, especially regarding its
claims of Sudanese involvement in terrorism. Former US President Jimmy
Carter was able to ascertain that the Clinton Administration's 1993
listing of Sudan as a "state sponsor of terrorism" was not based, as it
should have been, on strict legal criteria but rather on the basis of
"allegations".(6) This set the tone for all future Clinton
Administration claims about Sudan and terrorism. Albright, Berger,
Pickering and Rice also accepted at face value over one hundred
intelligence reports alleging Sudanese involvement in terrorism which
were subsequently discarded as having been false.(7) It is unclear how
many of their subsequent claims about Sudan are similarly muddled or
just deliberately dishonest.

Secondly, when challenged as to why the Clinton Administration passed up
on the offer of bin Laden's extradition, Samuel Berger stated: "In the
United States, we have this thing called the Constitution, so to bring
him here is to bring him into the justice system. I don't think that was
our first choice." (8) Surely, if any of their subsequent claims about
bin Laden's involvement in terrorism against American interests from
1992 through to 1995, as laid out in their response to the 'Vanity Fair'
article, were true why did the Clinton Administration not jump at the
chance of his extradition in 1996?

Thirdly, for all the attempts by his advisers to downplay the sincerity
of the Sudanese offers, the simple fact is that former President Clinton
displayed considerable courage in describing the refusal to accept
Sudan's 1996 offer as "the biggest mistake" of his presidency.(9) Rather
than desperately trying to distance themselves from their role in
Clinton's "biggest mistake", his national security and foreign affairs
team should have the courage to admit that their advice to the president
was simply wrong. Those who advised him to ignore Sudan's offers,
Albright, Berger, Pickering and Rice, are ultimately responsible for
putting their deeply questionable Sudan policy and spin before the
national security of their own country. They were all party to one of
the most serious foreign policy failures in American history. Had they
not put spin before truth the events of 11 September may well not have
happened.

Notes

1 "The Osama Files", 'Vanity Fair', December 2001, pp 50-55.
2 These offers had also been documented in "Resentful West Spurned
Sudan's Key Terror Files", 'The Observer' (London), 30 September 2001,
and "US Rejected Sudanese Files on al-Qaeda", 'The Financial Times'
(London), 30 November 2001.
3 For a critique of the Clinton Administration's Sudan policy, see
David Hoile, 'Farce Majeure: The Clinton Administration's Sudan Policy
1993-2000', The European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council, London, 2000
(available at www.espac.org).
4 See, for example, "In '96, Sudan Offered to Arrest bin Laden",
'International Herald Tribune', 4 October 2001.
5 "Desperately Seeking Sudan", 'Vanity Fair', March 2002, p.34-35.
6 'The Independent' (London), 17 September 1993.
7 See, "Decision to Strike Factory in Sudan Based Partly on
Surmise", 'The Washington Post', 21 September 1998; and "Sudan Attack
Blamed on US Blunders", 'The Times' (London), 22 September 1998.
8 See, "'96, Sudan Offered to Arrest bin Laden", 'International
Herald Tribune', 4 October 2001.
9 "US Missed Three Chances to Seize Bin Laden", 'The Sunday Times
(London), 6 January 2002.

LOL, i was a wee lad.

apparently it was 1987 @ the iran contra hearings, but snopes says it is a hoax. for some reason, snopes had some leftist connections so im not sure they're to be trusted.