Posted on 08/15/2005 8:08:34 PM PDT by wagglebee
Ex-president Bill Clinton now says he would have taken out Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks – if only the FBI and CIA had been able to prove the al-Qaida mastermind was behind the attack on the U.S.S. Cole.
"I desperately wish that I had been president when the FBI and CIA finally confirmed, officially, that bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole," Clinton tells New York magazine this week. "Then we could have launched an attack on Afghanistan early."
"I don’t know if it would have prevented 9/11," he added. "But it certainly would have complicated it.”
Despite his failure to launch such an attack, Clinton said he saw the danger posed by bin Laden much more clearly than did President Bush.
"I always thought that bin Laden was a bigger threat than the Bush administration did," he told New York magazine.
Excellent background, again.
If only Clinton had known that the purpose of his raids was to get Osama--rather than to get Starr and Congress off his back. LOL!
Just a little refresher, since your memory is so kind to you...After the Cole Incident, you wrote wiggle words in your MON (Memorandum of Notification) telling the CIA to 'apprehend with lethal force authorized' for UBL. You mistrusted the CIA to the point that you created your own out-of-channel hierarchical compartmentalization of intelligence and gave it to the self-appointed Richard Clarke. You thought you were doing good, and like a good work-aholic, you asked the various intelligence agencies, including the CIA to give you raw, unfiltered unanalysed data, which you and your Small Group analysed it yourselves. Then you complained that the CIA wasn't doing their job, when they did exactly what you told them to do. When you had the opportunity after the Cole Incident and during the prior Tarnak Farm Raid planning, you, Tenet, Clarke, and Berger (members of the Small Group) deferred your judgement to Reno (and Gorelick) and Jamie Baker who held that the legal wording needing to be changed in your directives ("findings") and notifications (MON's) spending long hours on subtle legal issues to show to the Congress and the UN that US covert action programs were not 'assassination' attempts, but that it was permissable to shoot suspects (like UBL) overseas in the course of arrest. Never mind that at the time there was little question at either the NSC or the CIA that under American law it was entierly permissable to kill UBL and his top aides, at least after evidence proved that they were behind the attacks on US Embassies in Africa. Not to mention that history had conditioned the CIA to take the written presidential findings and the MON's literally to prevent them from moving unilateraly as had been the accusation in the past. This was too soon after Waco and right during the Lewinsky scandal and ipeachment proceedings...
You can't even admit that these events were (at a minimum) distractions? You can't admit that previous mistakes had made second guess yourself and the work of scores, if not hundreds, of career analysts? I am not even asking you to admit, which many at the CIA, inlcuding Porter Goss would say, that 'you were trying to have it both ways.' Just admit that you couldn't handle it all. It's OK. You're a man. Aren't you?
The ban on assassinations contained in Executive Order 12333 did not apply to military targets, according to the Office of Legal Council in your, yes, your, Billy, Justice Department. Tarnak and other Afghanistan targets were legitimate targets. The assassination ban also did not exclude attacks carried out in preemptive self-defense. So when you go back to the time when UBL was in Sudan, attempting to kill Station Chief Cofer Black, and several CIA agents at the time, saying that you didn't have a reason to indict...you are misdirecting the focus and being completely disengenuous and dissembling. When you say we pleaded with the Saudi's to take him, you cut out that we knew from talks with Turki-Al Faisl (Saudi Arabia's Intelligence Chief) that they wouldn't take him even before the Sudanese asked, and you misrepresent that what the Sudanese asked of the Saudi's that he be held for a trial, which we also knew previously that they Saudi's would not do at the time. Isn't the attempt to assassinate some of our covert operatives enough? This was well before the Cole Incident.
As long as you continue to lie about your role and about the atmosphere you created during this period by your lack of leadership, the less credible you become and the less we want to hear from you. Not everyone is cut out to be president. Not everyone can surround themselves with credible professionals who can be trusted to do their work in a professional manner...Like our current president.
Lawyers write wiggle words. Leaders unite people to a common cause. Which did you do? Search your memory carefully...Somewhere inside, you know the truth.
First you tried to blame the CIA. Next you tried to blame Bush. When all along, it was you and your Small Group who took it upon themselves because, among other things, you feared your own incompetence. Now that this chicken is coming back to roost in your nest, you look to say anything that will protect your legacy! I have one thing to say about that: Your 'Legacy' is meaningless; it is nothing compared to the lives of the innocent Americans who died on 9/11 and all of the subsequent lives of those who have died defending our great country in the aftermath of your decisions or lack there of.
STFU really is an appropriate response, since there really is nothing more constructive that you can do at this point.
He wants the Nobel Peace prize(after the fact) so
he can join the other ex-Dem. Pres....Carter and
his NPP...what a bunch of losers...with a capital
"L"....Both would be the milquetoast type in the
6th grade when the fists started to fly...once a
a pamtywaste..alwas a pantywaist...just look at
them and you know..prissy and sad eyed....Jake
This from a nitwit s***bag who fell asleep during phone sex with his personal humidor while on an unsecure phone. Spare me.
Maybe Bubba could have spent more time bombing and less time screwing.
Dear Howlin , Would you please add me to your Ping Lists?
God Bless
Robert
You like that stuff? I've got REAMS of it.........LOL.
And, of course, I'll be glad to add you!
I hope Bush 41 remembers the BS this POS is spewing about Dubya, and turns his back on him.
Cindy Sheehan should be demanding an audience with ex-President Clinton, and protest in front of his house over the death of her son. If Clinton had any sense of honesty, he'd take her in on public TV and answer questions as to why so many Americans had to die for his failures. Then he can explain incident by incident how we actually entered this war on his watch, and what he is doing now to make sure it is prosecuted to the fullest extent of our capability to bring justice to Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden, and the Islamofascists swelling the honeypot of Iraq. He can explain how he reorganized, defunded and obstructed the agencies designed by their origins to prevent the next Pearl Harbor...and how he allowed this to happen and has since tried to cover it up, while campaigning for his wife to become the next president....If she turned her ire to those truly culpable, perhaps at least the misinformed moonbats would begin to understand the extent of the damage he has done...and it would be harder for him to hide behind this hit-and-run style of politics displayed in undisciplined outbursts like this interview.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
And with the Gorelick Wall firmly in place, the FBI and CIA could do no such thing, so you're safe, Billy Jeff. You wouldn't have had to do one [bleep] thing.
"The Israelis know that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan River, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die."
This was a nice retrospective reminder, Hotstuff.
Yep, Bubba's penchant for flinging monkey dung at will WITHOUT public ridicule from ANYONE -- much less the MSM -- is amazing.
I'm surprised every June 6th he hasn't told all who'd believe him he'd have been the first to charge onto Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy.
P.S. -- "Fatkid-son-of-a-mystery personality"?? Lol!
Bump!
"Billy Jeff was a great talker, but never took actions when it counted"
Even when he was talking, is might not mean is.
Clinton has no love for anyone else but himself
Amen!
Oh boy...is THAT a walk down memory lane! LOL
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