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.
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.