While the timing is most interesting, are you REALLY in doubt about the source?
Posted on 08/17/2005 7:01:00 PM PDT by kellynla
WASHINGTON — The State Department warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Usama bin Laden's (search) move to Afghanistan would give him more fertile ground to spread radical Islam, according to newly declassified documents.
The documents, released by the legal advocacy group Judicial Watch on Wednesday, say that bin Laden would feel comfortable moving from Sudan to Afghanistan, which "has become an even more desirable location for extremists. Afghanistan may be an ideal haven as long as bin Laden can continue to run his businesses and financial networks."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
"Wrong. This was a DoD Spec Ops job"
and where did you get that idea?
according to the articles I've read the CIA reported on UBL to the State Dept.
"Michael F. Scheuer, who from 1996 to 1999 led the Central Intelligence Agency unit that tracked Mr. bin Laden, said the State Department documents reflected a keen awareness of the danger posed by Mr. bin Laden's relocation.
"The analytical side of the State Department had it exactly right - that's genius analysis," he said in an interview when told of the declassified documents. But Mr. Scheuer, who wrote a book in 2004 titled "Imperial Hubris," under the pseudonym "Anonymous," that was highly critical of American counterterrorism strategies, said many officials in the C.I.A.'s operational side thought they would have a better chance to kill Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan than they did in Sudan because the Sudan government protected him.
"The thinking was that he was in Afghanistan, and he was dangerous, but because he was there, we had a better chance to kill him," Mr. Scheuer said. "But at the end of the day, we settled for the worst possibility - he was there and we didn't do anything."
"Why so long for DoD to get angry? They were hit on 9/11! "
Interesting. The colonel has to have the blessing of his superior officer who must go up the ladder to the JCS, one would assume, in this particular case. Besides the colonel was just promoted recently to Ltc colonel. So he is not doing anything out of being a disgruntal employee at this point.
He has the DoD's blessings to go on talk shows etc..
"the CIA man he had on (can't remember his name) was good"
"Michael F. Scheuer, who from 1996 to 1999 led the Central Intelligence Agency unit that tracked Mr. bin Laden, said the State Department documents reflected a keen awareness of the danger posed by Mr. bin Laden's relocation.
"The analytical side of the State Department had it exactly right - that's genius analysis," he said in an interview when told of the declassified documents. But Mr. Scheuer, who wrote a book in 2004 titled "Imperial Hubris," under the pseudonym "Anonymous," that was highly critical of American counterterrorism strategies, said many officials in the C.I.A.'s operational side thought they would have a better chance to kill Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan than they did in Sudan because the Sudan government protected him.
"The thinking was that he was in Afghanistan, and he was dangerous, but because he was there, we had a better chance to kill him," Mr. Scheuer said. "But at the end of the day, we settled for the worst possibility - he was there and we didn't do anything.
"http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/international/asia/17osama.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1124338116-9SpqvDrdeBKMqTh0Yi3QZA&pagewanted=print
" Maybe because people are sick of Clinton goon type lies."
The question being explored is who? This basically started with Curt Weldon this June or July making some statements on the floor right. He starts to get interviews, talk shows etc..
Out of the clear blue Colonel Schafer steps into the picture, after just receiving his promotion to LCT Colonel, and is on talk shows. Why where things held down so long? And who was keeping things under tabs. There have to be underlining things not in the least understood or even comprehended about this deal that may not ever get into print. It's not going to be a no brainer like the Blather scandal. That surely would have been exposed whether butthead broke it or not. To much stuff hear is convoluted in some respects. There may be things that are not even being considered that may still pop up out of the blue so to speak. Then we go to the Sandy Burger stuff, all we know is he had destroyed some archive documents as well as removing many for reading, and being forced to return once he was caught in the trap they planned for him. Miller is in the klinker. She is buttoned up for the duration unless she ends up being subpoenaed by a grand jury or senate or house inquirary. I can see how dog is scratching his head as he has been tracking this stuff. There are a bunch of unknowns we have not a clue to at this point. And it may not just a getting even thing.
""Wrong. This was a DoD Spec Ops job"
and where did you get that idea?
according to the articles I've read the CIA reported on UBL to the State Dept.
.........
I thought Prost1's comment was regarding the work AD did specifically on Atta in the Bronx? If so, Clark may never had been informed since he did not neccessarily interface with the Able Danger group Other then via. a liason officer, then Major Schafer.
"What is strange is these new documents could have been declassified last year....why was it DONE right in the middle of Able Danger breaking to the surface."
Is it remotely possible. The powers that be, are in some kind of deal mode? Bear me out. OK AB story is broke. It is important to us, BUT, even though it truly has significants as far as Jamie Gorelicks's legal wall preventing info sharing from AB to FBI, CIA, NIA etc., to move quick on these guys and perhaps had stopped 9/11 from occuring. Perhaps the end result here from the "get even part" would not lead up to the Clintoon level.
Now. With the ongoing supposed investigation into what Sandy Burger actually will be accused of doing then sentenced on, if it came to that, yea right. Perhaps that cover up if fully exposed would lead all the way up to Clintoon's ineptness etc.. End result. The beast drops out of the upcoming race for the POTUS, Kerry runs again and is defeated.
OK, almost done. Now if the powers that be are working hand in hand, call it bargaining. What price is worth more if only one can be fully exposed? AB as important as it may be, but does not lead to getting at Slim. Or Sandy Burgular full admission of just what he tried to cover up that would lead directly to Slim, with perhaps finally exposing the bastard and as a collateral damage removing the beast from the 2008 POTUS run.
Now as FDR so flagarntly admited way back when, nothing in politics just happens. And obviously this things are as politically hot as they come. Sad. It shouldn't have to be that way, but that is the case as we well understand.
We want burglar, clark, slimbo and the lot hanged or shot.
The powers that be say, wait, chum, you can't have all, we gotta make some deals, how about the AB deal, will you settle for that one?
Someone high in the Military (might be retired). Not many other patriots close to the Clinton power centers.
Thank you"GOPJ""kellynla"
The unseen hand is your name spelled backwards.
Thank you Sara ~ great observation!
Clinton is a cretin ~ Bump!
"I hate to even suggest this, but Karl Rove et. al? The President has been very quiet about this subject."
I have thought the same thing, neodad. I never liked the fact that President Bush seemed to roll over and look the other way at all things Clintonian. BUT, maybe this is W's way of handling things -- quietly and unassuming. Maybe he knew what was going on and is going to just let the 'Toon and all of his minions self-destruct! Give them enough rope, etc.
Here's an interesting timeline put together by Barbara Stock...with a few of my own observations:
Clinton managed to sidestep each Islamic attack, no matter how many Americans died. Clinton called the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 a "crime" and not an Islamic terrorist attack. From the moment Bill Clinton took the oath of office, he seemed to take steps to blind our intelligence capabilities at home and abroad by raising the infamous walls to prevent the transfer of information from one agency to another. The Clinton administration seemed to believe that what people didn't know wouldn't hurt them and did its best to keep the American people in the dark. Because of that, the Clinton legacy is on life-support and 3,000 people died on September 11, 2001.
Americans were told that Bill Clinton obsessed about bin Laden. Night after night the endless parade of excuse-makers was out in force, defending Bill Clinton. But in reality, Clinton was so disinterested in dealing with the Islamic terrorist problem that he had turned over the entire problem to Sandy Berger and Richard Clark. Was Sandy Berger dispatched to dispose of papers that Clinton didn't want the 9/11 Commission to see? Can all the copies of the same document accidentally fall into someone's pants? What commission staffer made the decision to keep the Able Danger files away from most of the 9/11 Commission members? Did any of the members of the 9/11 Commission know about the files? If so, which ones?
Also taking on a more importance is the now reported fact that on four occasions, Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000 Berger was given plans to kill bin Laden and each time he said, No. Where was Clinton while all this was going on? Not only did Clinton miss these oppurtunities to kill UBL, he has admitted that his administration also refused to take custody of UBL when offered by Sudan in 1996. The administration's reasons for these refusals was because up until this time, they claimed they just didn't have anything to indict on UBL. This was an interesting claim since many of those defending Clinton's own possible indictments often said that a good prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich. But even more disengeuous was that when a sealed indictment was finally issued for UBL in 1998, the words in the indictment specifically accused UBL of terrorist acts, "At various times from at least as early as 1991..."
The Able Danger report is but one piece of an eight-year puzzle. Unfortunately, the last piece was put into place on 9/11. In 1993 Six Americans were killed in the first attack on the World Trade Center but Clinton called it a crime, not an Islamic terrorist attack. In 1993 the FBI identified three "charities" connected to the terrorist organization Hamas. Clinton ignored FBI pleas that he create a "President's List" of extremist and terrorist groups. Clinton feared the political fallout of "profiling" Islamic charities. Money continued to flow freely for the next seven years from America to Islamic terrorists all over the world including al Qaeda.
1994: The " Report of the National Commission on Terrorism " was distributed to the Department of Defense, the Department of State, FEMA, intelligence communities, and members of Congress. "Targets such as the World Trade Center not only provide the requisite casualties but because of their symbolic nature provide more bang for the buck. In order to maximize their odds for success, terrorist groups will likely consider mounting multiple, simultaneous operations with the aim of overtaxing a government's ability to respond, as well as to demonstrate their professionalism and reach."
1995: Even after hearing the report on impending Islamic terror attacks, Rep. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., convinced Clinton that our spies should not associate with "unsavory" characters. Since most terrorists are unsavory, our window into the movement of Islamic terrorist activity was effectively slammed shut.
1995: The Oklahoma City Bombing left 168 Americans dead, many of them children. Once Tim McVeigh was in custody, all evidence indicating that the two homegrown "whiteys" had funding and assistance from Islamic terrorists was ignored at best, and at worst, covered up. Dealing with Islamic terrorists would have been messy business and Bill was in campaign mode. Clinton did not want to alienate any Muslim voters. Clinton had what he wanted: home grown terrorists so he felt no need to deal with the growing threat from Islamic terrorists.
Also of more importance was the issue of Clinton's legacy with regards to Mid-East Peace. From the moment he stepped foot in office, Clinton made peace between Israel and the Palestinians a top priority. A war on terrorism...or more specifically, Arab/Islamic terrorism, would've made any attempts at getting the Palestinians and their Arab brethern on board much more difficult, if not impossible. Clinton couldn't be too aggressive for fear of alienating the very people he needed to succeed with his Peace Plan.
1995: Al Qaeda began planning the 9/11 attack dubbed "Operation Bojinka." (operation big bang) The first attack on the WTC had failed and bin Laden wanted a second shot at the towers. Plans for this attack were found on the computer of Ramzi Yousef when he was captured. Yousef carried an Iraqi passport and is now in prison for life for his involvement in the first attack on the World Trade Center. There is reason to believe Yousef also trained Terry Nickols in the art of bomb making during Nickols many trips to the Philippines. Richard Clarke, the darling of the left, found it interesting enough to mention in his book that before Nickols went to the Philippines, his bombs didn't work. When Nickols returned, his bombs worked perfectly.
1996: The explosion of TWA Flight 800 killed 230 people. Clinton quickly issued Executive Order 13039 to keep all involved in recovery process silent. The FBI told the hundreds of witnesses, many of them former military, that what they saw was not surface to air missile, but a single firework display. After spending 40 million dollars, Chairman Jim Hall of the National Transportation Safety Board sat before Congress and stated that there was no physical evidence or conclusive forensic evidence to prove it was a mechanical failure that caused the explosion of the center fuel tank on TWA 800. Senator John Kerry is on record twice referring to the TWA 800 disaster a terrorist attack. Pilots called the mechanical failure explanation ridiculous.
1996: The CIA and FBI both warned Clinton they had uncovered a plan involving al Qaeda called the "Martyrdom Battalion" which indicated terrorists were planning to hijack planes and use them as missiles.
1996: The Philippine authorities warned the FBI they had received credible information that al Qaeda was planning on hijacking planes and flying them into Federal Buildings.
1996: (NEWLY RELEASED) "The State Department warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Usama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him more fertile ground to spread radical Islam, according to newly declassified documents under FOIA. The documents, released by the legal advocacy group Judicial Watch on Wednesday, say that bin Laden would feel comfortable moving from Sudan to Afghanistan, which "has become an even more desirable location for extremists. Afghanistan may be an ideal haven as long as bin Laden can continue to run his businesses and financial networks." It should be noted that this warning was issued during the period that Clinton was refusing extradition of UBL from Sudan.
1997: Madeleine Albright became Secretary of State. Ms. Albright, in defense of Clinton offered up perhaps the single most absurd excuse ever given for the Clinton failures: "This is hard to say and I haven't found a way to say it that doesn't sound crass, but it is the truth that those {attacks before Sept. 11} were happening overseas and while there were Americans who died, there were not thousands and it did not happen on U. S. soil."
1998: Bin Laden issued one of two fatwas urging his followers to target the United States and all Americans.
1999: Clinton's own secretary of defense, William Cohen, in a July 1999 op-ed piece in the Washington Post, predicted a terrorist attack on America's mainland.
1999: "Project Megiddo" went public on the FBI website. It was a directive given in 1995 to the FBI from Bill Clinton to direct their investigative efforts towards only domestic terrorism such as the Christian right and militias. No effort was to be made to link any American group with Islamic terrorists. It should be noted that one of the recent excuses for not going after Atta (Able Danger) was because he was here "legally"...and the administration didn't want another "Waco" mistake. Yet, if we are to believe this memo, Clinton didn't seem to have a problem going after US citizens and reacting to "domestic terrorism" if needed.
1999: The Transportation Security Administration altered a terrorist report to exclude all references to foreign terrorists. David Holmes, head of the Commerce Department zeroed in on white militia groups in a 1999 threat analysis. Commerce officials who worked on the case say Holmes' exclusion of every threat group that wasn't white was in keeping with what they say was the Clinton administration policy of focusing on domestic threats from white militia groups, rather than Islamic groups, in combating terrorism. "Holmes made us take out every group that wasn't white, no minority groups allowed. He was toeing the liberal line of the Clinton administration.
2000: The Pentagon's intelligence group, Able Danger, tried to pass on information about a terror cell in NYC that included four future highjackers of 9/11 to the FBI on three occasions but was refused each time.
2001: Because of the walls thrown up by the Clinton administration and Clinton's refusal to face the Islamic enemy stalking America, "Operation Bojinka," the 9/11 attack, went on without any interference from American intelligence agencies that were blinded by Clinton's fear of the messy business that is Islamic terrorism.
Now the 9/11 Commission is struggling to explain how it could have missed 15 boxes of vital information gathered by Able Danger. When the dust settles, I suspect Americans will discover the Commission didn't miss it at all. It just hoped it would go away. What happened can't be changed and why bring down an ex-president seems to be the motto of the day.
MAN!
You put some time and thought into that post!LOL
I'll read it later when I have some time to absorb it better.
Bottom line, there is so much incompetency in the federal government that but for the grace of God we aren't all speaking a foreign language today...
I mean from December 1941 until today!!
It's a friggin' miracle!
And the 1993 WTC was not the first hit by these maniacs!
It goes back to the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut...at least!
And what did we do about that?
NOTHING!
"President Reagan assembled his national security team to devise a plan of military action, and planned to target was the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. However, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would harm U.S. relations with other Arab nations. Except for a few shellings from the USS New Jersey off Lebanon, there was no real military response from the United States due to the barracks bombing"
Semper Fi,
Kelly
just for clarification, Klayman founded but hasn't been with Judicial Watch for a couple of years now.
Kelly....most of that was from Barbara Stock's piece that can also be found on FR today. I just added a few observations.
Thanks for the nice timeline. As you basically stated in your final remarks. This is really a witch hunt. It is politically driven. From my perspective, I want to see Clintoon and his clan exposed for the frauds they where, to see the beast not have a fighting chance in 2008, and at least have books writen that further exposed what a damn louse he truly is. Books that will make Derilection of Duty etc., look like get well cards.
I do hope none of us are following this stuff in hopes that someone is going to end up in Leavenworth pounding rocks. It is not going to happen. Burglar is about the only one that is going to perhaps get a wrist slap for his video taped theft, and destruction of classified documents. Miller will complete her jail term perhaps not having a good understanding of the whole ball of wax she went to jail for, besides she is looking at the perks down the pike. At least posts on these issues tend to bring out a bit of well thought out dialog, sharing of info that does contain value, unlike the ongone soup opera over the anti-war goon down south.
"I want to see Clintoon and his clan exposed"
Well we all know what they are... "white trash"...but since the Clintoons have that "J Edgar Hoover" insurance policy, there's not much chance of any of them doing time behind bars...
"I knew those copies of FBI files would come in handy some day."
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