LIVE THREAD: Fox Sunday Interview of Bill Clinton

Fox News ^ | September 24, 2006

[Howlin]

Bill Clinton to appear (taped) on Fox News Live with Mike Wallace.

[onyx]

Disagree. He lost his composure. He can play to his fans, but he came off crazy and out of control.

[kcvl]

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39612

SEARCH FOR OSAMA
Berger blocked 4 plans to get bin Laden
9-11 commission report shows handwritten responses on documents

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Posted: July 23, 2004
2:00 p.m. Eastern



© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger blocked four separate plans of action against the al-Qaida terrorist network from 1998 to 2000, according to the newly released 9-11 commission report.

The report cites a 1998 meeting in which then-director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet presented a plan to capture Osama bin Laden, notes the New York Sun.

"In his meeting with Tenet, Berger focused, however, on the question of what was to be done with Bin Ladin if he were actually captured," the report says, citing a May 1, 1998, CIA memo. "He worried that the hard evidence against Bin Ladin was still skimpy and that there was a danger of snatching him and bringing him to the United States only to see him acquitted."

Berger, who served in the Clinton administration, is facing a Justice Department investigation for allegedly smuggling secret files out of the National Archives prior to the 9-11 commission hearings.

After news of the probe broke Monday, Berger stepped down from his informal position as security adviser to Democratic Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign.

The 9-11 commission report presents three other opportunities given to Berger to take action against bin Laden:


June 1999: The potential target was an al-Qaida terrorist camp in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. But the commission cites Berger's handwritten notes on the meeting paper, which referred to "the presence of 7 to 11 families in the Tarnak Farms facility, which could mean 60-65 casualties." The Berger notes said, "if he responds, we're blamed."

Dec. 4, 1999: National Security Council counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke sent Berger a memo suggesting a strike against al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan. According to the commission, however, in the "margin next to Clarke's suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, 'no.'"

August 2000: Berger was presented with a plan to attack bin Laden based on aerial surveillance from a "Predator" drone. "In the memo’s margin," the commission said, "Berger wrote that before considering action, 'I will want more than verified location: we will need, at least, data on pattern of movements to provide some assurance he will remain in place.'"
The New York paper, in an editorial asks why Berger made these critical decisions rather than the president. The commission report notes the decisions "were made by the Clinton administration under extremely difficult domestic political circumstances. Opponents were seeking the president's impeachment."

The Sun opines, had Berger "been a little less reluctant to act, a little more open to taking pre-emptive action, maybe the 2,973 killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks would be alive today."

[metesky]

There's a thread or two around here about the difference between Clarke's various statements under oath in committee and the assertions he makes in his book.

At one point today Billy Jeff called Clarke's assertions "findings"!

[Just Lori]

What about Paula Jones? And .....er.....what's-her-name?

[kcvl]

ABC News even reported that Janet Reno too turned down the 911 mastermind:

"Federal agents seeking bin Laden had developed a plan to have a plane fly in and attack a compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where the terror leader was believed to have been holed up back in 1998 — three years before the devastating attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But when the plan went up the chain of command for approval, it was killed by then-Attorney General Janet Reno. 'They came to the decision that this plan was probably too dangerous, that the loss of life on the ground would have been significant,' (former FBI agent Jack) Cloonan said. 'There was concern that people around the bin Laden compound would be killed.'"

[defconw]

Allen? It was bad. He sounded less then Senatorial and it was just really weird is the only way I can describe it. Have you ever talked with someone who is shall we say less then educated, and they can't give you an over all view of a recalled conversation? So they start going on about what the other person said, and what they said back? He did that. I was like WHAT?

[TeddyCon]

The fundamental difference between the man that Dubya is, and the whiny rat that Clinton is, is as clear as ever in this interview.

"I tried and I failed".

Yup. You tried, and you failed, and when you feared that the polls might start saying that your wussy base doesn't want you to make thing go boom anymore, you just gave up tryin'.

So contrast that to this president's not giving a rat's _ss about what the polls say, and that, Mr. Clinton, is the difference between you, and him.

[kcvl]

Clinton himself-- At a February 2002 business luncheon in New York, Clinton said this:

"Mr. Bin Laden used to live in Sudan ... And we’d been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again. They released him. At the time, '96, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."

[Wolverine]

Thanks for posting the interview!

 

[onyx]

Actually, I remember something about Janet's interference.

[defconw]

True, but we all know what happens when we try to prosecute this SOB.

[alnick]

I think the Liberal, Demo and a good portion of "indeps" are going to love what he says and his performance. This will help Hillary's run at the WH (IMHO) for those who want him whispering in her ear as an advisor. That all here hate him is a given, but he ain't talking to us.

Oh, the liberal democrats will never be persuaded, but the true independents will come away from watching this interview knowing Slick Willie's lying again.

[tet68]

Their job is to beat us. But our job is to not let them get away with it and if we don;’t we’ll be fine.

Defense doesn't win wars...or elections.

This guy is going to be more fun to watch than Jimma Carta.

[Valin]

Gosh if I didn't have to clean the grout I'd be there!

[bonfire]

He's turned into a laughingstock. I'm almost embarrassed for the Dems. (almost)

[_Jim]

Wow ... Juan says Chris held his own, and that 'wag the dog' WAS all over town ...

[woofie]

He looks like a JERK

[defconw]

Ain't it grand? :) Almost makes me wish I had a cigar.

[defconw]

It's the gift that just keeps on giving.

[kcvl]

Clinton: CIA Nixed My Plans to Get bin Laden

Ex-President Bill Clinton said Thursday morning that the Central Intelligence Agency scuttled his plans to capture or kill Osama bin Laden - even though he had already approved the missions. "I had approved in general three other operations against bin Laden," Clinton said during an AOL online interview about his new book, "My Life." "And the CIA came back and said the evidence is insufficient to think that he was at the sites we were going to bomb." [More below...]

"So they recommended we not do it and we took their recommendation," he added, in remarks that contradict an earlier account he gave in a February 2002 address about those operations. Just five months after the 9/11 attacks, Clinton said the primary reason he didn't give the order to attack bin Laden after an initial failed airstrike in 1998 was that he didn't want to violate the airspace of Middle Eastern nations and that he feared the collateral damage would be too great.

"Now, if you look back - in the hindsight of history, everybody's got 20/20 vision - the real issue is, should we have attacked the al-Qaeda network in 1999 or in 2000 in Afghanistan," Clinton told the Long Island Association in February 2002. "Here's the problem. Before September 11 we would have had no support for it - no allied support and no basing rights. So we actually trained to do this. I actually trained people to do this. We trained people. "But in order to do it, we would have had to take them in on attack helicopters 900 miles from the nearest boat - maybe illegally violating the airspace of people if they wouldn't give us approval. And we would have had to do a refueling stop." In the same speech, Clinton said he decided against another mission to get bin Laden because he feared it would kill innocent women and children. "Now, I had one other option.

I could have bombed or sent more missiles in. As far as we knew he never went back to his training camp. So the only place bin Laden ever went that we knew was occasionally he went to Khandahar, where he always spent the night in a compound that had 200 women and children. "So I could have, on any given night, ordered an attack that I knew would kill 200 women and children that had less than a 50 percent chance of getting him." Clinton all but admitted that in hindsight, he made the wrong call: "Now, after he murdered 3,100 of our people and others who came to our country seeking their livelihood, you may say, 'Well, Mr. President, you should have killed those 200 women and children.' "But at the time," he insisted, "we didn't think he had the capacity to do that. And no one thought that I should do that. Although I take full responsibility for it."

On Thursday, however, Clinton said others were responsible for bungling the hunt for bin Laden. "There's not a shred of evidence that I denied either the military or the intelligence services of our country anything when they were after the terrorists in general and bin Laden in particular," he told AOL. "I gave them the full authority to proceed and to do whatever we could. And I wish we'd been successful in getting him."