What I'd like to know is why and/or what information about UBL did they know at that time to make such a big deal of his presence in the Sudan?
Did a Clinton donor consider UBL's sunflower growing operation a competitive threat? Or was UBL actively supporting/planning terrorists attacks? Or was he a known, but inactive player at the time, that as a foreigner, the Sudanese could easily offer up as an appeasement against the sanctions?
Did Rice also have her eye on a contribution to a paper on terrorism? Was she planning the paper a decade earlier and decided to goose UBL (known from his anti-Soviet Afghanistan days) to see how he'd react to use hopefully, as an example in her academic screed?
The Sudanese did deprive UBL of his assets as the slammed the door on his butt on the way out.
1. AQ had already set off 2 bombs in Aden targeting US troops en route to Somalis (1992).
2. Ramzi Youssef et al bombed WTC, had AQ ties(1993)
3. The massive Bojinka plot (to simultaneously destroy 10 wide-body aircraft over the Pacific) was discovered by accident (fire in the Manila bomb factory). AQ was funding Bojinka (January of 1995)
4. AQ had very large financial resources to draw on.
5. AQ had already announced that Americans were prime targets.