Aide: Clinton Unleashed bin Laden

Bill Clinton ignored repeated opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist allies and is responsible for the spread of terrorism, one of the ex-president’s own top aides charges.

Mansoor Ijaz, who negotiated with Sudan on behalf of Clinton from 1996 to 1998, paints a portrait of a White House plagued by incompetence, focused on appearances rather than action, and heedless of profound threats to national security.

Ijaz also claims Clinton passed on an opportunity to have Osama bin Laden arrested.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, hoping to have terrorism sanctions lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of bin Laden and "detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas,” Ijaz writes in today’s edition of the liberal Los Angeles Times.

These networks included the two hijackers who piloted jetliners into the World Trade Center.

But Clinton and National Security Adviser Samuel "Sandy” Berger failed to act.

”I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities,” Ijaz writes.

”The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening."

”As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster,” says Ijaz, chairman of a New York investment company and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ijaz’s revelations are but the latest to implicate the Clinton administration in the spread of terrorism. Former CIA and State Department official Larry Johnson today also noted the failure of Clinton to do more than talk.

Among the many others who have pointed out Clinton’s negligence: former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, former Clinton adviser Dick Morris, the late author Barbara Olson, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iraqi expert Laurie Mylroie, the CIA and some of the victims of Sept. 11.

And the list grows: members of Congress, pundit Charles R. Smith, former Department of Energy official Notra Trulock, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, government counterterrorism experts, the law firm Judicial Watch, New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler, the liberal Boston Globe – and even Clinton himself.

Ijaz's account in the Times reads like a spy novel. Sudan’s Bashir, fearing the rise of bin Laden, sent intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996. They offered to arrest bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or to keep close watch over him. The Saudis "didn't want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them.”

”In May 1996, the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere.”

That’s when bin Laden went to Afghanistan, along with "Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who traveled frequently to Germany to obtain electronic equipment for al-Qaeda; Wadih El-Hage, Bin Laden's personal secretary and roving emissary, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel, also accused of carrying out the embassy attacks.”

If these names sound familiar, just check the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists.

The Clinton administration repeatedly rejected crucial information that Sudan had gathered on these terrorists, Ijaz says.

In July 2000, just three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen, Ijaz "brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States' closest Arab allies - an ally whose name I am not free to divulge - approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials.”

This offer would have brought bin Laden to that Arab country and eventually to the U.S. All the proposal required of Clinton was that he make a state visit to request extradition.

"But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family - Clintonian diplomacy at its best.”

Appearing on Fox News Channel’s "The O’Reilly Factor” on Wednesday night, Ijaz said, "Everything we needed to know about the terrorist networks” was in Sudan.

Newsman Bill O’Reilly asked how Clinton and Berger reacted to the deals Ijaz brokered to bring bin Laden and company to justice. "Zero. They didn’t respond at all.”

The Clintonoids won’t get away with denials, he said. "I’ve got the documentation,” including a memorandum to Berger.

O’Reilly wondered why the White House didn’t want information about the terrorists. Ijaz said that was for the American people to judge, but when pressed he suggested that Clinton might intentionally have allowed the apparently weak bin Laden to rise so he could later make a show of crushing him.

Concludes Ijaz in the Times: "Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.”

Here's an old article on Mansoor Ijaz >Terrorist State Representative Funnels Cash to Clinton

Terrorist State's Agent Funneled Cash to Clinton

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that an unofficial agent of the terrorist regime of Sudan, after giving the DNC over $500,000, gained access to the Clinton Administration in order to ease our country's hard-line policy towards Sudan. And it looks like he succeeded.

The Post story, reported by David B. Ottaway, details how businessman Mansoor Ijaz parlayed $525,000 in contributions, including $200,000 raised with Al Gore at Ijaz's New York penthouse into unusual access to White House and State Department officials. Ijaz manages a $2.7 billion investment portfolio, much of which is for Arab governments. Ijaz is keen on helping Sudan exploit its oil reserves, enabling the regime to join the ranks of oil exporting countries.

The problem is the U.S. State Department considers the Sudanese government a supporter of international terrorism. Egypt, an American ally, has threatened to go to war with Sudan because of the regime's support for Egyptian Islamic terrorists, notably their attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's life. The radical Islamic Sudanese government is also infamous for its oppression of Christians and its tolerance of slavery. Yes, slavery.

One would think a regime such as Sudan's would have trouble getting heard by any Western country, let alone the United States. But with the Clinton Administration, money talks and the tyrants of Khartoum (Sudan's capital) bought itself, however indirectly, easy access to the highest reaches of our nation's government. Since July, 1996, Ijaz traveled to Sudan at least six times, meeting repeatedly with Sudan's president, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Bashir, and the country's militant Islamic leader, Hassan Turabi, advising them on how to soften the Clinton administration's position." Turabi, the guiding force of Sudan, is a Sudanese version of the late Ayatollah Khomeni.

Turabi's agent of influence also met with Bill and Hillary, and senior White House and State Department officials, including Sandy Berger, the current national security adviser. Ijaz was quite blunt with The Post about what his donations bought him -- he talks of the "political prominence" and "access" gained by donations and fundraising.

Last spring and summer, Ijaz was most concerned about a law passed by Congress banning all financial transactions between U.S. companies and Sudan. Ijaz admits that such a ban would have hurt his business. His first trip to Sudan coincided with the deliberations of Clinton Administration officials on how to implement the ban.

As The Post reports: "When the regulations were published in late August, the administration effectively gutted the prohibition by allowing a broad range of financial transactions by U.S. businesses dealing with Sudan. That loose interpretation remains in effect despite sharp protests from some members of Congress." August, by the way, was the same month that Ijaz met with Berger.

Administration officials coyly told The Post that Ijaz didn't have any particular impact, but lauded his lobbying nevertheless. "'We have not found his analysis on Sudan compelling in any way,' said David Johnson, a White House spokesman, who added that Ijaz 'had provided a valuable perspective.'" Not compelling, but valuable. The Clinton gang disinformation team must be getting a bit rusty, they usually don't contradict themselves in the same sentence.

We still don't know what Ijaz and Bill Clinton discussed among themselves during the dozen or so times they met with each other. Though we should remember Clinton has made it the habit of conducting foreign policy through his fundraisers. He discussed Asian policy in the Oval Office with James Riady, the Indonesian magnate who backed his political campaigns with over $3 million in loans and contributions. Clinton also used Johnny Chung, another Clinton funder who shuttled Chinese government officials through the Oval Office, to go to China and negotiate for the release of Harry Wu, the human rights activist. It stands to reason that Ijaz and Clinton discussed the interests of the Sudanese regime, those discussions only taking place because of the cold cash Ijaz gave Clinton.

Though it seems Ijaz has the financial wherewithal to have made the contributions attributed to him, it will be a fair use of investigative resources to find out if he was "reimbursed" for by the Sudanese potentates for his contributions to Clinton or for his lobbying. Ijaz was not registered as a foreign agent with the State Department, which he should have done, having clearly acted as lobbyist for the Sudanese regime.

We also want to know what the State Department and National Security staffers knew about Ijaz's background. How is it that a businessman with ties to one of the world's outlaw regimes gets a meeting with top policy officials at the White House and State Department? Was Sandy Berger aware of Ijaz's support for the Democratic National Committee? Is it appropriate, let alone lawful, for top foreign policy-making officials to give access to foreign agents based on their Democratic donation history?

Berger and Nancy Soderberg, another National Security staffer, made it a habit of attending fundraising events in the White House (illegal) and elsewhere (improper). The White House foreign affairs team was acutely aware of Clinton's foreign fundraising efforts. One staffer called Johnny Chung a "hustler" and yet the President continued to see him. Nancy Soderberg herself got into a tiff with DNC Chairman Don Fowler, who used the CIA to override national security staff concerns about giving White House access to a foreign businessman wanted by Interpol. Our nation's foreign policy and national security apparatus, from the Oval Office on down, was compromised by the fanatic effort to raise cash for Clinton's political machine.

Ijaz wanted to ease the impending restrictions on his business contacts with the terrorist regime in Sudan. He anted up over one-half million dollars in Clinton cash. He got his meetings with Clinton, Gore and other top government officials. The restrictions were eased and the terrorists in Sudan are better off. Policy offered, policy bought, policy sold. That will good news to the victims of Sudan's next terrorist action.

Who knows, maybe the networks will cover this story in a few months

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