Posted on 09/01/2003 3:41:03 AM PDT by Elkiejg
WASHINGTON -- On Oct. 12, 2000, the day of the devastating terrorist attack on the USS Cole, President Clinton's highest-level national security team met to determine what to do. Counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wanted to hit Afghanistan, aiming at Osama bin Laden's complex and the terrorist leader himself. But Clarke was all alone. There was no support for a retaliatory strike that, if successful, might have prevented the 9/11 carnage.
This startling story is told for the first time in a book by Brussels-based investigative reporter Richard Miniter to be published this week. "Losing bin Laden" relates that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and CIA Director George Tenet all said no to the attack. I have contacted enough people attending the meeting to confirm what Miniter reports. Indeed, his account is based on direct, on-the-record quotes from participants.
Miniter, who was part of the Sunday Times of London investigation of Clinton vs. bin Laden, has written a bitter indictment of the American president (its subtitle: "How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror"). But by the time of the Cole disaster with only weeks left in his presidency, Clinton had focused on the terrorist threat. The problem of the Oct. 12 meeting was the caution common to all councils of war. Arguments by participants sound valid, but collectively they built a future catastrophe.
Al Qaeda's bombing of the billion-dollar U.S. destroyer fulfilled Dick Clarke's prediction of the terrorists seeking U.S. military targets. Hours after the attack, Clarke presided over a meeting of four terrorism experts in the White House Situation Room. He and the State Department's Michael Sheehan agreed this almost certainly was bin Laden's doing, but the FBI and CIA representatives wanted more investigation.
That deadlock preceded a meeting of Cabinet-level officials that same day. Clarke proposed already targeted retaliation against bin Laden's camps and Taliban buildings in Kabul and Kandahar. At least, they would destroy the terrorist infrastructure. A quick strike might also get Osama bin Laden. "Around the table," Miniter writes, "Clarke heard only objections." As related by Clarke, the meeting exemplified ministerial caution.
Atty. Gen. Reno, told by the FBI that the terrorists were still unidentified, argued that retaliation violated international law. Reno and the CIA's Tenet wanted more investigation. Secretary of State Albright is quoted as saying that with renewed Israeli-Palestinian fighting, "bombing Muslims wouldn't be helpful at this time." (Albright later told Miniter she would have taken a different position if she had "definitive" proof of bin Laden's involvement.)
Defense Secretary Cohen's position at the meeting is most surprising. The only Republican in the Clinton Cabinet was architect of missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan after the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. Clarke remembers Cohen saying the attack on the Cole "was not sufficiently provocative" and that heavy bombing of Afghanistan might cause upheaval in neighboring Pakistan. When I contacted him, Cohen said he did not recall this meeting but that "certainly I regarded the Cole as a major provocation."
The State Department's Sheehan, formerly with Special Forces and now with the New York City Police Department, did not blame Bill Cohen. "It was the entire Pentagon," he told Miniter, adding he was "stunned" and "taken aback" by the lack of Defense Department desire to retaliate. After the meeting, Sheehan told Clarke, prophetically: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"
At the Cabinet-level meeting, only Dick Clarke wanted retaliation. Indeed, he was viewed as a hothead, always demanding bombs away. So much pain has been inflicted, and so much blood has been spilled since then, that the meeting has faded from the memory of its participants -- until stirred up by Clarke in Miniter's book.
Less than a month after the Cole disaster, CIA analysts had concluded bin Laden was behind it (though the FBI was still clueless). Osama bin Laden had virtually claimed credit for the most successful attack on a U.S. naval vessel since World War II. He and his gang had escaped to plan greater misery for America.
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Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror
Miniter, Richard
Order Losing bin Laden now and we will ship it to you as soon as it is released by the publisher on September 2, 2003.
Years before the public knew about Osama bin Laden, Bill Clinton did. Bin Laden first attacked Americans during Clinton's presidential transition in December 1992. He struck again at the World Trade Center in February 1993. Over the next eight years the archterrorist's attacks would escalate killing hundreds and wounding thousands -- while Clinton did his best to stymie the FBI and CIA and refused to wage a real war on terror.
Why?
The answer is here in investigative reporter Richard Miniter's stunning exposé that includes exclusive interviews with both of Clinton's National Security Advisors, Clinton's counter-terrorism czar, his first CIA director, his Secretary of State, his Secretary of Defense, top CIA and FBI agents, lawmakers from both parties and foreign intelligence officials from France, Sudan, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as on-the-scene coverage from Sudan, Egypt, and elsewhere.
For eight years the archterrorist waged war on America, and President Clinton did virtually nothing . . .
Losing bin Laden is a dramatic, page-turning read, a riveting account of a terror war that bin Laden openly declared, but that Clinton left largely unfought. With a pounding narrative, up-close characters and detailed scenes, it takes you inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and within some of the deadliest terrorist cells that America has ever faced. If Clinton had fought back, the attacks on September 11, 2001, might never have happened. In Losing bin Laden you'll learn:
The new evidence that Clinton knew about Sudan's offers to arrest bin Laden -- but ignored them in order to focus on the 1996 presidential election
Why Clinton even refused to receive Sudan's vital intelligence files on bin Laden's network
How Clinton scuttled a secret offer from the United Arab Emirates to arrest bin Laden -- and also rejected a plea from Yemen for help in capturing the terrorist
Revealed for the first time: how Clinton and a Democratic Senator stopped the CIA from hiring Arabic translators -- while phone intercepts from bin Laden remained untranslated
Drawn from secret Sudanese intelligence files: bin Laden's role in shooting down America's Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu, Somalia -- and how Clinton manipulated the news media to keep the worst off America's TV screens
The warning that Clinton missed -- a week before the deadly shoot-out in Somalia
How Clinton's top officials first learned about bin Laden -- but did nothing
The-never-before told story of the Saudi government attempt to assassinate bin Laden
The real reason Clinton refused to meet with his first CIA director
The untold story of bin Laden's five declarations of war on the U.S. from October 1996 to May 1998 -- threats Clinton ignored
How Clinton ignored intelligence and offers of cooperation against bin Laden from Afghanistan's Northern Alliance
The 1993 World Trade Center attack: Why Clinton refused to believe it had been bombed; why the CIA was kept out of the investigation; and how one of the FBI's most trusted informants was actually a double agent working for bin Laden
Disproved, once and for all: the liberal myth that the CIA funded bin Laden
The untold story of a respected Congressman who repeatedly warned Clinton officials about bin Laden in 1993 -- and why he was ignored
How the Predator spy plane -- which spotted bin Laden three times -- was grounded by bureaucratic infighting
Plus much more, including appendices of secret documents and photos, as well as the established links between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein's Iraq
Richard Miniter appears regularly on Fox News to discuss terrorism, and has written for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, National Review, and many other publications.
Losing bin Laden is a story -- and one hell of a lesson -- that the reader will never forget.
They should have been identified as Christian wackos so Reno would ok sending in napalm strikes.
I'm curious about this one in particular. I believe Woolsey got two or three meetings during his entire tenure as Director.
When some nutball crashed his Cessna onto the WH lawn, the joke was "That was Jim Woolsey trying to get an appointment."
Why Clinton even refused to receive Sudan's vital intelligence files on bin Laden's network... hey, Bubba was busy having phone-sex!
The real reason Clinton refused to meet with his first CIA director... I bet he refused to pay the $50K campaign contribution requested for every meeting with Bubba.
How Clinton ignored intelligence and offers of cooperation against bin Laden from Afghanistan's Northern Alliance... hey, there were Interns to diddle! What do you expect?!
Drawn from secret Sudanese intelligence files: bin Laden's role in shooting down America's Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu, Somalia -- and how Clinton manipulated the news media to keep the worst off America's TV screens.... Oh, c'mon! That's the old canard of the liberal bias in the media... Joe Conasen and Al Franken have cut down all these arguments...
How Clinton's top officials first learned about bin Laden -- but did nothing ... These people had other priorities, such as backing up Bubba in his time of need with their "I believe the President" claims after the one and only cabinet meeting in 1998. After all, one has to have priorities.
And that's the point. The fact is, the kindest way to describe the Clinton administration's response to Al Qaeda is "incompetent".
But I think "treacherous" is much closer to the mark. Let the truth be known!
Revealed for the first time: how Clinton and a Democratic Senator stopped the CIA from hiring Arabic translators -- while phone intercepts from bin Laden remained untranslated.
I'm wondering if the above mentioned Democratic Senator (underlined in the article) is Mrs. Clinton.
(Or maybe "heads-out.")
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