Posted on 08/04/2002 7:01:43 AM PDT by Brian Mosely
BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S LENGTHY REVIEW PROCESS DELAYED U.S. PLAN TO ATTACK AL QAEDA -- UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE
Sun Aug 04 2002 09:43:33 ET
----
Draft Presidential Directive to Eliminate al Qaeda
Approved By National Security Principals Sept. 4, 2001 —Just One Week Before 9/11
----
Plan Developed in Last Days of Clinton Administration, Presented to Bush Administration in January 2001
----
Proposals Were "Everything We’ve Done Since 9/11"
New York – A bold plan for the U.S. to attack al Qaeda was delayed by a Bush administration "policy review process" and was approved just a week before September 11, a TIME special report reveals. The plan, developed in the last days of the Clinton administration, was passed along to the Bush administration in January 2001 by Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Richard Clarke, a career bureaucrat who had served in the first Bush administration and risen during the Clinton years to become the White House’s point man on terrorism. In the words of a senior Bush administration official, the proposals amounted to "everything we’ve done since 9/11."
TIME’s special report offers the fullest account of how ambitious the plan was, and how the Bush administration delayed the plan.
On Dec. 20, 2000, Clarke presented a strategy paper to Berger and the other national security "principals." But Berger and the principals decided to shelve the plan and let the next administration take it up. With less than a month left in office, they did not think it appropriate to launch a major initiative against Osama bin Laden. "We would be handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office on Jan. 20," says a former senior Clinton aide. "That wasn’t going to happen." "If we hadn’t had a transition," says a senior Clinton Administration official, "probably in late October or early November 2000, we would have had [the plan to go on the offensive] as a presidential directive." Now it was up to Rice’s team to consider what Clarke had put together.
The plan became a victim of the transition process, turf wars and time spent on the pet policies of new top officials. The Bush administration chose to institute its own "policy review process" on the terrorist threat. Clarke told TIME that the review moved "as fast as could be expected." And Administration officials insist that by the time the review was endorsed by the Bush principals on Sept. 4, it was more aggressive than anything contemplated the previous winter. The final plan, they say, was designed not to "roll back" al-Qaeda but to "eliminate" it, TIME reports.
By last summer, many of those in the know—the spooks, the buttoned-down bureaucrats, the law-enforcement professionals in a dozen countries—were almost frantic with worry that a major terrorist attack against American interests was imminent. And in a bureaucratic squabble, nobody in Washington could decide whether a Predator drone—the best possible source of real intelligence on what was happening in the terror camps—should be sent to fly over Afghanistan. So the Predator sat idle from October 2000 until after Sept. 11, TIME reports.
TIME’s Special Report also reveals:
Ž Berger wanted Ground Troops: On Nov. 7, 2000, Berger met with William Cohen, then Secretary of Defense, in the Pentagon. Berger wanted "boots on the ground"—U.S. special ops forces deployed inside Afghanistan on a search-and-destroy mission targeting bin Laden. Cohen said he would look at the idea, but he and General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were dead set against it. They feared a repeat of Desert One, the 1980 fiasco when special ops commandos crashed in Iran during an abortive mission to rescue American hostages.
Ž Bush official denies being handed a formal plan: A senior Bush Administration official denies being handed a formal plan to take the offensive against al-Qaeda, and says Clarke’s materials merely dealt with whether the new Administration should take "a more active approach" to the terrorist group. (Rice declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present.) Other senior officials from both the Clinton and Bush administrations dispute that account, saying that Clarke had a set of proposals to "roll back" al-Qaeda. In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the Powerpoint presentation reads, "Response to al Qaeda: Roll back."
Ž Clinton frustrated: By early 2000, Clinton was becoming infuriated by the lack of intelligence on bin Laden’s movements. "We’ve got to do better than this," he scribbled on one memo. "This is unsatisfactory."
Ž Submarines were ready to attack bin Laden: For all of 2000, Clinton ordered two U.S. Navy submarines to stay on station in the northern Arabian sea, ready to attack bin Laden if his coordinates could be determined, sources tell TIME.
Ž CIA attempted to recruit tribal leaders in Afghanistan: The CIA attempted to recruit tribal leaders in Afghanistan who might be persuaded to take on bin Laden; contingency plans had been made for the CIA to fly one of its planes to a desert landing strip in Afghanistan if he was ever captured. (Clinton had signed presidential "findings" that were ambiguous on the question of whether bin Laden could be killed in such an attack.)
Ž Plans to capture bin Laden tied up in politics: After the U.S.S. Cole was bombed, the secretive Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., drew up plans to have Delta Force members swoop into Afghanistan and grab bin Laden. But the warriors were never given the go-ahead; the Clinton Administration did not order an American retaliation for the attack. In fact, despite strong suspicion that bin Laden was behind the attack in Yemen, the CIA and FBI had not officially concluded that he was, and would be unable to do so before Clinton left office. That made it politically impossible for Clinton to strike—especially given the upcoming election and his own lack of credibility on national security. "If we had done anything, say, two weeks before the election, we’d be accused of helping Al Gore," a former senior Clinton aide told TIME.
At some point the W Administration needs to take the gloves off.
Canada.
It matters not that Clinton ordered up a plan to some day, maybe, attack al Qaeda.
The bottom line is that Clinton did not pull the trigger and execute the plan.
Shame on you! You forgot to credit the Almighty Sinkmaster with ordering a cruise missile attack to take out an aspirin factory in the Sudan! What a gutsy guy!
Last year, I dumped Newsweek for their incessant Bush-bashing and Clinton worship, and am so far pleased with U.S. News & World Report.
I agree. The article is not that damning to Bush. The weasel who titled it is the problem. The liberal editors are the ones in the media who spin things with their titles. They know the sheeple usually only read the titles.
Dick Morris:Ah...the Times!!! Nice try.Clinton was removed, uninvolved, and distant where the war on terror was concerned. CIA director Woolsey now reveals that he never had a private personal meeting with Clinton during the first two years of his tenure as head of the CIA - exactly the key period in investigating the 1993 attack.
I had a good illustration of Clinton's remoteness from terrorist issues in 1996 when Dick Holbrooke called me, several months after the terrorist attack on US barracks in Ridyah, Saudi Arabia. Holbrooke, who told me that he had never had the opportunity to speak with Clinton directly during the months that he was negotiating the Dayton peace accords in Bosnia, asked that I get hold of the president to pass along a message. Holbrooke said that he had information that the terrorists were planning another attack in Ridyah and that our troops were highly vulnerable
Very nice!
So they were prepared to go it alone and invade a foreign country as a presidential directive, without consulting our allies, without consulting congress, without declaring war, and without provocation? Klinton had 8 years to invade; the latest act of al Qaeda was no worse than it's previous acts.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.