Clinton Admits: I Turned Down Bin Laden Extradition Offer

NewsMax.com ^ | 8/11/02 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

Mansour Ijaz, the Pakistani-American businessman who says he was rebuffed by the Clinton White House after negotiating a deal for the extradition of Osama bin Laden to the U.S. in 1996, has gained an important new witness who backs his story - none other than ex-President Clinton himself.

Former Clinton administration officials such as senior National Security Council aide Nancy Soderberg have described Ijaz as an unreliable witness. Former Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri recently slammed him as "a liar" and "a crackpot."

But a tape recording obtained exclusively by NewsMax.com shows Clinton himself confirming all the key points of his story.

In never-before-reported comments to a New York business group this past February, the ex-president never mentioned Mr. Ijaz by name. But the events he related parallel the freelance diplomat's story exactly.

"Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan," Clinton explained to a February 15 Long Island Association luncheon.

"He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991 then he went to Sudan. And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again.

"They released him," the ex-president confirmed.

"At the time, 1996, 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.

"So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, cause they could have," Clinton explained. "But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."

Since last December, Mr. Ijaz has insisted that he negotiated the deal for bin Laden's release from Sudan. But he maintained that the White House declined to take advantage of the offer because of legal technicalities - a detail now confirmed by the ex-president.

Immediately, however, former Clinton officials trashed the bin Laden extradition story as an exaggeration at best - a complete fabrication at worst.

Asked to respond to Ijaz's account in January, ex-NSC aide Soderberg told Fox News Channel, "He's living in a fantasy land. There was no such Sudanese offer."

"He's lying," Ms. Palmieri, now chief spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said of Ijaz's story in May. "The guy has absolutely no credibility. You'll see that you never see him on television anymore once he was outed as being a fraud."

Mainstream reporters, apparently unaware of Clinton's February comments, have also trashed Mr. Ijaz's account.

In May, both New York Times reporter Judith Miller and NBC newswoman Andrea Mitchell told radioman Don Imus they declined to cover the bin Laden extradition story because they didn't find it credible.

Listen to excerpts from the bombshell Clinton speech the rest of the press ignored.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Al-Qaeda
Clinton Scandals
NewsMax Scoops

[kayak]

That is a real treasure trove! I now have it bookmarked. Thanks for all the work to put it together!

[Mike Darancette]

Report: Mansour Ijaz, the Pakistani-American businessman who says he was rebuffed by the Clinton White House after negotiating a deal for the extradition of Osama bin Laden to the U.S. in 1996, has gained an important new witness who backs his story - none other than ex-President Clinton himself.

Has Ijaz even been called to testify before either the House or Senate?

I wonder how anxious the DemocRATS are for that Non=Partisan comission now?

[DoughtyOne]

I was looking for an incriminating statement in 95 or 96 to reveal Clinton's knowledge. But if he signed that CIA order to destroy Laden's network, that seem to imply that he had a pretty good concept of what the guy was up to.

The article that started this thread talked about the Clinton's spinners and the media's handling of early reports if this story. They're not looking too hot right now.

[backhoe]

Thanks for looking... one of the neat things about the 'net is that if you wait long enough, material like that just kind of falls in place, and all you have to do is gather it up...

[kattracks]

What Did Clinton Know and When Did He Know It?!?

Headlines we'll never see in the lamestream media.

[DoughtyOne]

I'm not sure. He might actually know something. We wouldn't want that. < /sarcasm >

[kayak]

I'm going to have to quit the search for tonight. Maybe someone can turn up just what we're looking for tomorrow or in the next few days.

It's a shame there are no real journalists in the media any more ..... they only seem to want to read the memos sent to them by the DNC rather than searching out the facts on a story like this.

[backhoe]

It's a shame there are no real journalists in the media any more ..... they only seem to want to read the memos sent to them by the DNC rather than searching out the facts on a story like this.

Just a couple of random thoughts on this:

1- you know virtually all people in the media- TV, radio, whatever- have at least as much access to this stuff as we do. Do they just not look for it? Or do they just not want to mention it?
2- I well recall ( but didn't know how to save links at the time ) stories here during the 2000 election about how the DNC & democrats would come up with new "talking points" and send them to journalists, who would then base their stories and interviews on them. Anyone have that stuff saved?

[mo]

The Clintons have made a career of pissing on all of us while the media just stand around assuring us and one another that its only raining.....one of these days...just one of these days, the find wheels of justice will make it around to them..I can hope can't I!

[Clara Lou]

Okay, now I want this to go to the right people, and I want the Republicans to USE this against the Democrats.

[gaspar]

Osama Bin Laden was an unindicted co-conspirator in the first trade towers bombing. For Clinton to say that we had nothing on OBL is a lie; secondly, a grand jury could have been called at any moment and an indictment could have been secured by federal prosecutors in New York. He did not bring OBL to the US because he was afraid of the Muslim reaction. In sum, as usual, he was looking out for his own sorry hide.

By the way, Mansoor Ijaz was quite the hero when he was collecting hundreds of thousands for the DNC and Al Gore. When he told the truth, he was skewered.

As for Judith Miller and Andrea Mitchell not wanting to touch the story, the first is an accomplished author but a stooge for the NYTimes; Andrea Mitchell simply knows nothing about Islam or the Islamist movement. T

[gaspar]

Shaykh Omar, the blind cleric who was mullah to the Egyptian revolutionary organizations, and OBLaden first met in Pakistan in the mid-1980s during the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Their paths crossed many times after that and they had many mutual friends. OBL's men helped support Omar, and in the USA the blind shaykh was, among other things, involved in the collection of funds for Islamist movements, including Al Qaida.

[financeprof]

. . . though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

If we truly knew that OBL was intending to commit crimes against the US, and since it is certain that any efforts to carry out such intended acts would have involved multiple individuals, a conspiracy rap would have been a slam dunk--so much for the story that we had nothing to hold him on. Moreover, if we had no grounds to detain him, how can Clinton justify signing an order to eliminate his network? Just more Clintonian BS.

[Alamo-Girl]

I assume you mean the 1993 WTC bombing. The public knew at least by 1998: 1998 – Osama bin Laden connected to 1993 WTC bombing

There were a lot of other indications though:

New York Times 2/19/00 Judith Miller “….. Government officials investigating a decade of international terrorist attacks say they have found a common thread, Islamic charities and relief organizations that they suspect are being used to move men, money and weapons across borders. American officials said Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile charged with masterminding the 1998 bombings of American Embassies in East Africa, relied on at least nine of the groups in his recent operations. Other charities and relief groups, the Americans said, have been linked to a recent plot to bomb historic and tourist sites in Jordan, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and terrorist attacks in Egypt against tourists and Government officials. "These charities and relief groups are a crucial part of terrorism's infrastructure," said one official who monitors terrorism closely. "Money people give for worthy causes should not wind up buying explosives or phony passports. But we still know too little about how Islamic fundamentalists use and abuse these groups." ……”

UPI 4/18/00 “…….An Islamic guerilla group in southern Philippines believed to be backed by Osama bin Laden warned Tuesday that it would abduct and kill U.S. citizens unless a World Trade Center bomber and two others are released from U.S. prisons.…..”

vny.com/UPI 1/26/01 Richard Sale "......Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamicterrorist suspect sought by the United States in connection with the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, had months earlier been linked to the 1993 deaths of 18 U.S. Rangers in Somalia. A Justice Department indictment of those responsible, however, was suppressed and no action taken, U.S. intelligence sources revealed Friday. ..... According to former U.S. intelligence officials, bin Laden was secretly indicted for the Ranger killings in 1997. "I personally discussed the indictment with the FBI," one former U.S. government source said. But the indictment was later "torn up" and then made part of a public indictment of bin Laden and 17 co-defendants filed in 1998 by the Justice Department following the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which 224 people died. The Ranger murders are mentioned specifically on pages 18 and19 of that indictment......"

As you can see from the above, the Clinton administration approach was to investigate and prosecute bin Laden like an ordinary criminal through a court of law. (sigh…)

[JavaTheHutt]

The Truth Is Out There!

Bump!

[DoughtyOne]

That's for sure.

[DoughtyOne]

Very true. I think I ran out of energy about the same time you did.

[TADSLOS]

Simple picture math of Clinton's refusal to act against Bin Laden:

1993 WTC BOMBING +

MOGADISHU +

KHOBAR TOWERS +

USS COLE =

[goldstategop]

The mainstream pressitutes never bothered to follow up on the story cause they're in love with Bubba.

[facedown]

"He's lying," Ms. Palmieri, now chief spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said of Ijaz's story in May.

How appropriate.