If Sick Billy had taken out Osama any one of the 10 times he had a chance, would we be in Iraq today?

[DrFeelgood]

Clinton Administration Turned Down 10 Chances to Get Osama
September 25, 2006 ? iusbvision

The last issue of the Vision featured a column by this writer that told how the Democratic Leadership in the Senate threatened the broadcast license of ABC if it showed the mini-series The Path to 9/11. The movie demonstrated that the Clinton Administration did not have the will to pull the trigger on Osama bin Laden. The administration was also reluctant because they did not believe that they could make a rock solid criminal case against Osama. The Democratic leadership and Bill Clinton himself, vehemently deny this in spite of the evidence released in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Should we all be proud that not a single one of the liberal to leftist professors and students I talked to about this denounced the behavior of those senators in the name of free speech, instead what I got was an attempt to justify government censorship with a defense of ?but Chuck, the movie isn?t true.?

I hate to break the news to you hyper partisans, it is true and a cadre of administration and CIA insiders say so, and you are about to see the proof.

Michael Scheuer, the CIA agent in charge of hunting bin Laden in Afghanistan states in a story by CBS News ?that the CIA had more opportunities to capture or kill bin Laden that has been reported previously. He says there were 10 such chances between May 1998 and May 1999. It was not clear who decided not to take those chances.?

?In May of 1998, after months of planning, officials called off a CIA plan to have Afghan allies capture bin Laden and send him out of Afghanistan for trial. The plan was apparently scrapped because of worries about the chance of killing bystanders, and even bin Laden himself, as well as concerns over the strength of the legal evidence against bin Laden.? (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/10/terror/main635038.shtml)

CIA field agent Gary Bernsten told ABC News that the ?CIA provided an American president, first Bill Clinton, multiple opportunities to capture or kill bin Laden,? Bernsten said. ?We provided those opportunities, tactical opportunities which were not taken.? Bernsten said that CIA Director George Tenet gave the word to stop three opportunities to kill bin Laden. (ABC News The Blotter, September 10, 2006)

Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger also refused to authorize several strikes against bin Laden according to documents released by the 9/11 Commission. A document dated December 4, 1999, the National Security Council?s counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: ?In the margin next to Clarke?s suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, ?no.? ? (NY Sun July 23, 2004)

So was it President Clinton who refused to authorize Tenet, Clarke and Berger to give the go ahead to nix bin Laden? Dick Morris, Clinton?s chief political strategist, said that there were at least three times that Clinton refused to give that authorization that he knows of. The military officer who carries the nuclear football (who also carries the presidential mobile phone), Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson, who wrote a book about this very subject titled Dereliction of Duty, said in interviews that ?in December 1996 with bombers and fighters in the air, Berger called the President through me and the president, knowing what the call was about, refused to take Berger?s call. Berger was getting angry at me because I couldn?t get an answer out of the president.?

Patterson spoke of another time in 1998 ?a cruise missile strike was planned against bin Laden and we had a two hour window. Berger was in the situation room, in the first hour after Berger called the president, Clinton refused to talk to him or return his call. In the second hour Clinton decided to debate the issue with Berger, Madeline Albright and Secretary Cohen.? ?I saw this situation happen over and over and over again. The president didn?t like making decisions like that,? says Patterson.

According to former Democratic fund raiser Mansoor Ijaz, ?from 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. ?Sandy? Berger and Sudan?s president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir 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. Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center. 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.? (LA Times December 5 2001)

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh said in his book, My FBI, and in multiple interviews, that after the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, Clinton refused to ask Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to allow the FBI to interrogate bombing suspects the Saudi?s had in custody. Freeh writes, ?Bill Clinton raised the subject only to tell the crown prince that he understood the Saudis? reluctance to cooperate and then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library.? Says Freeh, ?That?s a fact that I am reporting.?

[MadLibs]

Clinton had the darndest time trying to get Republican lawmakers to vote on his terrorism bill before the weekend recess. 3 days wasn't long enough for the lawmakers to review his policy. this was right after the uss cole bombing. yet the patriot act and homeland defense bill was 484 pages long and passed thru republican congress at blinding speed.

[Pythagoras]

Sorry, I dont have time to read this whole thing, but let me try to answer your question.

I think that even if Clinton had taken out al-Qaeda, you still would have had Saddam refusing weapons inspections. As long as he did that, there was always a possibility of him developing WMD's. Therefore, I think the conflict with Iraq still would have happened.

[edthespartan]

The US would still be in Iraq even if Clinton had taken out Osama Bin Laden when he had the chance...and yes, he should have done so, obviously.

W, and more importantly, Cheney and Rumsfeld, were chomping at the bit to invade long before 9/11. I'm just amazed we're not in Iran yet.

[T-Bone]

To answer your question;

Probably not, It was Osama's knowledge of building construction that made 9/11 possible. With out Osama's Engineering degree I doubt many others could have known how much explosives were needed to bring the World Trade Center down.

[nokia_navyseal]

Yes, because as pnac outlined on their web site, if they were to get their guy into The White House invading iraq was one of the first items on their agenda.

bush STILL would have allowed the attacks of 9/11 to happen, even if usama wasn't involved.

[SOMEBODYSHOOTME]

911 wouldnt have happened. so no

[tribeca_belle]

Yours is a weak effort to try to tie the issues of Iraq and al Qaeda terrorists together. No one is buying it. The Clinton administration identified and tried to address the al Qaeda threat. The Bush administration ignored it. The neocons wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11 and would have found a way.

[MishMash]

The two are not linked. UBL had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq. We were after Saddam Hussein and his mysterious WMDs. I'm guessing President Bush would still have invaded. It seems like he wanted to from the moment he stepped foot in the Whitehouse.

[Greg4526]

Prior to 9/11/2001, the Clinton Administration had authorized the assasination of Osama bin Laden. And prior to 9/11/2001, the only attempts to assasinate bin Laden were on Clinton's watch.

This is important because since the 1970s, the CIA cannot undertake any activities to destabilize or overthrow any government or assasinate any individual without explicit Presidential authorization, and there is a paper trail.

Whether or not individuals within the CIA understood the matters being weighed by their station cheifs does not change the basic fact that the CIA had that authorization, and it was their call.

And ... what the heck does Iraq have to do with Osama bin Laden?