9/11 Commission Mum on Clinton Documents
Tom Kean, chairman of the Independent Commission investigating
the 9/11 attacks, complained over the weekend that the White House has yet to
comply with all of its document requests - news that has both Democrats and
Republicans on Capitol Hill complaining about Bush administration stonewalling.
But neither Kean nor anyone else on the ten-member commission will say
whether pertinent documents from the Clinton administration have been turned
over - or, for that matter, whether they've even been sought.
Records of Clinton White House deliberations leading up to at least three
presidential decisions to terminate missions to kill or capture bin Laden should
be a top priority for 9/11 probers, since the failure to act arguably cost 3,000
American lives.
But so far, anyway, if Kean's commissioners are interested in examining the
thinking behind those ill-fated decisions, they have yet to say so out loud.
In Feb. 2002, for instance, Mr. Clinton himself admitted that he pulled the
plug on at least two plans to take out the 9/11 mastermind in 1999 and 2000. In
the same speech he confessed that he had turned down a 1996 offer from Sudan to
take bin Laden into custody.
9/11 Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg didn't respond by press time to a
phone call and an email inquiring about the Commission's apparent lack of
interest in Mr. Clinton's stunning confession.
Still, the ex-president's comments 21 months ago represent his most extensive
account to date of why his administration failed to neutralize bin Laden.
For the first and only time since the 9/11 attacks, Clinton explained why he
turned down a plan to send attack helicopters into Afghanistan on an
assassination mission, as well as a later operation designed to attack bin
Laden's Khandahar compound with cruise missiles.
The ex-president said he decided to scuttle the first plan because it risked
"illegally violating the airspace of people if they wouldn't give us approval."
And he said he pulled the plug on the second operation because, "I knew the
attack would kill 200 women and children [and] had less than a 50 percent chance
of getting him."
He also confirmed that he turned down an offer by Sudan to extradite the
terror mastermind to the U.S., "because we had no basis on which to hold him,
though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."
Clearly regretting his decision not to launch what would have been his second
cruise missile attack to kill bin Laden, the ex-president told his audience,
"Now, after [bin Laden] murdered 3,100 of our people and others who came to our
country seeking their livelihood you may say, 'Well, Mr. President, you should
have killed those 200 women and children.'
But he explained, "At the time we didn't think he had the capacity to do
that. And no one thought that I should do that - although I take full
responsibility for it . . . And there was less than a 50/50 chance that the
intelligence was right that on this particular night he was in Afghanistan."
Subsequent reports, however, indicate that U.S. intelligence was much more
confident of bin Laden's whereabouts than Mr. Clinton suggested last year.
For the benefit of the 9/11 Commission, and anyone else who may be interested
in learning why the Clinton adminsitration failed to neutralize bin Laden,
here's a full transcript of Mr. Clinton's remarks on the subject - recorded and
transcribed exclusively by NewsMax.com.
The Long Island Association Annual Luncheon Feb. 15, 2002
Question from LIA President Matthew Crosson:
CROSSON: In hindsight, would you have handled the issue of terrorism, and
al-Qaeda specifically, in a different way during your administration?
CLINTON: Well, it's interesting now, you know, that I would be asked that
question because, at the time, a lot of people thought I was too obsessed with
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
And when I bombed his training camp and tried to kill him and his high
command in 1998 after the African embassy bombings, some people criticized me
for doing it. We just barely missed him by a couple of hours.
I think whoever told us he was going to be there told somebody who told him
that our missiles might be there. I think we were ratted out.
We also bombed a chemical facility in Sudan where we were criticized, even in
this country, for overreaching. But in the trial in New York City of the
al-Qaeda people who bombed the African embassy, they testified in the trial that
the Sudanese facility was, in fact, a part of their attempt to stockpile
chemical weapons.
So we tried to be quite aggressive with them. We got - uh - well, Mr. bin
Laden used to live in Sudan. 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 dealing with
them again.
They released him. 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. But they
thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in
Afghanistan.
We then put a lot of sanctions on the Afghan government and - but they
inter-married, Mullah Omar and bin Laden. So that essentially the Taliban didn't
care what we did to them.
Now, if you look back - in the hindsight of history, everybody's got 20/20
vision - the real issue is should we have attacked the al-Qaeda network in 1999
or in 2000 in Afghanistan.
Here's the problem. Before September 11 we would have had no support for it -
no allied support and no basing rights. Though we actually trained to do this. I
actually trained people to do this. We trained people.
But in order to do it, we would have had to take them in on attack
helicopters 900 miles from the nearest boat - maybe illegally violating the
airspace of people if they wouldn't give us approval. And we would have had to
do a refueling stop.
And we would have had to make the decision in advance that's the reverse of
what President Bush made - and I agreed with what he did. They basically decided
- this may be frustrating to you now that we don't have bin Laden. But the
president had to decide after Sept. 11, which am I going to do first? Just go
after bin Laden or get rid of the Taliban?
He decided to get rid of the Taliban. I personally agree with that decision,
even though it may or may not have delayed the capture of bin Laden. Why?
Because, first of all the Taliban was the most reactionary government on
earth and there was an inherent value in getting rid of them.
Secondly, they supported terrorism and we'd send a good signal to governments
that if you support terrorism and they attack us in America, we will hold you
responsible.
Thirdly, it enabled our soldiers and Marines and others to operate more
safely in-country as they look for bin Laden and the other senior leadership,
because if we'd have had to have gone in there to just sort of clean out one
area, try to establish a base camp and operate.
So for all those reasons the military recommended against it. There was a
high probability that it wouldn't succeed.
Now I had one other option. I could have bombed or sent more missiles in. As
far as we knew he never went back to his training camp. So the only place bin
Laden ever went that we knew was occasionally he went to Khandahar where he
always spent the night in a compound that had 200 women and children.
So I could have, on any given night, ordered an attack that I knew would kill
200 women and children that had less than a 50 percent chance of getting him.
Now, after he murdered 3,100 of our people and others who came to our country
seeking their livelihood you may say, "Well, Mr. President, you should have
killed those 200 women and children."
But at the time we didn't think he had the capacity to do that. And no one
thought that I should do that. Although I take full responsibility for it. You
need to know that those are the two options I had. And there was less than a
50/50 chance that the intelligence was right that on this particular night he
was in Afghanistan.
Now, we did do a lot of things. We tried to get the Pakistanis to go get him.
They could have done it and they wouldn't. They changed governments at the time
from Mr. Sharif to President Musharraf. And we tried to get others to do it. We
had a standing contract between the CIA and some groups in Afghanistan
authorizing them and paying them if they should be successful in arresting
and/or killing him.
So I tried hard to - I always thought this guy was a big problem. And
apparently the options I had were the options that the President and Vice
President Cheney and Secretary Powell and all the people that were involved in
the Gulf War thought that they had, too, during the first eight months that they
were there - until Sept. 11 changed everything.
But I did the best I could with it and I do not believe, based on what
options were available to me, that I could have done much more than I did.
Obviously, I wish I'd been successful. I tried a lot of different ways to get
bin Laden 'cause I always thought he was a very dangerous man. He's smart, he's
bold and committed.
But I think it's very important that the Bush administration do what they're
doing to keep the soldiers over there to keep chasing him. But I know - like I
said - I know it might be frustrating to you. But it's still better for bin
Laden to worry every day more about whether he's going to see the sun come up in
the morning than whether he's going to drop a bomb, another bomb somewhere in
the U.S. or in Europe or on some other innocent civilians. (END OF
TRANSCRIPT)
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