I never blamed Clinton for WTC. What I DID say is that his policies of promising action and then doing nothing caused the terror organizations to have no fear. If that makes me "low" then so be it, oh moral one.
Anything would have been better than Clinton saying we will find and bring to justice those responsible...anybody for lunch? He spoke the rhetoric and did ZERO...NOTHING...NADA...if there were something he could have done that was less than nothing, he would have I assure you. An investigation followed by a trial would have been just fine and dandy. But nope...he turned the government's attention to Bill Gates.
Didn't he bomb terrorist camps a couple of times and wasn't there a trial for the first WTC bombers? Oh wait, he just did the first thing to deflect attention away from him. Again, great post Major.
Anything would have been better than Clinton saying we will find and bring to justice those responsible...anybody for lunch? He spoke the rhetoric and did ZERO...NOTHING...NADA...if there were something he could have done that was less than nothing, he would have I assure you. Except those cruise missiles and stuff ... of course, everyone criticized him for that. You do realize our intelligence agencies had NO IDEA WHERE HE WAS. The one time we did, Clinton went after him. Congress and the public wouldn't have accepted sending troops, so what exactly do you think he should have done? By the way, he also developed a global plan of action against Al Queda (given to the Bush Admin). You talk all about how Bush is doing stuff behind the scenes, why assume that Clinton didn't? An investigation followed by a trial would have been just fine and dandy. But nope...he turned the government's attention to Bill Gates. Yeah, because you know, the Justice Department can only handle one thing at a time. Forget the fact that this was primarily the CIA's job anyway.
The email FACTUALLY stated instances where OBL orchestrated attacks and Clinton made tough talk and then did nothing. Pardon Cdr. McWhorter for drawing a conclusion.
Of course people criticized him for that. Lobbing cruise missiles when we don't know where he was. Look...all most people wanted was the government to use intelligence connections worldwide to attempt to locate OBL and haul his butt in. That's all it would have taken. Instead Clinton launched a few cruise missiles and called it a day.
How do you know that's all he did? Maybe he had more plans but no support from Congress or anyone else. Dubya's had a manhunt out for him for 13 months and can't find him.
It would go to logic that had Clinton had more plans he would have spoken about it in order to put political pressure on Congress. Many Bush detrators want him to share the intelligence regarding Iraq with the people. Clinton should have done same regarding OBL in order to garner support. I am as frustrated as anybody that Bush has not been able to bring us bin Laden. I often find myself asking what the holdup is. I wish Bush in a news briefing would bring it up and give us an idea on what is being done to locate OBL and to determine whether he is alive or dead. Personally I believe that OBL is either: 1) dead 2) in Pakistan 3) in Iraq 4) in Saudi Arabia I may never know for sure. Come to think of it...if I knew for sure, I may already be $25M richer right now.
Just one example of the original post being wrong. The 1993 WTC saw trials and convictoins. Clinton did find those responsible, and he did do something. Others have mentioned the bombing of terrorist training camps, and if no one else mentioned the attempt from the Clinton administration to take out Bin Laden himself. They it just missed him by minutes. I don't think Clinton did enough, and I don't think Bush enough did enough prior to 9/11.
RMT, I don't whose posts make me laugh more: yours or Nomar's. The martial law over the Middle East was so hilarious. Bring back the Crusades!
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-warsuda02.story?coll=ny-top%2 Missed Chance Sources: U.S. ignored Sudan's overtures on bin Laden By S. Mitra Kalita Staff Writer December 2, 2001 Before Osama bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996, Sudanese leaders offered to extradite the terror mastermind to Saudi Arabia, and share intelligence to help the United States disrupt terror networks, according to people involved in the talks. Yet the Clinton administration repeatedly turned down or largely ignored the overtures from Sudan, a pariah state seeking to rid itself of economic sanctions and shed its image as a haven for terrorists and slave traders. On May 18, 1996, bin Laden left on a chartered plane for Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. Three months later, he issued his first fatwa calling for attacks against America, accused of defiling Muslim holy places by stationing troops in Saudi Arabia. The same month, the State Department labeled bin Laden "one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world." How effective the intelligence might have proved in the battle against terrorism was not obvious at the time. But, one Sudanese official says, had the United States taken up the offers, it would have received data compiled on al-Qaida operators before the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sudan had been keeping tabs on men like Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan citizen who was believed to be working for al-Qaida in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, and Wadih el Hage, bin Laden's former secretary. Both men were charged with plotting the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The Sudanese say they had information on Mamdouh Mahmoud Salim, an Afghan war veteran who had worked for bin Laden until 1995. Salim apparently made frequent trips to Germany, where he worshiped at the same mosque as Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, the hijackers of the planes flown into the World Trade Center. Critics fault the Clinton administration for failing to find out the quality of the intelligence available, even after bin Laden had relocated to Afghanistan. "Not to take up the Sudanese on their collaborative effort was a mistake, said Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of the CIA's counter-terrorism operations under the senior President George Bush. "When you can engage and learn something, it's always better than disengaging and turning your policy elsewhere. Such comments resound especially loudly in the aftermath of Sept. 11, when terrorists believed to be al-Qaida operatives destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon, killing nearly 4,000 people. After Sudan's Islamist government seized power in 1989, the country welcomed any Muslim without requiring a visa. Sudan quickly became a favorite destination of militants throughout the region, especially those on the run from their governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. Among them was bin Laden, who fled Saudi Arabia in 1992 to join hundreds of suspected terrorists and former anti-Soviet mujahideen seeking refuge in Khartoum and surrounding areas. Anti-American agitation soon became the norm, and chants of "Down, down, U.S.A. resounded through the streets of Khartoum. Bin Laden and his followers became increasingly active in Sudan, setting up military training camps and establishing businesses to help fund their activities. In 1993, a concerned State Department placed Africa's largest country on a list of nations sponsoring terrorists. In a secret, unsigned letter, hand-delivered by Donald Petterson, then-U.S. Ambassador to Sudan, the Clinton administration threatened the Sudanese with "military measures and economic ruin if they permitted terrorist acts "against American interests anywhere. But the Sudanese government continued to embrace bin Laden, who had set up a series of businesses. His construction company was awarded major roadwork contracts by the Sudanese government, and President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was frequently seen with the man who would later become America's most wanted. The Sudanese government equated bin Laden's investments with support for their young Islamist state. The United States didn't see it that way. "The U.S. said, 'We don't want him in Sudan,' recalled Elfatih Erwa, then Sudan's minister of defense and now its ambassador to the United Nations. "He's a danger and he can build a terrorist network.' " What frustrated Sudanese officials, according to Erwa and others, was that the United States never explained why it wanted bin Laden. At that point, the U.S. government saw bin Laden as a potentially dangerous militant who may even have been involved in terrorist activities. Former Clinton administration officials say, however, they didn't have enough evidence that could have led to his indictment on U.S. soil. "Any good security person worth his salt says, 'Damn due process and civil liberties and civil review. We want that guy,' " said Steven Simon, then director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council. "That's not the kind of country we live in. Sudanese and U.S. officials said they started a dialogue in the early spring of 1996 with the government of Saudi Arabia, which revoked bin Laden's citizenship in 1994, to arrest bin Laden. "We asked the Saudis to take bin Laden back and they could handle it in their own way," said one participant in the negotiations, requesting anonymity. "They refused." The Saudis, anxious to avoid riling their own militants, were not interested. As the Clinton administration gave up on capture, it increasingly placed pressure on Sudan to ask bin Laden to leave. Sudan came back to the United States with another proposition: Sudanese officials would closely monitor bin Laden's activities. This offer came with a warning that bin Laden's network and influence would only grow if he left Sudan of his own accord. "We told them 'We believe if bin Laden stays in Sudan, we can babysit him,' " Erwa said. "We can keep him under utmost control." But the point was moot. By the spring of 1996, bin Laden left on Sudan's request. In the following months, Newsday has learned, the Sudanese continued to offer intelligence on bin Laden, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, in hopes of moving into Washington's good graces. Key to those negotiations was a Muslim hedge fund manager born and raised in the United States. Between 1996 and 1997, Mansoor Ijaz traveled a half-dozen times to Khartoum, then reported back to various officials in Washington, notably Sandy Berger, the top deputy at the National Security Council during President Bill Clinton's first term and national security adviser in the second. A major financial supporter of the Democratic party, Ijaz acted with no official support from the U.S. government but often raised concerns over its policy toward Muslim countries. Admittedly, he had business interests in Sudan and its billions of barrels in oil reserves. During Ijaz's first trip to Sudan in July 1996, he met with Bashir and Hassan Turabi, the ideologue who had helped bring Sudan's Islamist government to power. Turabi, whom State Department officials often referred to as the "silver-tongued devil," was Sudan's speaker of parliament and one of the country's most powerful politicians until he was placed under house arrest last February for publicly criticizing Bashir's government. In an Aug. 5, 1996, letter to Clinton, Turabi offered to help the United States "usher in a new era of improving the understanding and attitudes of all elements in the Islamic world." He mentioned his meetings with "a young American," referring to Ijaz. As a result of the letter, Ijaz said, he met later that month with Berger and Susan Rice, then White House senior adviser on Africa. Ijaz said he advised the administration to accept the offer, saying "Let's test Turabi." Neither Berger nor Rice responded one way or the other, according to Ijaz. Rice said she has only a hazy recollection of the meeting. On a subsequent visit to Sudan, he said, he met with the Sudanese intelligence chief, Gutbi al-Mahdi. "If you can persuade your government to come here, this is what can be made available to them," said al-Mahdi, as reported by Ijaz, gesturing at three stacks of files before him. "We have the entire network, not just bin Laden or Hezbollah. We understand everything going on in the Islamic world." Al-Mahdi then pulled a paper seemingly at random from the files and showed it to Ijaz. Written in Arabic, it contained a list of names, birth dates, previous addresses, dates of entry into Sudan, and the meeting times and places supposedly of members of militant Islamic groups. In separate interviews with Newsday, senior Sudanese officials confirmed that this was the information they had offered the United States as early as February 1996. "They tried to disregard it," said one. "Now the game is different. Now every letter, every figure, every word counts. Back then, it was different. They really undermined us." To be sure, the Clinton administration's caution was not unfounded. The Sudanese regime was widely accused of persecuting the country's Christian minority, inflaming many Christian groups in the United States. Allegations of other human rights violations, including slavery, drew the ire of influential African-Americans. Few politicians could justify an alliance with such a government in a pre-Sept. 11 world. And Sudanese leaders had almost no credibility with U.S. officials, making it difficult to take their offer seriously. "The Sudanese are one of the most slippery, dishonest governments in the world," said Rice, one of the Clinton administration's most outspoken critics on Sudan. "The only thing that matters is what they do, not what they say they're going to do. They're very good at saying one thing and doing another." Making no headway with the administration, the Sudanese tried Capitol Hill. On April 5, 1997, Bashir sent a letter to Rep. Lee Hamilton, ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs committee, inviting the United States to review sensitive data his government had compiled on terrorists. "We extend an offer to the FBI's Counter-terrorism units and any other official delegations which your government may deem appropriate, to come to the Sudan and work with our External Intelligence Department in order to assess the data in our possession and help us counter the forces your government, and ours, seek to contain," the letter said. Again, Washington's response to overtures was silence. "It was incomprehensible to me that the United States hated any country so much," Ijaz said, "that when I could persuade the president of an independent state to compromise his country's sovereignty to U.S. anti-terrorism forces, we could not or would not respond." A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Bashir's letter arrived at a time the administration was grappling with whether to engage or contain Sudan. "Maybe we could have gotten a little somewhere with them," said the official. "We had tried it the other way, so I thought, 'Let's see what we can get.' " Convinced that the administration was not prepared to act on the offer, Ijaz testified on June 10, 1997, before a House subcommittee on crime, laying out his activities in Sudan and highlighting the spread of Islamist movements worldwide. He warned that the "real danger for the West lies in revivalist Islamic movements ... where they can only be seen at a sidewalk cafe 'with a bomb strapped to the body of a fanatic.' Later that year, the tide appeared to be turning. In late September, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced that U.S. diplomats would return to Khartoum after more than a year's absence, but without the ambassador. Their duties would include gathering intelligence on militant groups. "With a permanent presence, we can nudge and push and argue," said Ambassador Timothy Carney at the time, though he was to stay in Nairobi, Kenya. "We will press Khartoum to make good on its continual public statements that it opposes terrorism." But days later, the administration said it had changed its mind. "The announcement was premature," said then-State Department spokesman James Rubin. Instead, sweeping new economic sanctions were announced. Albright, Clinton and Berger all denied repeated requests for interviews for this article. The events that followed -- the Aug. 7, 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the Sept. 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole off Yemen's coast -- provided the United States enough evidence to indict bin Laden and key al-Qaida figures. Shortly after the embassies bombings, Sudanese authorities arrested two suspects who had been observed monitoring the American embassy in Khartoum. But that was not enough to mollify the U.S. government, which sent cruise missiles to destroy an alleged terrorist target in Khartoum -- a pharmaceutical plant that U.S. intelligence claimed was tied to the production of chemical weapons. The administration subsequently backed away from the claim. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the Bush administration now counts Sudan as an ally of sorts in the war against terrorism. But some Sudanese officials say the decision came too late. "Lately, they've come running after the Sudanese information," said one senior Sudanese diplomat, adding that U.S. officials have gathered intelligence in Sudan for more than a year now. "How can they expect us to have information about people who are not in our control anymore?" With the benefit of hindsight, a number of former Clinton administration officials say they might have been wise to pay closer attention to Sudan. "It's not 100 percent clear that the Sudanese would have fulfilled it," said R. James Woolsey Jr., the director of the CIA for much of Clinton's first term, now one of Ijaz's business partners. "But we could have started a dialogue with them on terrorism. "It will be one of history's great unknowns." Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.
Refman, you're right, but like FranchiseBlade said, Clinton did do things. I hope Dubya has killed him, and I wish that Clinton would've done more...however, hindsight is and will always be 20/20. I just don't think it's fair to compare what Clinton went through with OBL and what Bush did. Clinton would've reacted the same.
The words of Russian President Vladmair Putin on an ABC 20/20 episode after 9/11. - "The former president of the United States ... was in a very difficult situation. But even at that time, we certainly were counting on a more active cooperation in combating international terrorism."
Actually I think Clinton would have responded more severely after 9/11. I wish Bush would have. But I do think Bush would have made it his personal goal to get bin Laden had he been in office from 1992-2000...but that's just a guess.
Not a bad idea. The blitzkrieg was a fantastically successful military strategy. However, I'm fairly certain the military already has a contingency plan for an Iraqi invasion.
Here's what Sandy Berger had to say after the fact: "In the United States, we have this thing called the Constitution, so to bring him here is to bring him into the justice system," said Sandy Berger, who was deputy national security adviser then. "I don't think that was our first choice. Our first choice was to send him some place where justice is more" - he paused a moment, then continued - "streamlined."
