Clinton vs. Fox News (good read)

[Annie]

Libs do point this out on a dialy basis. However, if the military captured him today, the libs would rant how it was timed for the elections.

Like most terrorists, he is on the run and looking over his shoulder every minute of the day.

He has lost his power and his life. We will get him and then the libs can rally around the turban and make sure he is being treated "properly" and his "rights" are protected.

and according to one French and one Saudi paper, he's dead.

 

[red states rule]

and according to one French and one Saudi paper, he's dead.

Libs will then demand an investagation to see if Pres Bush murdered him.

 

[CrimsonWhite]

Libs do point this out on a dialy basis. However, if the military captured him today, the libs would rant how it was timed for the elections.

Like most terrorists, he is on the run and looking over his shoulder every minute of the day.

He has lost his power and his life. We will get him and then the libs can rally around the turban and make sure he is being treated "properly" and his "rights" are protected.

This sounds more like a plan to contain than a plan to kill.

FYI, libs aren't the only ones bringing this up.

 

[Annie]

Clinton must have a wish to ensure his legacy is truly explained. Why else drag this out, with more to come? Yeah, lots of links. BTW, Jillian et al, check it out before you start bitching about 'source.':

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/197861.php

September 22, 2006
Clinton In Red-Faced Rage Over Suggestion He Spared Bin Ladin

Wow.

The man simply lies. It is a breathtakingly stupid and mendacious claim that rightwingers, as he calls us, actually opposed his weak single effort to get bin Ladin. Throughout the late nineties, I was apopleptic we weren't doing anything at all about bin Ladin. We wanted more action. Not less.

The pretext for this lie is that rightwingers, myself included, did in fact "question the timing" of his one attempt to kill bin Ladin. It occurred, coindentally enough, during the Lewinsky furor. On the eve of some testimony; can't remember which, and it really doesn't matter.

Conservatives did not object to this attack. We were enraged, however, that the man refused to attack bin Ladin at all until he was motivated to action by a threat to his own political safety. We were not angry he'd attacked bin Ladin; we were angry he hadn't attacked bin Ladin before (or after, actually; anyone remember a subsequent attack?).

We were angry that the man had let bin Ladin attack us with impunity for years until he saw it as a good move politically to finally launch a poorly-timed cruise missile at bin Ladin. He was animated to action not to save American lives, but to save his own fucking political life.

We strongly suspected he had any number of chances to kill bin Ladin before this. It turns out we were one-hundred percent right:

Mr. Clinton‘s administration had far more chances to kill Osama bin Laden than Mr. Bush has until this day… [W]e had at least eight to 10 chances to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in 1998 and 1999. And the government on all occasions decided that the information was not good enough to act…

It is absurd to even suggest that Republicans' beef with Clinton's feckless and vascillating anti-Al Qaeda efforts was that we craved even more fecklessness and vascillation.

Who the hell does this narcisstic sociopath think he's fooling? Does he really imagine he can sell the American people on the proposition that Republicans were actually less committed to dropping bombs on "brown people" than he was?

Let's say hypothetically this lying bastard is telling the truth. Let's say the Republicans really did want his candyass efforts to kill bin Ladin to be even more candyassed. What the hell is the Commander in Chief, then, doing bowing to political pressure to let a sworn enemy of the United States and mass-murderer of (then) hundreds of American lives live his life unmolested?

Is Clinton really claiming he let bin Ladin go on to murder three thousand people because he was afraid what Tom DeLay might say about him?

True fact: Clinton fought the Serbian War without an authorization for the use of military force from Congress and furthermore in direct violation of the War Powers Act. (Which is a law I think should usually be ignored; I point this out just to note Clinton knew how to go to war unilaterally when he wanted to.)

He can do all that to defend KLA terrorists in Serbia but he can't lift a finger to kill bin Ladin for fear of Rush Limbaugh mocking him?

Fact: Clinton didn't take any action against bin Ladin -- and I include that jackassed cruise missile strike, delayed to make sure all people were out of the target at the time of detonation, so as to make sure no innocent lives (or any lives, for that matter) where taken -- because he knew that such action could cause unrest in the Middle East, which could drive up the price of oil, which would dampen the US economy, which would, finally, lower his approval rating, the only thing the selfish sonofabitch ever gave a good goddamn about.

Either that, or he's the peace-at-any-cost bong-smoking hippie pussy we always suspected he was.

The man let bin Ladin go. The man let bin Ladin plot and scheme and recruit and ultimately murder 3000 innocent civilians. And he blames his negligence and malfeasance on the Republicans?

I didn't realize that Tom DeLay's position as House Majority Whip also made him Commander in Chief. I'll have to make that notation in my Con Law books for future reference.

And The Horse You Rode In On, Chief: Video of Osama bin Ladin caught in a Predator's camera.

The Predator was not armed, as most are now. But there was always the chance to arrange a quick missile attack.

Too bad Clinton wasn't in any legal jeopardy when this footage was taken (the Fall of 2000). Had he been in legal trouble, who knows, he might have actually have given the code to fire on bin Ladin and saved 3000 people.

I guess the real lesson of the nineties is that we didn't impeach Clinton frequently enough.


Watch that whole video. Clinton's rules? The CIA was not authorized to kill bin Ladin. Only to attempt to capture him.

As we have no Tomahawk missiles equipped with big butterfly nets, bin Ladin was let free, unharmed and alive, to continue plotting the murders of 3000.

PS: The whole interview is running this Sunday on FoxNews Sunday.

I wonder if Chris Wallace finally confronted him with the tape of the speech in which he confessed turning down Sudan's offer to extradite bin Ladin due to the fact we hadn't indicted him yet. Something spurred that anger. Maybe that was the trigger.

Update: Link to a transcript of his remarks -- and an actual audio recording -- here.

I think I remember him being asked once -- once! -- about this stunning admission. I think he just said he'd been misunderstood, and the very professional, very hard-hitting MSM interviewer took that as answering all possible questions.

Misunderstood? Well, say no more. Let's MoveOn.org, then.

digg this
posted by Ace at 07:38 PM

 

[Annie]

Another take on the Clinton machinations:

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2006/09/bill_clinton_po.html

Bill Clinton, Political Genius

Bill Clinton does the finger-wag again, this time with Chris Wallace of Fox News (transcript). And what has vexed Mr. "It's All About Bill"? The same thing that vexed him just before the airing of ABC's controversial "Path to 9/11", namely, the suggestion that his Administration was lax in pursuing Osama Bin Laden.

And does debating this topic really benefit the Democratic Party just now? In his current melt-down Bill Clinton demands that we read Richard Clarke's book, which lays out the pro-Clinton case.

Read Clarke's book? Please - maybe we can ask President Kerry how the Richard Clarke attacks worked for the Dems in 2004.

I have a compilation of Richard Clarke links here; Dan Drezner had an excellent overview of the initial debate and his own take on Clarke in a follow-up.

And I will take this opportunity to repeat what I think was my only original contribution to this sprawling brawl about Clinton's priorities - Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam delivered "War in a Time of Peace - Bush, Clinton, and the Generals" in May of 2001. Although he covered Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, there is not a hint of a mention of Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden. That suggests that, in all his digging and interviewing on the topic of Clinton at war, Halberstam never uncovered Clinton's war on terror, or did not experience Clinton's people pounding the table and emphasizing its importance.

Well, if Bill Clinton wants to spend the next month discussing his slack pursuit of Bin Laden as we run up to the election, let's everybody blow the dust off their archives and get it on.

MORE: A call for perspective from the Captain:

We have all the investigations and tell-all books we will ever need. We have all formed our opinions. None of us will have them changed at this point. What we need to discuss now is what we do from here, a much more pressing debate that has actual real-world consequences, and we can't have that debate successfully until we stop the useless sniping about pre-9/11 failures.
​

I infer from his UPDATE that the kinder, gentler Captain has triggered a reader revolt:

...as a nation we need to end this argument if we want to get some consensus on engaging the enemy, and the enemy is not Bill Clinton.​

Yes, but - tell that to the people who think the enemy is George Bush. If our friends on the left really want to lose this debate again, why not? I'll have time for all the calm and perspective in the world starting on the first Wednesday following the first Tuesday in November. (If I can sustain my enthusiam that long - looks like I picked a bad season to give up caffeine...)

MIGHT BILL HAVE A PLAN? Bill's temper tantrum may not help any Dems in 2006 but the obvious beneficiary for 2008 is Hillary. If he bullies interviewers away from that question, she wins. Or if asked, any answer she gives will seem calm and sensible by comparison.

The only negative -do we want a First Spouse complaining about right wing media bias? Been there, overcame that.

I QUESTION THE TIMING OF THIS "OSAMA IS DEAD" RUMOR: The Ace of Spades tracks the French report that Osama died of typhoid fever on Aug 23, 2006 in Pakistan. He also makes all the points I would have made about a Rovian plot and finds a lot of stuff I would have overlooked.

First, a bit of the report:

PARIS (AP) - The head of terrorist network al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, has died, according to information from the Saudi police, transmitted by the Directorate-General of External Services (DGSE), and reported on the Lorraine daily newspaper L'Est republicain in its Saturday edition.

"According to a commonly reliable source, the Saudi police believes that Osama Bin Laden has died," said a September 21st confidential note from the DGSE classified as "defense." L'Est republicain will publish it in its Saturday edition. The note, specified the daily newspaper, would be re-printed "un-edited."
​

And a bit of the speculation:

Question the Timing BIG TIME: Now, if my theory is right, the Bush Administration has of course sort of known about this for a while (for at least three weeks) but hasn't been able to confirm it, and thus hasn't been able to announce it. But they've known there might be some good news on the way.

With that in mind, check out this post at NRO's Sixers, culled from the very leftwing and very inane Raw Story (though it cites, in turn, Newsmax):



According to two conservative websites, White House political strategist Karl Rove has been promising GOP insiders that there will be an "October surprise" before the midterm elections.

"In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an 'October surprise' to help win the November congressional elections," reports Ronald Kessler for Newsmax.​

I have thought that Osama has been in the news lately because of the ABC miniseries and the 9/11 anniversary. But Dems have worried about this particular October Surprise (or July Surprise) for a couple of elections now, so why not make it three in a row?

And let's give the Rovian Plot People their due - in 2004, TNR worried that Bush would announce the capture of a High Value Target the night that John Kerry addressed the Democratic Convention. In fact, this notion was so widely believed on the left that the NY Times actually prepared an alternative front page Just In Case. (Yes, it is hard to believe...) How did that work out? Well, the US cannounced the capture of an Osama underling, number 22 on the hit list.

And the DNC managed to capture Kerry's balloons. Quite a night.

Posted by Tom Maguire on September 22, 2006

 

[nt250]

Clinton must have a wish to ensure his legacy is truly explained. Why else drag this out, with more to come? Yeah, lots of links. BTW, Jillian et al, check it out before you start bitching about 'source.':

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/197861.php

"Watch that whole video. Clinton's rules? The CIA was not authorized to kill bin Ladin. Only to attempt to capture him.

As we have no Tomahawk missiles equipped with big butterfly nets, bin Ladin was let free, unharmed and alive, to continue plotting the murders of 3000."

That made me laugh out loud. Butterfly nets. I like this guy.

 

[UnAmericanYOU]

This sounds more like a plan to contain than a plan to kill.

FYI, libs aren't the only ones bringing this up.

Because Clinton didn't authorize the use of lethal force against OBL until the summer of 1998, after those attacks on the US embassies in Africa. He'd been worried that it'd look like an assassination.

The Clinton administration had been aware of OBL back in 1993, he had four good opportunities to capture or kill him.In 1997, the CIA Counterterrorism Center had been working on this plan for some time. They located OBL holded up in some remote fortress.

CIA director George Tenet met with NSA director Sandy Berger in February 1998, right after that scandal broke. The CIA continued to do dry runs of this plan to capture OBL until the end of May of that year. But one day later, Berger ordered the plan scrapped, the 9-11 commission said Tenet and he were worried that the plan could be construed as an assassination.

That was probably the best chance Clinton ever had. A couple of months later, he finally signed a Memorandum of Notification, authorizing force, but then, insisted on doing it by an airstrike only.

Ground troups couldn't risk killing OBL, but airstrikes could. His best opportunity for that was in the spring of 1999, the CIA had located OBL in Afghanistan and had been watching him for days. But then, Tenet and Berger panicked and called it off.

The 9-11 Commisssion report said it was because Clinton was afraid of collateral damage, and that he was still skittish over a totally different airstrike in Belgrade, where the US missed and hit the Chinese Embassy.

It wasn't just that Clinton didn't understand back then the importance of grabbing OBL, it's also more over-sensitvity to world political opinion and delegating the entire matter to Berger, who was way over his head.

 

[dilloduck]

Because Clinton didn't authorize the use of lethal force against OBL until the summer of 1998, after those attacks on the US embassies in Africa. He'd been worried that it'd look like an assassination.

The Clinton administration had been aware of OBL back in 1993, he had four good opportunities to capture or kill him.In 1997, the CIA Counterterrorism Center had been working on this plan for some time. They located OBL holded up in some remote fortress.

CIA director George Tenet met with NSA director Sandy Berger in February 1998, right after that scandal broke. The CIA continued to do dry runs of this plan to capture OBL until the end of May of that year. But one day later, Berger ordered the plan scrapped, the 9-11 commission said Tenet and he were worried that the plan could be construed as an assassination.

That was probably the best chance Clinton ever had. A couple of months later, he finally signed a Memorandum of Notification, authorizing force, but then, insisted on doing it by an airstrike only.

Ground troups couldn't risk killing OBL, but airstrikes could. His best opportunity for that was in the spring of 1999, the CIA had located OBL in Afghanistan and had been watching him for days. But then, Tenet and Berger panicked and called it off.

The 9-11 Commisssion report said it was because Clinton was afraid of collateral damage, and that he was still skittish over a totally different airstrike in Belgrade, where the US missed and hit the Chinese Embassy.

It wasn't just that Clinton didn't understand back then the importance of grabbing OBL, it's also more over-sensitvity to world political opinion and delegating the entire matter to Berger, who was way over his head.

Probably had too many documents in his underwear.

 

[Adam's Apple]

During Clinton's terms in office, does anyone ever remember hearing that conservatives thought Clinton was obsessed with bin Laden? Thought not. Don't know where Clinton pulled that one out from, but it's obvious that he's trying to keep people from remembering what the situation really was.

Yes, there's a good reason Bob Kerry said that Clinton was an unusually good liar.

 

[Rico]

I watched the interview this morning on Fox News Sunday. Clinton blew a gasket when asked "why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?"

Clinton went immediately into angry attack mode waving the finger at Wallace. (Note: same finger used to wave at and lie to the American people and the world about his illicit affair with Ms. Lewinsky). Clinton accused "conservative Republicans, who now say I didn't do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush's neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden."

That is a bald-faced LIE. Usual Clinton lying. Create a straw man and then claim to be it's victim.

He continued his lame defense, "the CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify."
Since when does the Commander in Chief need "certification"?

Clinton's legacy is what history will write. Ignored the terrorist threat allowing it to fester to the point where 9/11 was imminent. Refused to act against terrorism in any meaningful way. His only useless, prewarned, attack on Bin Laden came at the time of his other "legacy". That of being the recipient of the most famous act of fellatio the world has ever known.

That's Clinton's legacy and he cannot change it by lying or pretending to, once again, ad infinitum during his meaningless administration, be the victim of a "right wing conspiracy".
He was a feckless liar for 8 years in office and cannot stop this behavior in attempting to salvage what history will make of his presidency.

 

[Annie]

Yep, don't think this is going the way he'd hoped:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDM4N2E1MzU5ZjQ0YTA3YmJiYzEyYjQ2ZDBiNWJlYjE=

Bill Clinton’s Excuses
No matter what he says, the record shows he failed to act against terrorism.

By Byron York

“I worked hard to try and kill him,” former president Bill Clinton told Fox News Sunday. “I tried. I tried and failed.”

”Him” is Osama bin Laden. And in his interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, the former president based nearly his entire defense on one source: Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, the book by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke. “All I’m asking is if anybody wants to say I didn’t do enough, you read Richard Clarke’s book,” Clinton said at one point in the interview. “All you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror,” he said at another. “All you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s findings and you know it’s not true,” he said at yet another point. In all, Clinton mentioned Clarke’s name 11 times during the Fox interview.

But Clarke’s book does not, in fact, support Clinton’s claim. Judging by Clarke’s sympathetic account — as well as by the sympathetic accounts of other former Clinton aides like Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon — it’s not quite accurate to say that Clinton tried to kill bin Laden. Rather, he tried to convince — as opposed to, say, order — U.S. military and intelligence agencies to kill bin Laden. And when, on a number of occasions, those agencies refused to act, Clinton, the commander-in-chief, gave up.

Clinton did not give up in the sense of an executive who gives an order and then moves on to other things, thinking the order is being carried out when in fact it is being ignored. Instead, Clinton knew at the time that his top military and intelligence officials were dragging their feet on going after bin Laden and al Qaeda. He gave up rather than use his authority to force them into action.

Examples are all over Clarke’s book. On page 223, Clarke describes a meeting, in late 2000, of the National Security Council “principals” — among them, the heads of the CIA, the FBI, the Attorney General, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the secretaries of State, Defense. It was just after al Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole. But neither the FBI nor the CIA would say that al Qaeda was behind the bombing, and there was little support for a retaliatory strike. Clarke quotes Mike Sheehan, a State Department official, saying in frustration, “What’s it going to take, Dick? Who the shit do they think attacked the Cole, fuckin’ Martians? The Pentagon brass won’t let Delta go get bin Laden. Hell they won’t even let the Air Force carpet bomb the place. Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?”

That came later. But in October 2000, what would it have taken? A decisive presidential order — which never came.

The story was the same with the CIA. On page 204, Clarke vents his frustration at the CIA’s slow-walking on the question of killing bin Laden. “I still to this day do not understand why it was impossible for the United States to find a competent group of Afghans, Americans, third-country nationals, or some combination who could locate bin Laden in Afghanistan and kill him,” Clarke writes. “I believe that those in CIA who claim the [presidential] authorizations were insufficient or unclear are throwing up that claim as an excuse to cover the fact that they were pathetically unable to accomplish the mission.”

Clarke hit the CIA again a few pages later, on page 210, on the issue of the CIA’s refusal to budget money for the fight against al Qaeda. “The formal, official CIA response was that there were [no funds],” Clarke writes. “Another way to say that was that everything they were doing was more important than fighting al Qaeda.”

The FBI proved equally frustrating. On page 217, Clarke describes a colleague, Roger Cressey, who was frustrated after meeting with an FBI representative on the subject of terrorism. “That fucker is going to get some Americans killed,” Clarke reports Cressey saying. “He just sits there like a bump on a log.” Clarke adds: “I knew he was talking about an FBI representative.”

So Clinton couldn’t get the job done. Why not? According to Clarke’s pro-Clinton view, the president was stymied by Republican opposition. “Weakened by continual political attack,” Clarke writes, “[Clinton] could not get the CIA, the Pentagon, and FBI to act sufficiently to deal with the threat.”

Republicans boxed Clinton in, Clarke writes, beginning in the 1992 campaign, with criticism of Clinton’s avoidance of the draft as a young man, and extending all the way to the Lewinsky scandal and the president’s impeachment. The bottom line, Clarke argues, is that the commander-in-chief was not in command. From page 225:

Because of the intensity of the political opposition that Clinton engendered, he had been heavily criticized for bombing al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, for engaging in ‘Wag the Dog’ tactics to divert attention from a scandal about his personal life. For similar reasons, he could not fire the recalcitrant FBI Director who had failed to fix the Bureau or to uncover terrorists in the United States. He had given the CIA unprecedented authority to go after bin Laden personally and al Qaeda, but had not taken steps when they did little or nothing. Because Clinton was criticized as a Vietnam War opponent without a military record, he was limited in his ability to direct the military to engage in anti-terrorist commando operations they did not want to conduct. He had tried that in Somalia, and the military had made mistakes and blamed him. In the absence of a bigger provocation from al Qaeda to silence his critics, Clinton thought he could do no more.​

In the end, Clarke writes, Clinton “put in place the plans and programs that allowed America to respond to the big attacks when they did come, sweeping away the political barriers to action.”

But the bottom line is that Bill Clinton, the commander-in-chief, could not find the will to order the military into action against al Qaeda, and Bill Clinton, the head of the executive branch, could not find the will to order the CIA and FBI to act. No matter what the former president says on Fox, or anywhere else, that is his legacy in the war on terror.

— Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They’ll Try Even Harder Next Time.

 

[Rico]

Link to a partial transcript of the interview.

Watching it I was appalled. Reading it I'm disgusted at the victimhood this spineless, lying, immasculine, joke continues to sell.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,215397,00.html

 

[Annie]

Nope, I don't think Clinton is going to like this at all:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmQxMDYyMGMzYzkwMDVkZDMyMjg4MDI2ZGJjMjRjM2U=

NR & Bin Laden 1998 [Jonah Goldberg]
Bill Clinton in his interview today seemed to be suggesting that conservatives uniformly opposed and denounced him when he launched his "wag the dog" strike in 1998. For the record, here's the NR editorial in response to the attacks, dated9/14/98:

COMEDY Central's The Daily Show called it "Operation Desert Shield Me from Impeachment." Funny, but too cynical. The U.S. missile strikes against terrorist facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan were a response to a real threat: They targeted the operations of Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind who, according to U.S. intelligence, was responsible for the brutal bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and was plotting further attacks on Americans. Now remember, this is a National Review editorial, ya know, where the neo-cons go...

Congressional leaders were therefore right to support President Clinton's action. The last thing Republicans should do is add to the inhibitions and hesitations of an Administration congenitally averse to the forthright use of American military power. The White House's blatant exploitation of the crisis for its own political purposes-dragging Mr. Clinton back from vacation for a portentous Oval Office address to the nation-should be a source of amusement only. Richard Nixon, too, tried to claim indispensability for his foreign-policy expertise-a much more valid claim in his case, and at the height of the Cold War to boot. It didn't help him.

Launching 75 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the training camp in Afghanistan and the chemical-weapons plant in Sudan was, by Clinton standards, a strong performance. In June 1993, responding to an Iraqi assassination attempt against ex-President George Bush, Mr. Clinton launched 23 cruise missiles at a military-intelligence headquarters in Baghdad-in the middle of the night, so that no one would get hurt! This time, the strike in Afghanistan was aimed at a gathering of terrorist leaders reported to be taking place on that day. Admirably cold-blooded, that.

Bin Laden, the terrorist kingpin, is a new phenomenon, but we should not exaggerate either his novelty or the difficulty of defeating him. (There is a canard that he is an American creation. There is no evidence that he is. He did win his spurs in the Arab world's equivalent of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade-the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan-but U.S. money and arms went to the Afghan freedom fighters through the Pakistani military.) While he is a freelancer, bin Laden is dependent on the support of renegade governments, such as Afghanistan's and Sudan's, against which we have leverage. We can target his physical assets by military or covert means and his financial assets through other controls (as Mr. Clinton has also done). His Islamist revolutionary ideology is increasingly discredited in the Muslim world, even in Iran. Defeating him will take time, but it will be done.​

Posted at 4:23 PM

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/082198attack-us.html

U.S. Cruise Missiles Strike Sudan and Afghan Targets Tied to Terrorist Network
By JAMES BENNET

WASHINGTON -- Dozens of U.S. cruise missiles struck targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan on Thursday in what President Clinton described as an act of self-defense against imminent terrorist plots and of retribution for the bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa two weeks ago.

The strikes were launched from ships in the Arabian and Red Seas at dusk. It was not immediately clear whether the raids were a military success. Pentagon officials said that no Americans died but that they had no immediate estimate of other casualties or damage. Early Friday, an Islamic press agency reported 15 deaths from the bombings in Afghanistan.

THE ATTACK
•U.S. Attacks Based on Strong Evidence Against Bin Laden Group
•Attack Aimed 70 Missiles at Targets 2,500 Miles Apart
•In the War Against Terrorism, Any Attack Has Pros and Cons
•Sudan Planned to Make Deadly Nerve Agent, U.S. Says

THE WORLD REACTS
•Most Members of Congress Rally Around Clinton
•U.S. Agents Said to Thwart Bomb Plot Against U.S. Embassy in Albania
•U.S.-Sudanese Tensions Finally Erupt Into Open Warfare
•Mideast Governments Remain Silent About U.S. Attack
•U.S. Warns Americans Abroad to Be More Cautious

PROFILE
•U.S. Sees Bin Laden as Ringleader of Terrorist Network


With about 75 missiles timed to explode simultaneously in unsuspecting countries on two continents, the operation was the most formidable U.S. military assault ever against a private sponsor of terrorism.

The targets were identified by Pentagon officials as an extensive terrorism training complex in Afghanistan, 94 miles south of Kabul, and a factory for the building blocks of chemical weapons near Khartoum, the Sudan.

Clinton and his national security team linked both sites to Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi millionaire tied by U.S. intelligence to the twin bombings on Aug. 7 in Kenya and Tanzania. The bombings killed 12 Americans and nearly 300 Africans.

Bin Laden, who is in Afghanistan, apparently survived the attack, which officials insisted was not aimed at him.

"Let our actions today send this message loud and clear," Clinton said in an address from the Oval Office. "There are no expendable American targets. There will be no sanctuary for terrorists."

The president made no apologies for ordering the strikes without permission from Afghanistan or the Sudan, saying, "Countries that persistently host terrorists have no right to be safe havens."

Clinton's stone-faced appearance marked his emergence from two days of shelter from a howling political storm. He returned to the White House on Thursday afternoon from vacation on Martha's Vineyard, where he was trying to repair family ties damaged by his admission Monday of an intimate relationship with a White House intern.

The president reappeared to describe an operation he had been planning secretly for more than a week, even as he was meeting with his lawyers to prepare a legal and political defense of himself and his presidency.

In Sudan, President Omar el-Bashir called on his people to protest the attack, saying on television, "Sudanese people will defend themselves." Earlier, Information Minister Ghazi Salah-Eddin said the attack on what the Sudanese call a pharmaceutical plant was "a criminal act."

The leader of the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan, Mullah Mohammad Omar, condemned the bombings, saying they showed an "enmity" for the Afghan people.

Defense Secretary William Cohen said the strikes were intended to "cause sufficient damage to disrupt them for some time."

Clinton presented several reasons for the decision to act swiftly and forcefully, rather than to punish bin Laden through the means of diplomacy and law. Repeatedly he said bin Laden presented an imminent threat, quoting his pledge this week to wage a war in which Americans were "all targets."

Clinton added that "key terrorist leaders" were believed to be gathering on Thursday at the compound in Afghanistan.

Clinton said he had "convincing" intelligence that bin Laden's terrorist network was behind the embassy bombings. And he accused groups tied to bin Laden of a host of murderous attacks and foiled plots like killing international peacekeepers in Somalia and planning to assassinate the Pope.

But while the Republican leadership rallied to support the raids, some members of Congress reacted suspiciously, noting that the action followed by three days Clinton's acknowledgment to the public and a grand jury of his relationship with former intern Monica Lewinsky.
You'll notice only Coats, of Indiana, but what the heck, NY Times partner.
Administration officials scorned talk of a connection.

When Clinton's motorcade abruptly left the borrowed estate where he was secluded with his wife and daughter, reporters and photographers who were idling at the entrance assumed that he was going to play golf. Instead Clinton made a brief dramatic appearance to announce the strikes. Clinton flew to Washington for his Oval Office address as Ms. Lewinsky was testifying for a second time before the grand jury here.

Administration officials said the planning for the mission began nine days ago, shortly after the bombings. Clinton was first informed of the planning in the White House situation room Aug. 12, and on Aug. 14 gave tentative approval for a mission.

He gave the final go-ahead in a telephone conversation at 3 a.m. Thursday morning with National Security Adviser Samuel Berger.

Pentagon officials denied any plan to assassinate bin Laden, saying they intended only to damage his network.

Asked whether bin Laden was a legitimate military target, Cohen said, "To the extent that he or his organization have declared war upon the United States or our interests, then he certainly is engaged in an act of war."

The missiles were timed to hit at 1:30 Thursday afternoon Eastern daylight time, or 7:30 in the evening in the Sudan and 10 at night in Afghanistan. The twin attacks provided a certain symmetry to the bombings in East Africa. Though seas apart, the targets share a connection to bin Laden.

Bin Laden, who moved to Afghanistan two years ago from the Sudan, has continued to support the Sudanese military-industrial complex, which operates the Al-Shifa factory that was bombed Thursday. That factory, which has been said to manufacture pharmaceuticals, in fact makes the components for VX gas and other chemical weapons, the Administration said.

Gen. Hugh Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said bin Laden's network had "been actively seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons for use against U.S. citizens and our interests around the world."

The target in Afghanistan was described as a vast compound composed of a base camp, a support complex and four training camps for teaching terrorists to plan attacks and use weapons.

Clinton said the site had been used to train "literally thousands of terrorists from around the globe."

The United States obtained the permission of Pakistan to send missiles over its territory into Afghanistan, but evidently alerted none of its major allies except the British. The president made a round of telephone calls to foreign leaders after his seven-and-a-half-minute speech at 5:30.

The links between bin Laden and the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were established by intelligence networks rather than by the inquiry at the bombing sites led by the FBI, according to law-enforcement officials. The officials said the intelligence included statements that implicated bin Laden by one suspect, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, who was apprehended in Pakistan and is now being held in Nairobi.

Odeh told Pakistani authorities after his arrest Aug. 7, the day of the bombing, that he was a disciple of bin Laden. He also said he was an engineer who had helped build the Nairobi bomb, U.S. officials have said.

Congressional leaders were briefed about the planned raid Wednesday night and Thursday morning. For the most part, Republican leaders praised Clinton's decision and urged more aggressive action against terrorism.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich expressed firm support, and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, said, "Our response appears to be appropriate and just."

Others were more critical. Accusing Clinton of "lies and deceit and manipulations and deceptions," Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., said the president's record "raises into doubt everything he does and everything he says, and maybe even everything he doesn't do and doesn't say."

Administration officials dismissed such skepticism. Cohen said: "The only motivation driving this action Thursday was our absolute obligation to protect the American people from terrorist activities. That is the sole motivation. No other consideration has been involved."

After the strikes Cohen ordered all military bases to increase their states of alert. The United States on Thursday issued a new worldwide warning to Americans and diplomatic personnel "to exercise much greater caution than usual."

In his speech Clinton warned Americans that the strike would by no means put an end to terrorism.

"This will be a long, ongoing struggle," he said. "America is and will remain a target of terrorists."

 

[Annie]

Lots of links here. I don't know why Clinton did this, like the overreaction to the Path to 9/11, they are just calling attention to the mistakes they made. Now Clinton wishes to compare 8 years to 8 months, just cannot spin that no matter how good he is:

http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2006/09/clinton-and-bin-laden-and-perils-of.html

Sunday, September 24, 2006
Clinton and bin Laden and the perils of citing Richard Clarke
By TigerHawk at 9/24/2006 02:13:00 PM


As every newshound in America knows, Bill Clinton flew off the handle at Chris Wallace, the Foxy demon spawn of liberal icon Mike Wallace, who was apparently impertinent in asking why Clinton didn't "connect the dots" and put al Qaeda out of business. (See round-ups at Dr. Sanity and Michelle Malkin, among the many righty bloggers with useful linkage.) Clinton's response, complete with "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" finger-pointing, included a claim that he had done more than any other president to capture bin Laden, and that we should all consult Richard Clarke if we doubt him.

Well, Byron York has done just that, pouring through Clarke's self-important screed Against All Enemies to show that Clinton may want to think twice about citing Clarke as a reference.

I, too, have suffered through Against All Enemies -- some sections more than once -- and have a few observations York might have made if he had written a rambling blog post rather than a tightly-argued column.

First, Clarke's insistent theme is that the national security establishment, particularly the CIA and the FBI but also the State Department and the uniformed military, resisted and stymied Clinton's various directives to go after Bin Laden. This is surely true to some great degree. In this regard, Clinton should (and may) have some sympathy for his successor. It will be interesting to see whether in retirement George W. Bush also takes refuge behind the excuse -- valid as it may be -- of bureaucratic obstruction.

Second, I wonder how much of the bureaucratic opposition to the Clinton's directives regarding bin Laden reflected a concern by operatives and their agents that the very heavily lawyered-up and legalistic Clintonites would turn on them at the first light of publicity. Supposedly, many of these same people worry that they will face prosecution if the Democrats get the White House back in 2008. Perhaps there is a basis for this concern rooted in their experience with the Clinton administration.

Third, there is another bit in Clarke's book that bears mentioning: Clinton and his "Principals" group resisted bombing Afghanistan because Iraq was a higher priority:

On these three occasions and during the presentations of the PolMil Plan, I tried to make the case to the Principals that we should strike at known al Qaeda camps whether or not bin Laden was in them. "I know that you don't want to blow up al Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan trying to get bin Laden only to have the bastard sow up the next day at a press conference saying how feckless we are. So don't say we were trying to get bin Laden; say we were trying to destroy the camps. If we get him, so much the better."

The response I received from all the other members of the Principals usually went along the lines of: "So we spend millions of dollars' worth of cruise missles and bombs blowing up a buck fifty's worth of jungle gyms and mud huts again?" Sometimes I heard, "Look, we are bombing Iraq every week. We may have to bomb Serbia. European, Russian, Islamic press are already calling us the Mad Bomber. You want to bomb a third country?"....

It was ironic that people had once worried whether Bill Clinton would use force and now there was criticism that he was using it too much. In the Islamic world, there was criticism that Clinton was still bombing Iraq.... (AAE, p. 201 - 202, bold emphasis added)​

The allegedly distracting qualities of Iraq have plagued more than one administration, it seems.

Fourth, Byron York mentions the decision not to bomb Afghanistan after the bombing of the Cole in 2000, a choice that outraged Richard Clarke. York quotes Clarke's account of a conversation with Michael Sheehan, a State Department terrorism expert:

"What's it gonna take, Dick?" Sheehan demanded. "Who the shit do they think attacked the Cole, fucking Martians? The Pentagon brass won't let Delta go get bin Laden. Hell, they won't even let the Air Force carpet bomb the place. Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?"
​

Er, yes. York's argument, true as it goes, is that a decisive presidential order would have done the job. That may have been one of the problems -- perhaps the Clinton White House needed a bit more hierarchy and a bit less discussion, just as the Bush White House might have benefitted from the reverse -- but there was something else at work. Clinton was seduced by the ultimate Palestinian peace deal that always beckons, just out of reach:

Time was running out on the Clinton administration. There was going to be one last major national security initiative and it was going to be a final try to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. It really looked like that long-sought goal was possible. The Israeli Prime Minister had agreed to major concessions. I would have liked to have tried both, Camp David and blowing up the al Qaeda camps. Nonetheless, I understood. If we could achieve a Middle East peace much of the popular support for al Qaeda and much of the hatred for America would evaporate overnight. (AAE, p. 224)
​

In October 2000, Clinton was no longer constrained by political considerations. The impeachment was behind him, and he had the operational freedom of a true lame duck. Nobody could accuse him of wagging the dog in October 2000. Bill Clinton affirmatively decided against retaliating for the Cole bombing because he thought it would get in the way of peace with the Palestinian Arabs. Now this may or may not have been a good choice when made -- history has revealed that it was disastrous for Israel, the Palestinians, and possibly almost 3000 Americans -- but it was a choice nonetheless. Like the decision to avoid a prolonged campaign against al Qaeda after the embassy bombings (because Iraq was a higher priority), Clinton made a choice. I don't blame him for the fact that history strongly suggests both decisions were grievously wrong -- I believe that "all hands went to midnight" on September 11, and that everybody was caught by surprise -- but that doesn't make it any less Clinton's decision.

Finally, even a casual reading of Clarke's book reveals that it was one of the more important sources for "The Path To 9/11," the ABC miniseries that so irritated the Clintonites. For that reason and many others, I wouldn't want more people reading Clarke's book if I were Clinton.

 

[Annie]

Truly, it must suck that all this stuff is on DVD and archived on computers. There was a time that it would take months, if ever, to dig it up:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTNhMTM1NTNhYzYwZmU4NWI1YTMyOGUyMTM0YWI3YjQ=

Wag The Dog Cont'd [Jonah Goldberg]
Then Speaker Newt Gingrich, interviewed on CNN, August 28, 1998:

ALLEN: We are interrupting that story because we have now on the phone with us Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Speaker Gingrich, your reaction to the U.S. attacks today on Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Well, I think the United States did exactly the right thing. We cannot allow a terrorist group to attack American embassies and do nothing. And I think we have to recognize that we are now committed to engaging this organization and breaking it apart and doing whatever we have to to suppress it, because we cannot afford to have people who think that they can kill Americans without any consequence. So this was the right thing to do.

We have not yet gotten assessments of the damage, but I hope that it's been very decisive. And I think it's very important that we send a signal to countries like Sudan and Afghanistan that if you house a terrorist, you become a target. And if you want to get rid of the target, you've got to get rid of the terrorist.

ALLEN: So you say the right thing to do at the right time? Senator Arlen Specter said a moment ago he question the timing of this.

GINGRICH: I think based on what I know, it was the right thing to do at the right time. And I think that it — I've been involved in briefings for the last two weeks, and I think it's been done in a methodical, professional way. And I strongly support the United States government having acted that way.

Posted at 5:15 PM

Then the DNC site, endorses what is most likely going to be one of Clinton's worse goofs:

http://www.democrats.org/

President Clinton Fights Back: In an interview with Fox News televised this morning, President Bill Clinton fought back against the right wing misinformation and smear campaign and stood up for the truth. He set the facts straight on his record fighting the war on terror. He also stood up against Fox News' propaganda, inquiring about the lack of tough questions being posed to the current administration.

 

[Adam's Apple]

And to top off all this fudging of the facts by Clinton, Jamie Gorelick had the nerve to go on Fox today and state that they did not build a bridge between the CIA and the FBI! How dumb do people in the Clinton Administration think Americans are??? Apparently, they think we're all products of the public school systems and don't have the intellect to put two and two together.

 

[Stephanie]

I just watched the fox interview with Clinton....

 

[LuvRPgrl]

And yet OBL is still making tapes. That is not a solution, it is plan. A solution would imply that it is working.

mommyyyyyyyy! Osama is making tapes!

Ewwww, really scary!

 

[UnAmericanYOU]

Bill Clinton must have really freaked Chris Wallace out:

Following today's buzz generating conversation with Bill Clinton, Chris Wallace shared some of his post-interview thoughts with FishbowlDC:

I was delighted to get the chance to interview former President Clinton. This was the first one-on-one sitdown he's ever given "Fox News Sunday" during our 10 years on the air.

The groundrules were simple--15 minutes--to be divided evenly between questions about the Clinton Global Initiative and anything else I wanted to ask.

I intended to keep to the groundrules. In fact--I prepared 10 questions--5 on the CGI and 5 on other issues.

I began the interview with 2 questions about Mr. Clinton's commitment to humanitarian causes. His answers were cogent and good-humored.

Then--I asked him about his Administration's record in fighting terror--fully intending to come back to CGI later (as indeed I did).

I asked what I thought was a non-confrontational question about whether he could have done more to "connect the dots and really go after al Qaeda."

I was utterly surprised by the tidal wave of details--emotion--and political attacks that followed.

The President was clearly stung by any suggestion that he had not done everything he could to get bin Laden. He attacked right-wingers--accused me of a "conservative hit job"--and even spun a theory I still don't understand that somehow Fox was trying to cover up the fact that NewsCorp. chief Rupert Murdoch was supporting his Global Initiative. I still have no idea what set him off.

Former President Clinton is a very big man. As he leaned forward--wagging his finger in my face--and then poking the notes I was holding--I felt as if a mountain was coming down in front of me.

The President said I had a smirk. Actually--it was sheer wonder at what I was witnessing.

I tried repeatedly to adhere to the ground rules--to move the President along--and back to the CGI. But he wanted to keep talking about his record fighting terror.

When it became clear he wanted to throw out the ground rules--then I just went with the flow of the interview.

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowl...ain_was_coming_down_in_front_of_me__44380.asp

LOL.

 

[Stephanie]

He was pretty scary looking........

If I was Chris Wallace, I would of asked him if he wanted to play that game...
Pull my finger.....The way he was waving that finger around......:teeth:

I believe this whole thing was a set up by Billy boy, what his reasons for it was, I can't figure out..

But I think Clinton came out of it the loser, and instead he just came out looking like a raving maniac...JMO..