Clinton Lied, People Died
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 10/2/2006

War On Terror: The man in charge of the CIA's Osama bin Laden desk on Bill Clinton's watch says that despite the former president's finger-wagging, Clinton did not do all he could to get the man who spawned 9/11.

Michael Scheuer is a 22-year CIA veteran and was head of that agency's bin Laden unit from 1966 to 1999. In a follow-up to Clinton's volcanic interview the week earlier on "Fox News Sunday," FNS host Chris Wallace invited him as one of three counterterrorism experts to analyze the truthfulness of assertions made by the "wizard of 'is' " in defending his pre-9/11 actions, or lack thereof.

Wallace asked the former head of "Alec Station," who'd previously said the CIA gave Clinton eight to 10 shots at killing or capturing bin Laden, why the al-Qaida leader was never killed or captured.

Scheuer responded that Clinton was correct in saying he got closer to bin Laden than anyone. "But, of course, he always refused to pull the trigger," he added.

Clinton always seemed to have an excuse too, such as "one time (when) they were afraid to have shrapnel hit a mosque when they killed bin Laden."

On another occasion, the Clinton team felt compelled to warn the United Arab Emirates to recall its princes, who were on a hunting trip with bin Laden. Said Scheuer:

"Richard Clarke called the emirates and warned them they should get out of that area, which cost us the chance to kill him."

As for Clinton's claim that he "worked hard to try to kill" bin Laden and "authorized the finding for the CIA to kill him," Scheuer said that "we were never authorized, while I was chief of operations, to kill Osama bin Laden. In fact, Richard Clarke definitely told us we had no authorization to kill bin Laden."

Scheuer went on to say:

"Mr. Richard Clarke, Mr. Sandy Berger (and) President Clinton are lying about the opportunities they had to kill Osama bin Laden" and that "for him (Clinton) to get on television and say to the American people he did all he could is a flat lie, sir."

According to the man charged with finding bin Laden: "Men and women at the CIA risked their lives to provide occasions to kill a man we knew had declared war and had attacked America four or five times before 1998. We had plans that had been approved by the Joint Operations Command at Fort Bragg. We had opportunities, many opportunities to kill him."

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, on Dec. 4, 1999, the National Security Council's counterterrorism coordinator, Clarke, sent Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan. But the commission found that "in the margin next to Clarke's suggestion to attack al-Qaida facilities in the week before Jan. 1, 2000, Berger wrote, 'No.' "

For each opportunity, the Clinton team had an excuse for failure, from collateral damage to American casualties to how the Muslim world might react to either success or failure.

One time, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright thought an attack on bin Laden might interfere with the Mideast peace process, claiming: "Bombing Muslims would not be helpful at this time."

As for Clinton's claim that the Bush administration "had eight months to try; they did not try (but) I tried," Scheuer observed:

"Mr. Clarke, Mr. Berger, Mr. Clinton did have opportunities that were delivered by the men and women of the CIA to kill Osama bin Laden," but in "the first eight months of the Bush administration there were no such opportunities."

The Clinton administration had the opportunity to mortally wound al-Qaida and kill or capture bin Laden. But it was worse than the gang that couldn't shoot straight. It was the gang that couldn't shoot at all.