Clarke: Clinton Worried about al-Qaida

[DLR'sCock]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sept-11-Clarke.html


Clarke: Clinton Worried about al-Qaida
The Associated Press

Thursday 18 November 2004

Washington - The Clinton administration was deeply concerned in 2000 that al-Qaida sleeper cells existed in North America and considered ways to move against them, according to newly released testimony.

"There were two simultaneous plots, one in Jordan and one in the United States, and they both involved American citizens," Bush administration critic Richard Clarke testified in June 2002 before a congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The plots were of high enough interest that Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, requested a briefing.

"The conclusion was that we should ... beef up the counterterrorism task force around the country," said Clarke, whose testimony about the briefing of Shelby in February 2000 was partially blacked out because of national security concerns.

The release of Clarke's 2002 testimony stems from Republican attempts to undermine his criticism of the Bush administration.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Clarke's recently declassified testimony from 2002 is effusive in its praise of the Bush administration's efforts targeting al-Qaida before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The declassified version neither criticizes nor strongly praises the Bush administration. It focuses instead primarily on the Clinton administration.

"I believed it was important to recognize that Mr. Clarke's character was unfairly attacked for political purposes," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who worked with the Senate Intelligence Committee to have the testimony released. "A detailed review shows that his testimony is not inconsistent with his testimony before the 9/11 Commission."

In his 2002 testimony, Clarke did defend the Bush administration's delay in acting on two CIA memoranda aimed at al-Qaida and its Taliban supporters in Afghanistan.

He said the two documents drafted in late 2000 were to be finalized as part of a plan to finance a full-bore campaign to destroy al-Qaida. The president signed the documents six days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"What had not been determined in early September of 2001 was how much money to give to the implementation ... and where that money would come from and in what fiscal year," Clarke said.

Clarke testified:

The intelligence in 2000 about the two plots "was an eye-opening thing for those of us informed and we began to think that just because you are an American citizen doesn't mean you shouldn't be subject to some scrutiny if you show up having connections to these people."


In the Clinton years, "there were people in the administration who were very seized with this issue, beginning with the president. ... It is very rare in my experience when the president of the United States picks an issue after his administration has begun, because the world has changed, and says, this is a priority, guys. ... If 9/11 hadn't happened, I think historians could go back and look at what the Clinton administration did ... and say, 'boy, were those guys overreacting."' Clarke's qualified praise for the Clinton administration mirrors his more recent testimony to the Sept. 11 panel and the account he gave in his book,
"Against All Enemies."

Other governments helped break up terrorist cells in 20 to 25 countries during the Clinton administration. "I would say that hundreds of people were arrested and detained either by a host country where cells were broken up."


One of Clarke's nightmares was that the CIA would have been ordered, over internal protests, to use an unmanned, armed aircraft known as a Predator to kill bin Laden. Clarke backed such an operation, but feared his opponents would say: "Look what Clarke did. He assassinated bin Laden and in retaliation for that they blew up the World Trade Center."


Government officials knew, beginning in 1997, that if they "decapitated al-Qaida, that it would grow other heads." Officials had to be ready to accept the negative criticism for killing bin Laden and then having al-Qaida terrorism continue.



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The Real Target?
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek

Wednesday 17 November 2004

New intelligence suggests that Al Qaeda was planning to attack London, not U.S. financial centers, in the run-up to the presidential election. A Kerry adviser blames politics for the timing of the government's summer alert.
The latest analysis of evidence that led to last summer¹s Code Orange alert suggests that Al Qaeda operatives were plotting a "big bomb" attack against a major landmark in Britain - but had no active plans for strikes in the United States, U.S. intelligence sources tell NEWSWEEK.

The reassessment of Al Qaeda plans is the latest indication that much of the Bush administration¹s repeatedly voiced concerns about a pre-election attack inside the United States was based in part on an early misreading of crucial intelligence seized months ago in Pakistan.

The new view is that there was indeed an active Al Qaeda plot underway earlier this year - one that involved coded communications between high-level operatives in Pakistan and a British cell headed by a longtime associate of September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

The plot was aimed at setting off a large bomb at a prestigious economic or political target inside the United Kingdom - in effect to make a political statement against the British government. Among the targets considered in detail by the plotters, sources say, was London¹s Heathrow Airport, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

But little, if any, any evidence has turned up suggesting that the plotters had taken any steps to attack U.S. financial targets as Bush administration officials had initially suggested. The failure to find any such evidence was a key reason the Department of Homeland Security last week relaxed the terror alert and downgraded the threat level from Orange (elevated) to Yellow (high) for financial buildings in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Officials also said that another reason for downgrading the alert was that security at the buildings had been enhanced.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge first announced the financial-buildings alert on Sunday, Aug. 1, just three days after Sen. John Kerry gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic Party convention in Boston. Ridge¹s references to what he called "very specific" and "alarming" intelligence about Al Qaeda surveillance of such buildings as the World Bank in Washington and the New York Stock Exchange set off a new wave of fears about a possibly imminent terrorist attack and, in the view of some, had the effect of substantially suppressing Kerry¹s "bounce" in the polls.

The disclosure days later that most of the intelligence that Al Qaeda had been "casing" the buildings was several years old prompted some Democrats at the time to express concerns that the Bush administration was hyping terror threats to promote the president¹s campaign themes and frighten American voters. The Orange alert "was one of the most crimping factors that took away from whatever bounce from the convention there was," says Rand Beers, Kerry's chief foreign-policy adviser during the campaign and a former top counterterrorism aide in the Bush White House. In an interview this week, Beers also noted that there were legitimate "operational" reasons not to go public with the terror alert when Ridge announced it - namely, so that ongoing investigations into the intelligence about the financial-building surveillance could proceed in Pakistan and Great Britain. In light of that, Beers adds: "There is a plausible case to be made for political gain being the primary motivation" behind the timing of the announcement.

But Ridge, who in his original Aug. 1 announcement said the new intelligence about the financial buildings was "result of the president's leadership in the war against terror," strongly denied the allegation, saying repeatedly, "we don't do politics" in Homeland Security. Moreover, administration officials insisted throughout the campaign that the alert regarding the financial buildings was justified by the extraordinary discovery of a valuable computer archive in the possession of Mohammed Noor Khan, a suspected Al Qaeda communications operative who was arrested by Pakistani authorities. Khan is believed by Britain's M.I.-5 counterintelligence agency to have close connections at the highest levels of Al Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden himself.

In the computer's hard drive, U.S. and Pakistani investigators discovered elaborate surveillance reports - including, NEWSWEEK has learned, original video footage - of prominent U.S. financial buildings. These included the New York Stock Exchange, Prudential Insurance headquarters in Newark, N.J., and World Bank and International Monetary Fund buildings only blocks from the White House in Washington.

Initial analysis by American investigators of the computer data suggested that most of the information in the surveillance reports was collected when suspected Al Qaeda operatives visited the U.S. - on the apparent instructions of leading Al Qaeda operative Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - some time before the 9/11 attacks.

Intelligence officials said at the time that some of the surveillance reports on the U.S. financial targets may have been updated as recently as last winter and may have been accessed, or viewed by at least one computer user, as recently as last June or July. These hints that Al Qaeda operatives may have revisited the surveillance reports recently - coupled with intelligence from informants indicating Al Qaeda wanted to commit some kind of spectacular attack in the U.S. before the November election - were cited by administration officials to justify their decision to announce the public alert regarding a possible current threat to the financial buildings.

But subsequent analysis of the Pakistani computer evidence - and other evidence gathered in related raids in Britain - now puts much of that intelligence in a different light. While follow-up investigations have produced little corroboration for the idea that operatives in the United States were still working on an attack against the financial targets, the evidence gathered in Pakistan and Britain has shed important new clues to Al Qaeda¹s intentions.

Evidence gathered in the two countries included messages between suspects in Pakistan and Britain in an elaborate and initially opaque makeshift code. One break in the case came when a captured suspect agreed to help investigators decipher that code. They concluded that suspects in Britain - including a key figure who is believed to have been previously involved in the surveillance of the U.S. financial buildings - were working with a computer and communications expert in Pakistan on an active plot against targets in the London area.

According to a source familiar with evidence in the investigation, the alleged plotters' plans for possible action in Britain were very elaborate and flexible. Some of the alternative targets - including Heathrow Airport and Westminster Abbey - were considered in detail by the plotters, though the evidence suggests they never settled on their final objective.

After the arrest of Khan in Pakistan, British authorities rounded up several of his suspected contacts and cohorts, including the cell's leader, Dhiren Barot, a stocky self-described former instructor in jihadi camps in Afghanistan who used the alias Esa al-Hindi, and charged them with terrorist offenses - including one which related to possible use of weapons of mass destruction. Barot is referred to in last summer¹s report by the September 11 commission as an operative who was dispatched by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to New York to carry out surveillance on possible targets in this country. Britain's case against him and his alleged co-conspirators is still in pretrial stages, but lawyers for the suspects have proclaimed their innocence. British authorities have declined comment.

Some U.S. law-enforcement officers based in London, NEWSWEEK has learned, have become extremely concerned about evidence regarding possible active Al Qaeda plots to attack targets in Britain. According to a U.S. government official, fears of terror attacks have prompted FBI agents based in the U.S. Embassy in London to avoid traveling on London's popular underground railway (or tube) system, which is used daily by millions of commuters. While embassy-based officers of the U.S. Secret Service, Immigration and Customs bureaus and the CIA still are believed to use the underground to go about their business, FBI agents have been known to turn up late to cross town meetings because they insist on using taxis in London's traffic-choked business center.

The indications that plotters linked to a big election-season terror alert actually were actively planning to attack Britain rather than the United States is at least the second revelation which seems to partly undermine administration assertions that the U.S. homeland faced a heightened risk of attack during the presidential campaign.

Shortly before the election, administration officials quietly acknowledged that at least one informant who last winter had provided lurid intelligence about a possible pre-election attack in the U.S. had apparently fabricated his allegations. Yet given the importance that waging the war on terror had assumed during the presidential campaign, administration officials apparently were reluctant to announce a lowering of the Orange-alert threat until after the election. "They would have been a laughing stock if they lowered it before the election," says Beers. Still, many U.S. officials think the threat of possible Al Qaeda attacks remains relatively high - at least until after George W. Bush's second Inauguration in January.




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Clarke: C.I.A. Had Low-level Spies inside Al Qaeda
Reuters

Wednesday 17 November 2004

Washington - The CIA had some low-level spies inside al Qaeda in the three years before the Sept. 11 attacks, but none who could provide advance information about the group's movements, according to testimony released on Wednesday from a closed-door intelligence briefing in 2002.

The CIA did not have spies inside the network run by Osama bin Laden until 1999, but "none of them very high-level," Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism official, told the joint congressional committee investigating Sept. 11.

In a rare move, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a 103-page declassified transcript of the June 11, 2002, closed-door briefing on its Web site late on Wednesday. Most of the information had been made public during subsequent open hearings and in the final report of the joint inquiry.

The CIA "never had anyone in position to tell us what was going to happen in advance, or even where bin Laden was going to be in advance," Clarke told lawmakers.

On the three occasions when they thought they knew bin Laden's location, the CIA opposed taking military action, saying its sources were not good enough, he said.

"I think it is very difficult to place human sources high up in al Qaeda. I think it is possible to develop low-level sources. I think it is possible to develop technical means of collection that may provide us with information," Clarke said.

Several times in the 1990s the Pentagon was asked "snatch" terrorism suspects overseas, but the main message to the White House from uniformed military leadership was that they did not want to do this, Clarke said.

He said a leading al Qaeda operative had been pinpointed in Khartoum. "We knew what hotel he was in. We knew what room he was in the hotel."

The CIA did not have snatch capability and the military leadership told the White House that it would never work, while telling subordinates who had planned an operation that the White House had stopped it, Clarke said.

Asked how much information was obtained from hundreds of terrorism suspects held by other countries in the late 1990s, Clarke replied: "That depends on the country. If they were held in a West European democracy, we didn't get very much information."

He said the National Security Agency does not gather intelligence in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

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[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by DLR'sCock
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sept-11-Clarke.html


The Clinton administration was deeply concerned in 2000 that al-Qaida sleeper cells existed in North America and considered ways to move against them, according to newly released testimony.

"There were two simultaneous plots, one in Jordan and one in the United States, and they both involved American citizens," Bush administration critic Richard Clarke testified in June 2002 before a congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.



Ken Starr deserves much of the credit for aiding al-Qaida by distracting the Clinton Administration with his holy jihad investigation.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Ken Starr deserves much of the credit for aiding al-Qaida by distracting the Clinton Administration with his holy jihad investigation.

Distracting? :rolleyes:

[aesop]

Originally posted by DLR'sCock
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sept-11-Clarke.html


Clarke: Clinton Worried about al-Qaida
The Associated Press

Thursday 18 November 2004

Washington - The Clinton administration was deeply concerned in 2000 that al-Qaida sleeper cells existed in North America and considered ways to move against them, according to newly released testimony.

{In an exclusive interview interview, Clinton maintains that, had he not been getting his dick sucked at the time, or trying to discredit multiple lawsuits filed on behalf of all the women he allegedly forced his 'lil chubby on, or planning the cover-up of many people around him whom had "committed suicide" and coincidentally had incriminating information regarding his past, he would have actually got off his ass and done something about it. He swears.}

-------

[ELVIS]

Hahaha...:D

[lucky wilbury]

oh yeah clinton was distracted by starr :rolleyes: try again he was distracted by Lewinsky! obl was ours and bubba said nobecause he was more focused on her.



Bin Laden Arrest Offer Spurned as Clinton Met Lewinsky

At least two offers from the government of Sudan to arrest Osama bin Laden and turn him over to the U.S. were rebuffed by the Clinton administration in February and March of 1996, a period of time when the former president's attention was distracted by his intensifying relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

One of the offers took place during a secret meeting in Washington, the same day Clinton was meeting with Lewinsky in the White House just miles away.

On Feb. 6, 1996, then-U.S. Ambassador to the Sudan Tim Carney met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Osman Mohammed Taha at Taha's home in the capital city of Khartoum. The meeting took place just a half mile from bin Laden's residence at the time, according to Richard Miniter's book "Losing bin Laden."

During the meeting, Carney reminded the Sudanese official that Washington was increasingly nervous about the presence of bin Laden in Sudan, reports Miniter.

Foreign Minister Taha countered by saying that Sudan was very concerned about its poor relationship with the U.S.

Then came the bombshell offer:

"If you want bin Laden, we will give you bin Laden," Foreign Minister Taha told Ambassador Carney.

Still, with the extraordinarily fortuitous offer on the table, back in Washington President Clinton had other things on his mind.


A timeline of events chronicled in the Starr Report shows that during the period of late January through March 1996, Mr. Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky was then at its most intense.

On Feb. 4, 1996, for instance - two days before Ambassador Carney's key meeting with the Sudanese Foreign Minister, the president was focused not on Osama bin Laden, but instead on the 23-year-old White House intern.

Their rendezvous that day included a sexual encounter followed by a leisurely chat between Clinton and Lewinsky, as the two "sat and talked [afterward] for about 45 minutes," according to the Starr Report.

Later in the afternoon that same day, as Sudanese officials weighed their decision to offer bin Laden to the U.S., Clinton found time to call Lewinsky "[to say] he had enjoyed their time together." If there were any calls from Clinton to the State Department or Khartoum that day, the records have yet to surface in published reports.

The Feb. 4 encounter with Lewinsky followed a period of intense contact detailed in the Starr report in interviews with the former White House intern, including a sexual encounter on Jan. 6, 1996, several sessions of phone sex during the week of Jan. 14 - 21, and another sexual encounter on Jan. 21.

Sudan's offer to the U.S. for bin Laden's extradition remained on the table for at least a month, and was reiterated by Sudanese officials who traveled to Washington as late as March 10, 1996.

On March 3, Sudan's Minister of State for Defense Elfatih Erwa met secretly with Ambassador Carney, another State Department official and the CIA's Africa bureau Director of Operations at an Arlington, Va., hotel, according to Miniter's book.

Erwa was handed a list of issues the U.S. wanted taken care of if relations were to improve. The list included a demand for information on bin Laden's terrorist network inside Sudan.

Erwa replied that he would have to consult with Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir about the list. When he returned for a March 10, 1996 meeting with the CIA's Africa bureau chief, "Erwa would be empowered to make an extraordinary offer," writes Miniter.

On instructions from its president, the government of Sudan agreed to arrest bin Laden and hand him over to U.S law enforcement at a time and place of the Clinton administration's choosing. "Where should we send him?" Erwa asked the CIA representative.

President Clinton has acknowledged being fully briefed on the Sudanese efforts to turn over the 9/11 mastermind, admitting that he made the final decision to turn the offer down.

"The Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again," Clinton confirmed during a February 2002 speech to a New York business group.

"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."

As chronicled in the Starr report, however, Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky proved to be a growing distraction around this time.

Two weeks before the secret meeting between Erwa, Carney and the CIA bureau chief, the president summoned Lewinsky to the White House to inform her that he "no longer felt right" about their relationship and it would have to be suspended until after the election.

Lewinsky explained, however, that Clinton's decision to put their relationship on hold did little to change its basic character, telling Starr's investigators, "There'd continue to be this flirtation when we'd see each other."

The Starr report noted, "In late February or March [1996], the president telephoned her at home and said he was disappointed that, because she had already left the White House for the evening, they could not get together."

The call, Lewinsky said, "sort of implied to me that he was interested in starting up again."

On March 10, 1996, as Sudanese Defense Minister Erwa was making his extraordinary offer for bin Laden's arrest to the CIA's Africa bureau chief, Clinton met with Lewinsky in the White House.

The Starr report:

"On March 10, 1996, Ms. Lewinsky took a visiting friend, Natalie Ungvari, to the White House. They bumped into the president, who said when Ms. Lewinsky introduced them, 'You must be her friend from California.' Ms. Ungvari was 'shocked' that the president knew where she was from."

Though there was no physical contact that day, three weeks later, on March 31, 1996, Clinton resumed his sexual relationship with Lewinsky.

It was around this time, the president later admitted, that he was involved in delicate negotiations to try to persuade Riyadh to take bin Laden, after refusing to accept his extradition to the U.S.

"I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have," Clinton admitted in the 2002 speech. "But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."

On April 7, 1996, Monica Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. Around the same time, the administration's hunt for bin Laden finally seemed to begin in earnest. Just weeks after Clinton spurned Sudan's bin Laden offer, for instance, the CIA created a separate operational unit dedicated to tracking down bin Laden in Sudan.

But it happened too late to capture the 9/11 mastermind. On May 18, 1996, bin Laden boarded a chartered plane in Khartoum with his wives, children, some 150 al-Qaida jihadists and a cache of arms - and flew off to Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

[ELVIS]

Disgusting...

[Loki]

haw haw. hath thee no other excuse for thine feeble leaders shortcomings? fools, let history be thine judge.

[Warham]

History is the judge. Clinton is in the middle of the pack for Presidents. I think a group of historians put him at #21, just behind the first Bush. An average President at best.

Clinton wasn't worried about Osama while he was getting his knob gobbed.

[Loki]

haw haw. thine preoccupation with the exploits of yon philander doth prove that thine idol hath not performed up to par. hath thee no explanation for why thine leader hath not persuaded his saudi masters to take a greater hand? shallt thou need a shovel to dig up the fallen social-crat leaders, to blame the shortcomings of thine sacred cow upon? no, thine eyes are blind to the treachery at hand, thou art the same as the farmer who cries out when the wolf is at the door. prepare then, for thine folly will return to thee ten fold. huzzah

[Nickdfresh]

What distracted George Bush Jr. from holding any meetings on Terrorism the first nine months in office? What distracted him from reacting for seven minutes after the second plane hit the tower in 9/11?




Osama Bin who?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
oh yeah clinton was distracted by starr :rolleyes: try again he was distracted by Lewinsky! obl was ours and bubba said nobecause he was more focused on her.


Bin Laden Arrest Offer Spurned as Clinton Met Lewinsky

At least two offers from the government of Sudan to arrest Osama bin Laden and turn him over to the U.S. were rebuffed by the Clinton administration in February and March of 1996, a period of time when the former president's attention was distracted by his intensifying relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.



Right-wing blog sites making unsubstantiated information up is fun!

[lucky wilbury]

1. its no blog

2. would you like to more on the offer from sudan about obl? how about audio of bubba talking about it? or any of the news on it. here are a few links on it:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/12/5/153637.shtml

Aide: Clinton Unleashed bin Laden

at the bottom page of this link it even has audio of bubba discussing the deal

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/3/123551.shtml

Bin Laden Arrest Offer Spurned as Clinton Met Lewinsky

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9721

How Clinton Kept Bin Laden Free

http://www.cnsnews.com/ForeignBureaus/archive/200309/FOR20030904h.html

Clinton Spurned Bin Laden Offer Because He Didn't Want to Work With Sudan, Analyst Says

and just a few more on this:


http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0144/gould.php
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/ladnsudx.htm
http://www.observer.co.uk/Distribution/Redirect_Artifact/0,4678,0-560624,00.html
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001
http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/ijaz121101.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins070202.asp
http://www.sudan.net/news/press/postedr/125.shtml
http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2002/national-reporting/works/100301a.html
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/12/5/153637.shtml
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24595
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html
http://www.msnbc.com/news/941425.asp?cp1=1
http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2002/6/30/112921
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34942
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/02/wclint02.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/09/02/ixworld.html/news/2003/09/02/wclint02.xml

[jacksmar]

Two days before the Oklahoma bloodshed, on April 17, 1995, a plane-load of top military brass were murdered when their sabotaged plane blew up near Alexander City, Alabama. It was a real life version of "Seven Days in May". According to federal grand jurors we interviewed, there was an attempt, later blocked, by a grand jury to investigate this aborted coup. It was actually part of a series of events involving twenty four Admirals and Generals, some of the most patriotic flag officers in the history of this Republic. They vowed, under the Uniform Military Code, to arrest their Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton, for his various acts of treason aiding and abetting sworn enemies of the United States, such as Red China and Iraq. If Clinton had them arrested for mutiny, they were prepared, if not assassinated, to defend themselves with their heavily documented charges of his treachery against the U.S. Constitution and the people of the United States.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by jacksmar
Two days before the Oklahoma bloodshed, on April 17, 1995, a plane-load of top military brass were murdered when their sabotaged plane blew up near Alexander City, Alabama. It was a real life version of "Seven Days in May". According to federal grand jurors we interviewed, there was an attempt, later blocked, by a grand jury to investigate this aborted coup. It was actually part of a series of events involving twenty four Admirals and Generals, some of the most patriotic flag officers in the history of this Republic. They vowed, under the Uniform Military Code, to arrest their Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton, for his various acts of treason aiding and abetting sworn enemies of the United States, such as Red China and Iraq. If Clinton had them arrested for mutiny, they were prepared, if not assassinated, to defend themselves with their heavily documented charges of his treachery against the U.S. Constitution and the people of the United States.

Oliver Stone film to follow!

[Switch84]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Oliver Stone film to follow!


;) I'd rather see Quentin Tarantino's version......


BUWHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!

[Warham]

Originally posted by jacksmar
Two days before the Oklahoma bloodshed, on April 17, 1995, a plane-load of top military brass were murdered when their sabotaged plane blew up near Alexander City, Alabama. It was a real life version of "Seven Days in May". According to federal grand jurors we interviewed, there was an attempt, later blocked, by a grand jury to investigate this aborted coup. It was actually part of a series of events involving twenty four Admirals and Generals, some of the most patriotic flag officers in the history of this Republic. They vowed, under the Uniform Military Code, to arrest their Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton, for his various acts of treason aiding and abetting sworn enemies of the United States, such as Red China and Iraq. If Clinton had them arrested for mutiny, they were prepared, if not assassinated, to defend themselves with their heavily documented charges of his treachery against the U.S. Constitution and the people of the United States.

This is no surprise to me.

I posted a Clinton body count a few days ago.

[jacksmar]

Well, even if it’s true and the story has some merit, it still falls into the conspiracy theory thing for me.

The body count around former President Clinton is tall. Mostly by coincidence but there are a few questions surrounding the guy.

I just put this here because the pot stirring has been a little deep from the non-President Bush squad. They have their reasons, but we’re not the insipid lot they want people to believe we are.

[Nickdfresh]

There are questions surrounding any president. The idea of a group of military officers on a plane, that crashes, and no one knowing about it or blowing the whistle is ridiculous. The theory makes it sound as if the entire US high command was killed. And can you imagine if it were true and they did arrest Clinton, regardless of your politcal beliefs, it would have smacked of a banana republic military coup de tat.

It is far more likely that TWA 800 was shot down by a US Navy cruiser in 1996.

Conspiracy theories are fun, but usually implausible.

[ELVIS]

Peter Jennings might be next on the Clinton list...


:elvis:

[John Ashcroft]

Notice, Lucky layeth's the smack down on liberal propaganda, and yet it doesn't stop them...

They didn't even wink.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
oh yeah clinton was distracted by starr :rolleyes: try again he was distracted by Lewinsky! obl was ours and bubba said nobecause he was more focused on her.



Bin Laden Arrest Offer Spurned as Clinton Met Lewinsky

At least two offers from the government of Sudan to arrest Osama bin Laden and turn him over to the U.S. were rebuffed by the Clinton administration in February and March of 1996, a period of time when the former president's attention was distracted by his intensifying relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.



NO NO NO! While there is some basis in truth, this simplistic article that turns what would have been a very complex operation and makes it sound like it is all so simple and deletes some key facts of the case (such as Bin Laden was to have been sent to Saudi Arabia, not the US, and they refused to take him) The overall assertion of Clinton ignoring Bin Lickcock is clearly not the case, whether he was getting stress relief blowjobs or not!

It was not so simple nor was it cut and dryed. This rag article you provided makes it seem like a done deal or something which clearly NOT THE CASE. This is puerile "Monica" bullshit at it's most repugnant and you guys make fun of Ford for his BCE theories and then believe this trash! Whatever!

I have research three sources from the provided links. The first is by the Pakistani man that claimed to have "brokered" a deal, which has been discredited. I believe the real story, is the Washington Post article at the end:

PBS.org

May 1996---The Sudan expels bin Laden because of international pressure by the United States and Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden then moves back to Afghanistan. (Source: Jane's Intelligence Review 10/1/98)




© 2001 New York University. All Rights Reserved.

Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away

"Radical Islam was a convenient national security threat"

By Mansoor Ijaz
December 11, 2001

NEW YORK -- President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year. I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities.

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, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, 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.

Realizing the growing problem with Bin Laden, Bashir sent key intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996. The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to "baby-sit" him--monitoring all his activities and associates.

But Saudi officials didn't want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them.

In May 1996, the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked Bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere.

Bin Laden left for Afghanistan, taking with him Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the United States to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who traveled frequently to Germany to obtain electronic equipment for Al Qaeda; Wadih El-Hage, Bin Laden's personal secretary and roving emissary, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel, also accused of carrying out the embassy attacks.

Some of these men are now among the FBI's 22 most-wanted terrorists. The two men who allegedly piloted the planes into the twin towers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, prayed in the same Hamburg mosque as did Salim and Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian trader who managed Salim's bank accounts and whose assets are frozen.

The Sudanese had compiled Important data on each. But U.S. authorities repeatedly turned the data away, first in February 1996; then again that August, when at my suggestion Sudan's religious ideologue, Hassan Turabi, wrote directly to Clinton; then again in April 1997, when I persuaded Bashir to invite the FBI to come to Sudan and view the data; and finally in February 1998, when Sudan's intelligence chief, Gutbi al-Mahdi, wrote directly to the FBI.

Gutbi had shown me some of Sudan's data during a three-hour meeting in Khartoum in October 1996. When I returned to Washington, I told Berger and his specialist for East Africa, Susan Rice, about the data available. They said they'd get back to me. They never did.

Neither did they respond when Bashir made the offer directly. I believe they never had any intention to engage Muslim countries--ally or not. Radical Islam, for the administration, was a convenient national security threat.

And that was not the end of it. In July 2000--three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen--I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with Bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States' closest Arab allies--an ally whose name I am not free to divulge--approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials.

The offer, which would have brought Bin Laden to the Arab country as the first step of an extradition process that would eventually deliver him to the United States, required only that Clinton make a state visit there to personally request Bin Laden's extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family--Clintonian diplomacy at its best.

Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.


Mansoor Ijaz, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is chairman of a New York-based investment company.

Copyright 2001, Global Beat Syndicate, 418 Lafayette Street, Suite 554, New York, NY 10003 http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate.





The National Review

JuLY 2, 2002 8:45 a.m.
Sudan Story
Second-guessing games.


Al Gore is revisiting an old strategy. Back in 1992, the then-vice presidential candidate led the charge against President Bush I's handling of foreign policy. National security was an area in which most thought the former U.N. ambassador, deposer of Noriega and victor of Desert Storm was immune from criticism. However, the Clinton team adroitly turned this supposed immunity into a liability, making charges that were difficult to respond to and impossible to disprove. One such accusation was that Bush in fact caused the Gulf War by coddling Saddam. Therefore, the (incomplete) victory was in fact just damage control, the product of an inept foreign policy. It was a smart tactical ploy, and may have convinced some impressionable people that the Clinton-Gore team would handle foreign affairs more wisely.


Now Gore is assailing another President Bush on a national-security issue by accusing him of failure in not having "gotten Osama bin Laden or the al Qaeda operation." Gore did not offer any helpful hints on how to achieve this goal, but it is nevertheless a clever gimmick. Who can argue with the sought after result? He tossed in a sop to the Left by mentioning that Bush had not provided enough peacekeepers to prevent resurgent warlordism in Afghanistan, but Gore is far ahead of other Democratic 2004 hopefuls in understanding that if they want to criticize the president on the war, they should do it from the right.
However, in so doing, Gore has legitimized an inquest into the role of the administration he served in "getting" bin Laden. Secretary of State Powell raised the issue in his response to Gore on Sunday by mentioning the failure of the Clinton-Gore team to close a deal with the Sudan in the mid-90s when the terrorist haven offered bin Laden up. The sometimes fluctuating details can be found in a series of articles dating back at least to David Rose's September 30, 2001 Observer report, "Resentful west spurned Sudan's key terror files." See also Barton Gellman's October 3, 2001 Washington Post article, "Sudan's Offer to Arrest Militant Fell Through After Saudis Said No," Mark Huband's November 30 Financial Times article, "US rejected Sudanese files on al-Qaeda: Clinton administration refused offer to share terror network intelligence" (posted here — scroll down a bit:, David Rose's expanded account in the December 2001 Vanity Fair, "The Osama Files," and Mansoor Ijaz's December 11, 2001 column (among others) "Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away."
Ijaz is the source for much of this information. He is a Pakistani American investor and Clinton fundraiser who claims to have been an important broker in the deal. Last May 20 on WOR Radio, DNC spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said that Ijaz was lying, that he had "absolutely no credibility," which really only tends to confirm his status as a Clinton insider. However, even she would not deny that something was going on back then. Sandy Berger is quoted in the Gellman article saying "the FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time, and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States." The administration had wanted bin Laden to go someplace where justice was more "streamlined" like Saudi Arabia. Prince Turki al Faisal, former Saudi intelligence chief, confirmed negotiating inconclusively with Sudan, and later with Afghanistan, over bin Laden's extradition. Bin Laden himself has given various reasons for leaving Sudan, including threats from the United States, but is lately unavailable for comment.
As I have argued here before, second-guessing in these situations is not productive. No one knew in 1996 that bin Laden would perpetrate the 9/11 attacks six years later. However, neither can Al Gore be free to make such charges without an examination of his record on the bin Laden issue. Personally, I think such an exercise would be exhausting and distracting. We know how this will shake out, it will be the usual Clinton-Gore m.o., a series of carefully crafted, somewhat ambiguous statements designed to skip around perjury — technical evasions of truth designed primarily to shift blame — explanations worthy of overly clever adolescents that offend common sense (Osama? I recall Usama.) We've seen it before. Nevertheless, if this is the direction Gore wants to go, equity demands a thorough inquiry. In the process, perhaps we will learn more about the war that bin Laden began in 1996 (if not earlier). We will find out why he was not taken seriously sooner, and what gave him the confidence to undertake what he called "the Battles of New York and Washington." It is a New World since 9/11; the question is did the attacks signal the beginning of a new era, or the logical culmination of the old?
— James S. Robbins is a national-security analyst & NRO contributor





The WashingtonPost

U.W. Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts
To Capture Bin Laden or Have Him Killed

Sudan's Offer to Arrest Militant Fell Through After Saudis Said No

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, October 3, 2001; Page A01

The government of Sudan, employing a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency, offered in the early spring of 1996 to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody, according to officials and former officials in all three countries.

The Clinton administration struggled to find a way to accept the offer in secret contacts that stretched from a meeting at a Rosslyn hotel on March 3, 1996, to a fax that closed the door on the effort 10 weeks later. Unable to persuade the Saudis to accept bin Laden, and lacking a case to indict him in U.S. courts at the time, the Clinton administration finally gave up on the capture.

Sudan expelled bin Laden on May 18, 1996, to Afghanistan. From there, he is thought to have planned and financed the twin embassy bombings of 1998, the near-destruction of the USS Cole a year ago and last month's devastation in New York and Washington.

Bin Laden's good fortune in slipping through U.S. fingers torments some former officials with the thought that the subsequent attacks might have been averted. Though far from the central figure he is now, bin Laden had a high and rising place on the U.S. counterterrorism agenda. Internal State Department talking points at the time described him as "one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world today" and blamed him for planning a failed attempt to blow up the hotel used by U.S. troops in Yemen in 1992.

"Had we been able to roll up bin Laden then, it would have made a significant difference," said a U.S. government official with responsibilities, then and now, in counterterrorism. "We probably never would have seen a September 11th. We would still have had networks of Sunni Islamic extremists of the sort we're dealing with here, and there would still have been terrorist attacks fomented by those folks. But there would not have been as many resources devoted to their activities, and there would not have been a single voice that so effectively articulated grievances and won support for violence."
Clinton administration officials maintain emphatically that they had no such option in 1996. In the legal, political and intelligence environment of the time, they said, there was no choice but to allow bin Laden to depart Sudan unmolested.

"The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time, and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States," said Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, who was deputy national security adviser then.

Three Clinton officials said they hoped -- one described it as "a fantasy" -- that Saudi King Fahd would accept bin Laden and order his swift beheading, as he had done for four conspirators after a June 1995 bombing in Riyadh. But Berger and Steven Simon, then director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, said the White House considered it valuable in itself to force bin Laden out of Sudan, thus tearing him away from his extensive network of businesses, investments and training camps.

"I really cared about one thing, and that was getting him out of Sudan," Simon said. "One can understand why the Saudis didn't want him -- he was a hot potato -- and, frankly, I would have been shocked at the time if the Saudis took him. My calculation was, 'It's going to take him a while to reconstitute, and that screws him up and buys time.' "

Conflicting Agendas

Conflicting policy agendas on three separate fronts contributed to the missed opportunity to capture bin Laden, according to a dozen participants. The Clinton administration was riven by differences on whether to engage Sudan's government or isolate it, which influenced judgments about the sincerity of the offer. In the Saudi-American relationship, policymakers diverged on how much priority to give to counterterrorism over other interests such as support for the ailing Israeli-Palestinian talks. And there were the beginnings of a debate, intensified lately, on whether the United States wanted to indict and try bin Laden or to treat him as a combatant in an underground war.

In 1999, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir referred elliptically to his government's early willingness to send bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. But the role of the U.S. government and the secret channel from Khartoum to Washington had not been disclosed before.

The Sudanese offer had its roots in a dinner at the Khartoum home of Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Othman Taha. It was Feb. 6, 1996 -- Ambassador Timothy M. Carney's last night in the country before evacuating the embassy on orders from Washington.

Paul Quaglia, then the CIA station chief in Khartoum, had led a campaign to pull out all Americans after he and his staff came under aggressive surveillance and twice had to fend off attacks, one with a knife and one with claw hammers. Now Carney was instructed, despite his objections, to withdraw all remaining Americans from the country.

Carney and David Shinn, then chief of the State Department's East Africa desk, considered the security threat "bogus," as Shinn described it. Washington's dominant decision-makers on Sudan had lost interest in engagement, preparing plans to isolate and undermine the regime. The two career diplomats thought that was a mistake, and that Washington was squandering opportunities to enlist Sudan's cooperation against radical Islamic groups.

One factor in Washington's hostility was an intelligence tip that Sudan aimed to assassinate national security adviser Anthony Lake, the most visible administration critic of Khartoum. The Secret Service took it seriously enough to remove Lake from his home, shuffling him among safe houses and conveying him around Washington in a heavily armored car. Most U.S. analysts came to believe later that it had been a false alarm.

Taha, distressed at the deteriorating relations, invited Carney and Shinn to dine with him that Tuesday night. He asked what his country could do to dissuade Washington from the view, expressed not long before by then-United Nations Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright, that Sudan was responsible for "continued sponsorship of international terror."

Carney and Shinn had a long list. Bin Laden, as they both recalled, was near the top. So, too, were three members of Egypt's Gamaat i-Islami, Arabic for Islamic Group, who had fled to Sudan after trying to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Sudan also played host to operatives and training facilities for the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

"It was the first substantive chat with the U.S. government on the subject of terrorism," Carney recalled.

Taha mostly listened. He raised no objection to the request for bin Laden's expulsion, though he did not agree to it that night. His only rejoinders came on Hamas and Hezbollah, which his government, like much of the Arab world, regarded as conducting legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation.

Sudanese President Bashir, struggling for dominance over the fiery cleric Hassan Turabi, had already made overtures to the West. Not long before, he had delivered the accused terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal" to France. Less than a month after Taha's dinner, he sent a trusted aide to Washington.

Maj. Gen. Elfatih Erwa, then minister of state for defense, arrived unannounced at the Hyatt Arlington on March 3, 1996. Using standard tradecraft, he checked into one room and then walked to another, across Wilson Boulevard from the Rosslyn Metro.

Carney and Shinn were waiting for him, but the meeting was run by covert operatives from the CIA's Africa division. The Washington Post does not identify active members of the clandestine service. Frank Knott, who was Africa division chief in the directorate of operations at the time, declined to be interviewed.

In a document dated March 8, 1996, the Americans spelled out their demands. Titled "Measures Sudan Can Take to Improve Relations with the United States," the two-page memorandum asked for six things. Second on the list -- just after an angry enumeration of attacks on the CIA station in Khartoum -- was Osama bin Laden.

"Provide us with names, dates of arrival, departure and destination and passport data on mujahedin [holy warriors] that Usama Bin Laden has brought into Sudan," the document demanded. The CIA emissaries told Erwa that they knew of about 200 such bin Laden loyalists in Sudan.

During the next several weeks, Erwa raised the stakes. The Sudanese security services, he said, would happily keep close watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over, though to whom was ambiguous. In one formulation, Erwa said Sudan would consider any legitimate proffer of criminal charges against the accused terrorist. Saudi Arabia, he said, was the most logical destination.

Susan Rice, then senior director for Africa on the NSC, remembers being intrigued with but deeply skeptical of the Sudanese offer. And unlike Berger and Simon, she argued that mere expulsion from Sudan was not enough.

"We wanted them to hand him over to a responsible external authority," she said. "We didn't want them to just let him disappear into the ether."

Lake and Secretary of State Warren Christopher were briefed, colleagues said, on efforts launched to persuade the Saudi government to take bin Laden.

The Saudi idea had some logic, since bin Laden had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, denouncing the ruling House of Saud as corrupt. Riyadh had expelled bin Laden in 1991 and stripped him of his citizenship in 1994, but it wanted no part in jailing or executing him.

Saudis Feared a Backlash

Clinton administration officials recalled that the Saudis feared a backlash from the fundamentalist opponents of the regime. Though regarded as a black sheep, bin Laden was nonetheless an heir to one of Saudi Arabia's most influential families. One diplomat familiar with the talks said there was another reason: The Riyadh government was offended that the Sudanese would go to the Americans with the offer.

Some U.S. diplomats said the White House did not press the Saudis very hard. There were many conflicting priorities in the Middle East, notably an intensive effort to save the interim government of Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Israel, which was reeling under its worst spate of Hamas suicide bombings. U.S. military forces also relied heavily on Saudi forward basing to enforce the southern "no fly zone" in Iraq.

Resigned to bin Laden's departure from Sudan, some officials raised the possibility of shooting down his chartered aircraft, but the idea was never seriously pursued because bin Laden had not been linked to a dead American, and it was inconceivable that Clinton would sign the "lethal finding" necessary under the circumstances.

"In the end they said, 'Just ask him to leave the country. Just don't let him go to Somalia,' " Erwa, the Sudanese general, said in an interview. "We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they said, 'Let him.' "

On May 15, 1996, Foreign Minister Taha sent a fax to Carney in Nairobi, giving up on the transfer of custody. His government had asked bin Laden to vacate the country, Taha wrote, and he would be free to go.

Carney faxed back a question: Would bin Laden retain control of the millions of dollars in assets he had built up in Sudan?

Taha gave no reply before bin Laden chartered a plane three days later for his trip to Afghanistan. Subsequent analysis by U.S. intelligence suggests that bin Laden managed to draw down and redirect the Sudanese assets from his new redoubt in Afghanistan.

From the Sudanese point of view, the failed effort to take custody of bin Laden resulted primarily from the Clinton administration's divisions on how to relate to the Khartoum government -- divisions that remain today as President Bush considers what to do with nations with a history of support for terrorist groups.

Washington, Erwa said, never could decide whether to strike out at Khartoum or demand its help.

"I think," he said, "they wanted to do both."



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© 2001 The Washington Post Company



[URL=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/etc/cron.html[/URL]

[lucky wilbury]

nothing's and nobody been discredited. even bubba ADMITTED there was an offer made . the clitnonites have tried to say that they didn't take obl because there was nothing to hold him on which is bullshit. hell he could have been pick up just for making threats againest us. clinton could have had obl on multiple occasions but choose not to.what was he doing at the time of these offers? hanging with monica. plain and simple. you said clinton was distracted but it was by star it was by monica. it wasen't a complex operation either. the sudanese we offering to go get him and all we had to do was fly him out of the country. nothing hard about that.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0144/gould.php

How the U.S. Missed a Chance to Get Bin Laden
Thanks, But No Thanks
by Jennifer Gould
October 31 - November 6, 2001

From his offices at the Sudan Mission, the turbaned, white-robed United Nations ambassador sips strong cinnamon coffee and tells a tale of intrigue that might have prevented the worst mass murder in American history.

Osama bin Laden could have been in U.S. custody five years ago if Washington had accepted an offer from the Sudanese government. So says UN ambassador and major general Elfatih Erwa, who, as Sudan's then minister of state for defense, flew from Khartoum to Washington for secret negotiations with the CIA in 1996.

When Washington finally declined the offer—because the FBI did not believe it had sufficient evidence to try Bin Laden in a U.S. court—and Saudi Arabia refused Washington's request to arrest and even execute the terrorist, the U.S. demanded that Bin Laden leave Sudan for any other country except Somalia. "Bin Laden worked with groups who wanted to create a perfect Islamic state," Erwa says. "But Somalia is a tribal, clan-based culture, not Islamic. He found that with the Taliban."

Khartoum then watched as Bin Laden packed up his arms, money, and followers, chartered a plane, and fled for Afghanistan. "We told him Sudan is no longer safe for him and creates problems for us and asked him to leave," Erwa recalls. "We liquidated everything, and he left with his money. We didn't confiscate anything because there was no legal basis. Nobody had indicted him. He rented a charter plane and left in broad daylight. He was free to plot and build his network. The Americans then came back and wanted us to help track him, but by then it was too late. He didn't trust us anymore."

Khartoum warned Washington it was making a mistake: "The Americans thought he needed a base in Sudan," Erwa notes. "We warned them. In Sudan, Bin Laden and his money were under our control. But we knew that if he went to Afghanistan no one could control him. The U.S. didn't care; they just didn't want him in Somalia. It's crazy. They don't get it. It's a culture of arrogance that will make them always blind. They forgot about human intelligence after the Cold War. The feeling of supremacy led them astray. Many think that. Now they're harvesting the thorns."


Anthony Lake, then U.S. national security adviser, says Washington was skeptical of Sudan's offer. He adds that Sudan—which is still on America's list of state sponsors of terrorism—may be bringing up the story now because it fears U.S. bombing attacks during the war on terrorism.

At the time, there was a split between U.S officials who wanted to work with Sudan to counter terrorism and those who wanted to isolate that nation. Washington ended up pulling out its diplomats for 18 months, and at one point there was even alarm that Lake was an assassination target. Lake says the U.S. did the best it could at the time "to give no sanctuary anywhere and to keep him on the run.

"I think the fundamental problem is that Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are not like Hamas and Hizbullah," Lake adds. "They have no clear political agenda. They are reacting to changes in their society that they find threatening. Any administration will make mistakes. There is no magic solution."

[b]Nevertheless, one U.S. intelligence source in the region called the lost opportunity a disgrace. "We kidnap minor drug czars and bring them back in burlap bags. Somebody didn't want this to happen." He added that the State Department may have blocked Bin Laden's arrest to placate a part of the Saudi Arabian government that supported Bin Laden. (Much of Bin Laden's funding and some of his followers, including suicide bombers, come from Saudi Arabia, which was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban. That changed after September 11. By then, the Saudis had fired their longtime intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, reportedly for his support of Bin Laden.)

Forgoing the opportunity to arrest Bin Laden was "not the most brilliant maneuver we've ever made," notes another former intelligence chief familiar with the story. "But everything looks good in hindsight."

Another American involved in the secret negotiations says the U.S. could have used Khartoum's offer to keep an eye on Bin Laden, but that the efforts were blocked by another arm of the federal government. "I've never seen a brick wall like that before. Somebody let this slip up," the intelligence chief says. "We could have dismantled his operations and put a cage on top. It was not a matter of arresting Bin Laden but of access to information. That's the story, and that's what could have prevented September 11. I knew it would come back to haunt us."


Former National Security Council officials disagree. They say that, as a base for terrorist operations, Somalia was at greater risk than Afghanistan at the time because the Taliban was not yet in power. Washington hoped that forcing Bin Laden to move would disrupt and slow down his terror activities.

Perhaps a tragedy like September 11 would have happened sooner if the U.S. hadn't forced Bin Laden out of Sudan, says Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There is a gulf between intelligence knowledge that someone's up to no good and being able to prove it," Benjamin says. "If Bin Laden had stayed in Sudan, he might have destroyed the World Trade Center four years ago and we might have seen far worse by now. Bin Laden had a small empire in Sudan that posed a great danger. One couldn't know he'd recoup so fast."

Other ex-officials doubt the sincerity of Sudan's offer because of its track record of supporting terrorism. "It's like an alcoholic saying he won't have another drink," says Susan Rice, a former assistant secretary of state for African affairs who was then senior director for Africa on the NSC. "At the time we had no basis to prosecute Bin Laden in a U.S. court. It would have been a huge mistake to try him and let him go free, and the Saudis didn't want him. Our desire was not to let him remain in Sudan, which was an active state sponsor of terrorism. There was no government operating in Somalia. We wanted him to go somewhere where he wouldn't disappear into the ether. We had no discussion of him going to Afghanistan."

Rice also says Sudan made the offer knowing the U.S. couldn't accept it. "They calculated that we didn't have the means to successfully prosecute Bin Laden. That's why I question the sincerity of the offer."

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
[B]nothing's and nobody been discredited. even bubba ADMITTED there was an offer made . the clitnonites have tried to say that they didn't take obl because there was nothing to hold him on which is bullshit. hell he could have been pick up just for making threats againest us. clinton could have had obl on multiple occasions but choose not to.what was he doing at the time of these offers? hanging with monica. plain and simple.

But it wasn't a direct offer of extradition like the article makes it sound! Yes there was an offer, but it was a complex on at best that had Bin Laden going to Saudi Arabia! This isn't an episode of CSI. Plus the Sudanese were up to there ass in working with Bin Laden, should we have worked more with them--YES! But they are untrustworthy genocidal assholes in their own right, you know like that guy we overthrew in Iraq?, but the Sudanese have spun this as well, by the way one of the sources you provided was the Sudanese State media. The Village Voice article is quoting the fucking Sudanese UN Ambassador for Christ sakes, Am I supposed to believe him? Don't you guys hate the UN?

[lucky wilbury]

that one was thrown in awhile ago for ford. that list of links is old. it doesn't matter if saudi arabia wanted him or not. obl was wanted here in this country. WE could have had him. the sudanese offer was for anyone that wanted him. clinton said no and told saudi arabia to take him. they said no. in the end he left for afghanistan.

[Nickdfresh]

You believe what you want, but you are making a very gray area sound black and white in my opinion. We'll agree to disagree. Interesting reading nonetheless. Thanks for the links.

[ODShowtime]

I just can't imagine that Clinton was too busy getting head to do his job. That's silly. It's just silly. How long does a blow-job take? At most like 20 minutes.

At least he was in the Oval Office instead of back at the ranch.

And this talk of 17 Generals being shot down is absolutely ridiculous and has less merit than almost all of Ford's theories. Nonsense.

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
I just can't imagine that Clinton was too busy getting head to do his job. That's silly. It's just silly. How long does a blow-job take? At most like 20 minutes.

having an affair, on the job, in a place that has the highest security imaginable, takes a certain pre-occupation of one's thoughts...

Would you not agree ?? If not, try to imagine...

What you just said is "silly"...

At least he was in the Oval Office instead of back at the ranch.

Now you're being stupid!

Ronald Reagan NEVER entered the Oval Office without a proper suit and tie! Look it up, It's documented...

That show's a tremendous level of respect for the office of the Presidency. Something Clinton took advantage of and abused...

And if you want to give me some crap about one's private life being different than their public life, tell it to someone else...





:elvis:

[Nickdfresh]

having an affair, on the job, in a place that has the highest security imaginable, takes a certain pre-occupation of one's thoughts...

Would you not agree ?? If not, try to imagine...

What you just said is "silly"...

Many would say that is silly.

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Many would say that is silly.

Shut up...

[Nickdfresh]

Is that the best you got?

[ELVIS]

No...

But it was appropriate for what you just said...

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by ELVIS
having an affair, on the job, in a place that has the highest security imaginable, takes a certain pre-occupation of one's thoughts...

Would you not agree ?? If not, try to imagine...

Sure it's a pre-occupation. So is thinking about what you want for lunch. So is chugging diet pepsi and talking to God or whatever the hell your bullshit president does in office when not issuing proclamations from on high.

I personally feel that when looking at someone's morals, there are more important things than sexual proclivity. I don't know where people get off saying gw has such great morals, but if you look at it objectively (which I used to do before forming my opinion) you will see that he is morally bankrupt. Can't you see how he panders to religious types such as yourself? It's right in front of you if you open your eyes. I guess it doesn't matter now. The damage is done.

Ronald Reagan NEVER entered the Oval Office without a proper suit and tie! Look it up, It's documented...

What the hell does that have to do with anything?

[John Ashcroft]

So, Clinton was so preoccupied with terrorism, that he had it's father in the White House more than any other head of state...

[ELVIS]

Hmmm...

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
So, Clinton was so preoccupied with terrorism, that he had it's father in the White House more than any other head of state...

At least he occationally held meetings on the subject unlike some presidents.

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by ODShowtime

Sure it's a pre-occupation.



Bill Clintons life is full of documented extramarital affairs...

Living that sort of life requires lying, cheating, and generally a high level of deception...

I believe that who you are is a sum total of what you do, and the way you conduct one part of your life is generally how you conduct all of your life...

Bill Clinton is a con man...

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by ELVIS
I believe that who you are is a sum total of what you do, and the way you conduct one part of your life is generally how you conduct all of your life...

Ok, but gw's past life get's erased when he finds God? :confused:

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Bill Clinton is a con man...

EVERY good politician is a con man!

[Pink Spider]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
EVERY good politician is a con man!


Not the savior of democracy; Saint Bush, The Triumphant.

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
Ok, but gw's past life get's erased when he finds God? :confused:

In God's eyes, yes, If he truly repents...

In man's eyes things are a little different in the sense that one needs to generally show proof that they have learned from their mistakes...

That's what true repentance is...

[John Ashcroft]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
At least he occationally held meetings on the subject unlike some presidents.

Ah... Right! The "process" was in place. Results be damned! So long as a process is in place!

Isn't the road to hell paved with good intentions?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
Ah... Right! The "process" was in place. Results be damned! So long as a process is in place!

Isn't the road to hell paved with good intentions?

Like 9/11(2001)? Did any Bush "processes" save that?

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by ELVIS
In man's eyes things are a little different in the sense that one needs to generally show proof that they have learned from their mistakes...

Which means when it was my chance to judge him I did. That's the best I could do. 1 measely vote.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Like 9/11(2001)?

How many times were American Interests attacked during Clinton's terms?

Now, how many attacks have there been during Bush's?

Thank You!
Please add another quarter and play again.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Cathedral
How many times were American Interests attacked during Clinton's terms?

Now, how many attacks have there been during Bush's?

Thank You!
Please add another quarter and play again.

How many Americans died in attacks during Clinton's term?

Now, how many Americans died in attacks during Bush's?

Thank You!
Please choose your stats more carefully next time and please play again.

[Nickdfresh]

And where did those attacks take place?

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
How many Americans died in attacks during Clinton's term?

Now, how many Americans died in attacks during Bush's?

Thank You!
Please choose your stats more carefully next time and please play again.

Excuse me?
Oh, so i guess it was Bush who determined how many died by anothers hands?

Um, before you go strutting away, patting your Un-American back, lets remember that when 9-11 was planned, Bush wasn't even a whisper for the White House.

If Clinton had done his job, 9-11 may never have happened.

Your point is in left field, so YOUR quarter was rejected.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
And where did those attacks take place?

Who was sitting in the Oval Office when planning began for that attack?

Sorry, but you aren't going to be able to pin that shit on Bush because the math doesn't add up.
I used the word "math" because you have no idea what "facts" are.

[Pink Spider]

Originally posted by Cathedral
Who was sitting in the Oval Office when planning began for that attack?

Sorry, but you aren't going to be able to pin that shit on Bush because the math doesn't add up.
I used the word "math" because you have no idea what "facts" are.

Unless you're Al-Ciada, how could you possibly have a clue as to when September 11th was planned?

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Cathedral
Um, before you go strutting away, patting your Un-American back, lets remember that when 9-11 was planned, Bush wasn't even a whisper for the White House.

I was just pointing out your poor logic. The number of attacks is not as important as the severity of the attacks. And it isn't really important whose watch the attacks were planned under. The politicians whose policies instigated the attacks should be under scrutiny.

And by the way, calling me un-American is really disgraceful.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Cathedral
Who was sitting in the Oval Office when planning began for that attack?

Clinton. You know why most security analysts believe Bin Laden went completely psychotic? Because Clinton had the Navy fire cruise missiles into Afghanistan which missed Osama by a few minutes but killed a significant number of al-Qaida and their family members. That's when the planning for 9/11 began.

Who was sitting in the Oval Office when people were complaining to the FBI about Arabic men in flight schools who wanted to learn how to steer a plane in flight--but not take off or land? Bush!

Sorry, but you aren't going to be able to pin that shit on Bush because the math doesn't add up.
I used the word "math" because you have no idea what "facts" are.

And I have plenty grasp of the facts. I don't conveniently mold them to my political beliefs unlike some people!

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by ODShowtime

And by the way, calling me un-American is really disgraceful.

No, the shit you spew about this country is what is disgraceful, dude.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
And I have plenty grasp of the facts. I don't conveniently mold them to my political beliefs unlike some people!

Please, your so called facts are nothing more than articles written by people as biased as you are.
Talk to those who are serving and have served if you want the real story.
Your posts are full of the media bias you have chosen to absorb, not mine.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Cathedral
No, the shit you spew about this country is what is disgraceful, dude.


But it's ok for you to spew about Clinton, who was the President? Do you listen to yourself? I used to have some respect for you. You really have gone off the deep end today.

Just remember the little part of yourself that came out a day or two before the election and realized what the fuck is going on. He's in there, eating you alive.

[Pink Spider]

Originally posted by Cathedral
No, the shit you spew about this country is what is disgraceful, dude.

If being American means never criticizing and lack of respect for freedom of speech, then count me among the un-Americans.

[Cathedral]

OD, I respect the office of Presidency more than any man who ever held that office.
I also understand that Bill Clinton had no respect for it, he proved it more than once.

I am not a huge Bush fan, but i'm even less of a Kerry fan.
I honestly did battle over my vote before i cast it, that is true, and if Kerry hadn't had the record he does maybe things would have turned out differently.

No American President gets more than 8 years to serve, but what gets my crawl is the attitude that after 8 years of a Democrat representing the liberal's agenda, you kick and scream when the other side gets a shot at it.
But in all honesty, the GOP can't take credit for the amount of seats and power lost by the Democrat's. but looking in the mirror never happens when they are too damn busy trying to pass the blame to someone else.
It's that party that has the trouble, and it is that party that will need to address it before they lose every damn seat they have.

I am all for equal representation for all, does your political bias prevent you from feeling the same way about the opposition?
it doesn't appear to be so from what i read here.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Pink Spider
If being American means never criticizing and lack of respect for freedom of speech, then count me among the un-Americans.

That's not what i'm saying at all. Hell, even i am critical of what Bush does and how he does it at times.

My complaint about OD is the hate context of his previous posts right after the election.
His attitude that half the country doesn't rate a voice is not exactly an American attitude.

There is simply no talking to you people, i am now convinced.
It's all negative, hate filled banter that only serves to divide this nation even further.
Keep it up, it won't get you into the White House, and you'd be better off spending your time finding a candidate that is worth turning my vote to the other side.
If the right person were to run i would even overlook my stance on abortion for the greater good of the American people.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Cathedral
I am not a huge Bush fan, but i'm even less of a Kerry fan.
I honestly did battle over my vote before i cast it, that is true, and if Kerry hadn't had the record he does maybe things would have turned out differently.

I see what you mean. JK was not my ideal candidate. I will try to take that into consideration next time I go at it with you.

I am all for equal representation for all, does your political bias prevent you from feeling the same way about the opposition? it doesn't appear to be so from what i read here.

The problem with that is that the republican agenda right now is being hi-jacked to attack people's freedoms. I'm sensitive to that. I agree with so much the repubs have to offer, so much of it! But the other part is some of the most greedy, evil politics ever to play out on the human stage.

Awe fuck it! It don't matta!

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Cathedral
My complaint about OD is the hate context of his previous posts right after the election.
His attitude that half the country doesn't rate a voice is not exactly an American attitude.

I'll straighten this out. I have a profound HATRED for the people in this country that capitalized on people's fear and ignorance to win an election. It's the oldest and dirtiest (and unfortunately the most effective) trick in the book. And millions fell for it.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
I'll straighten this out. I have a profound HATRED for the people in this country that capitalized on people's fear and ignorance to win an election. It's the oldest and dirtiest (and unfortunately the most effective) trick in the book. And millions fell for it.

Thank you ODShow, your far more articulate than I am!

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Thank you ODShow, your far more articulate than I am!

I was impressed with your use of 'Fucktard' in a couple posts earlier today. We both have a lot we can share with the world.

[Pink Spider]

Originally posted by Cathedral
That's not what i'm saying at all. Hell, even i am critical of what Bush does and how he does it at times.

It's a start.

His attitude that half the country doesn't rate a voice is not exactly an American attitude.

An "American" attitude? Where's the general mistrust of government? The search for more freedom? Where did that go? Just because over half of the country, or nearly all of the country makes a decision doesn't mean it's right. The minority always has the chance to voice their opinions even if it's criticizing the majority. It's all fair.

There is simply no talking to you people, i am now convinced.
It's all negative, hate filled banter that only serves to divide this nation even further.

A divided nation? Great! The longer you work against each other the better chance we have of surviving. They do enough damage separately. I'd hate to think what would happen if they were completely united!

Keep it up, it won't get you into the White House, and you'd be better off spending your time finding a candidate that is worth turning my vote to the other side.

I don't expect to ever get in the White House anytime soon. Maybe when I'm old enough to run... ;)

If the right person were to run i would even overlook my stance on abortion for the greater good of the American people.

Politicians never make anything go away. Don't hold your breath.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
I'll straighten this out. I have a profound HATRED for the people in this country that capitalized on people's fear and ignorance to win an election. It's the oldest and dirtiest (and unfortunately the most effective) trick in the book. And millions fell for it.

Yes they did, but you have to admit that both sides were playing the fear card.
Neither worked on me because i have this inability to fear people for some reason.
When i think of Bin Laden, I don't get scared, I get angry and think things i should know better than to think.

I find myself lowering myself to their level by wanting his head on a pole.
I come by rage quite honestly, my father was the perfect teacher in that area and it has gotten me into far too many physical battles.

I do however try diplomacy first, that's my mothers influence, lol.

I prefer to kick some ass though... ;)

[Warham]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
I'll straighten this out. I have a profound HATRED for the people in this country that capitalized on people's fear and ignorance to win an election. It's the oldest and dirtiest (and unfortunately the most effective) trick in the book. And millions fell for it.

You better get mad at the Democratic party (including Charles Rangel, who brought up the damn bill) for trying to instigate all that 'Bush is going to restart the draft' talk, trying to scare teenagers and twenty-somethings to vote for Kerry. They tried to capitalize on people's ignorance and fears. Thank God it didn't work.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
You better get mad at the Democratic party (including Charles Rangel, who brought up the damn bill) for trying to instigate all that 'Bush is going to restart the draft' talk, trying to scare teenagers and twenty-somethings to vote for Kerry. They tried to capitalize on people's ignorance and fears. Thank God it didn't work.

The problem is that it's not just the Democrat's talking about the military being over extended and fighting as prolonged war with an all-volunteer force for the first time in history.

And Rangel's bill was meant more as a statement about the (incorrect) assertion that the majority of dying is done by minorities. This was based on Vietnam, but lately it's been mostly white, middle class people getting killed and wounded.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Thank you ODShow, your far more articulate than I am!

Most High School graduates are. :gulp:

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Most High School graduates are. :gulp:

When do you graduate?:p :guzzle: