The Truth About Clinton and Bin Laden: Another Right-Wing Talking Point Exposed

It has become reflexive for Bush administration apologists to answer any criticism with an excoriation of Bill Clinton.

Some say that George W. Bush’s actions are driven, in part, by his desire to step out from his father’s shadow. But given the administration’s tendency to cower behind Bill Clinton, there’s obviously a larger and more recent shadow that the Bush Administration won’t or can’t escape.

Ask why President Bush is spying on Americans without warrants, and his spokespeople cry that President Clinton spied on Americans too. (They just leave off the part where the Clinton Administration complied with FISA court warrant requirements in order to do so.)

Ask why FEMA’s response to hurricane Katrina was so poor, and Rush Limbaugh starts babbling about Monica and a blue dress.

It has not only become predictable, but comedic. Just watch Anne Coulter. She’s like a demented yellow-parrot who can’t stop squawking inappropriate lines or hilariously yanking out her own feathers on national television.

But one Clinton-bashing RNC talking point is not funny or comedic in the slightest. It’s a lie meant to disguise the miserable job that Republicans have done at avenging 9/11, and it’s being promoted with increasing desperation as we approach the mid-term elections.

The lie is that Bill Clinton had an easy opportunity to capture Osama Bin Ladin, but let him get away.

It’s one thing to hear this on Fox News; America’s Propaganda Network predictably allows this contention to go unrefuted by discoverable facts. It’s quite another thing when the lie has become so pervasive that ABC feels entitled to air a “docu-drama” which supports that lie.

ABC’s drama will purportedly conflate separate incidents into a single fictional account that gives the impression that U.S. operatives were literally standing outside Bin Ladin’s compound ready to go and Clinton refused to give the order. Allegedly, the television program will even depict a make-believe phone call in which Sandy Berger tells field agents that if they go after Bin Ladin, they’ll have to do it without the support of the U.S. Government.

This warped account is pure wing-nut fantasy. It’s both fictional and irresponsibly untrue. But is it even truthy?

Richard Clarke, a terrorism expert who served under Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and George W. Bush, refutes this claim utterly. Clarke does describe an incident in which Clinton hesitates on a question of international law until Al Gore persuades him to be more aggressive. But Clarke maintains that at no time was Clinton ever given an opportunity to capture Osama Bin Ladin that he failed to give the go order.

And if Richard Clarke’s testimony isn’t good enough for you, the 9/11 Commission itself discredits the claim that Clinton ever refused an offer of Osama bin Ladin on a silver platter.

According to the official findings of the Commission, the Clinton Administration was looking for ways to capture Osama Bin Ladin as early as 1996, when he was still thought to be a mere financier of terrorist organizations and not the criminal mastermind that we know him to be today.

In 1997 the Clinton Administration considered a plan to ambush Bin Ladin when he traveled between Kandahar and Tarnak Farms, a location intelligence assets suggested was Bin Ladin’s primary residence. However, when the Administration received reports that Afghan rebels attempted this ambush and failed, they refocused their energies on a plan involving a night-time raid on Tarnak Farms itself.

The Commander of Delta Force was uncomfortable with the new plan as drawn up. And the Commander of Joint Special Operations Forces, Lt. General Michael Canavan felt that the plan was too complicated for the CIA to carry out. Meanwhile, Sandy Berger began to doubt that the intelligence we were receiving from Afghan tribals was reliable.

Counterterrorist Center officers briefed Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh, telling them that the operation to raid Tarnak Farms had about a 30 percent chance of success. Richard Clarke thought the mission as planned, which relied heavily upon local Afghan tribals, was “half-assed.”

CIA Director George Tenet scheduled a meeting with the principals to get the go-ahead on the mission (including cabinet members and the President). But this meeting never happened.

After seeing a dress-rehearsal of the operation, George Tenet himself shut down the mission, and says he made the decision alone. The plan was never even submitted to the White House for approval.

(Much less were eager operatives watching Osama Bin Ladin eat crackers in his Lazy-Boy Lounger, unable to capture him only because Bill Clinton was too chicken to give the order.)

What we do know is that after Osama Bin Ladin bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Bill Clinton personally ordered simultaneous military strike camps in Afghanistan, and was roundly criticized by Republicans for “Wagging the Dog” to distract from his Monica Lewinsky scandal.

We also know that President Clinton sent strong Memoranda to the CIA reiterating that they were authorized to use tribal assets or other means to hunt down Osama Bin Ladin, and kill him if necessary. And we know that President Clinton personally negotiated with the leader of Pakistan and secured a joint plan to capture Bin Ladin – plans that evaporated when Mr. Sharif was violently overthrown by General Pervez Musharraf.

We also know that President Clinton demanded daily intelligence reports about Bin Ladin after 1998 and that his administration successfully thwarted a Millenium Attack – with connections to what we would eventually understand to be Al Qaeda – by arresting an Algerian Jihadist smuggling a load of explosives into the U.S.

And finally, we also know that when the Bush Administration transitioned into power, they did not agree with Clinton officials that terrorism should be the major priority of their administration until after September 11, 2001.

Certainly, the attacks on the United States cannot be said to be Mr. Bush’s fault. The blame lies squarely with the terrorists.

But neither can it be tolerated when apologists for the Bush Administration try to hide their failures with unfounded, slanderous accusations against the previous administration.