Just before the missile strike, Sudan detained two men suspected of bombing the American embassies, notifying Washington, US officials confirmed. But the US rejected Sudan's offer of cooperation, and after the bombing Sudan "angrily released" the suspects (James Risen, NYT, July 30, 1999), since named as bin Laden operatives. Recently leaked FBI memos add another reason why Sudan "angrily released" the bin Laden associates. The memos confirm that the FBI wanted the suspects extradited, but the State Department refused. One "senior CIA source" now describes this and other rejections of Sudanese offers of cooperation as "the worst single intelligence failure in this whole terrible business [of Sept. 11]. It is the key to the whole thing right now," because of the voluminous evidence on bin Laden that Sudan offered to produce, offers that were repeatedly rebuffed because of the administration's "irrational hatred" of the Sudan, the senior CIA source reports. Included in Sudan's rejected offers was "a vast intelligence database on Osama bin Laden and more than 200 leading members of his al-Qaeda terrorist network in the years leading up to the 11 September attacks." Washington was "offered thick files, with photographs and detailed biographies of many of his principal cadres, and vital information about al-Qaeda's financial interests in many parts of the globe," but refused to accept the information, out of "irrational hatred" of the target of its missile attack. "It is reasonable to say that had we had this data we may have had a better chance of preventing the attacks" of Sept. 11, the same senior CIA source concludes (David Rose, Observer, Sept. 30, reporting an Observer investigation).
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