Morris: Clinton Was Oblivious to Khobar Towers Terror Alert
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2001 6:20 p.m. EST
newsmax.com
Former chief White House political adviser Dick Morris revealed Tuesday that his former boss Bill Clinton cared so little about global terrorism that his own assistant secretary of state had trouble getting him to pay attention to a bomb threat against the Khobar Towers Air Force barracks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
"In 1996, I got a phone call from Dick Holbrooke," Morris told WABC Radio's Sean Hannity.
"He said, 'We're getting hard intelligence that terrorists are planning another hit on our guys in Riyadh. ... They're in the exact same building they were in when it was hit last time.'"
In June 1996, the Khobar Towers military barracks had been hit by a suicide bomber believed sent by Osama bin Laden, killing 19 American airmen.
Months later, after the barracks had been repaired, U.S. military personnel reoccupied it.
Holbrooke told Morris that the new U.S. Air Force tenants were "sitting ducks in that building," and then added:
"I've been trying to get a hold of the president for two weeks about this and we're getting increasing reports about [the threat]. Can you call him?"
Morris said that when he reached Clinton about Holbrooke's warning, the president began cursing and complained, "You mean they're still in that building? I ordered six weeks ago for them to be dispersed."
Clinton said he would take care of the problem at a meeting with the Joint Chiefs the next day, Morris recalled.
"But he didn't follow it up," the top political strategist noted. "He didn't know whether they were in the buildings or not. He was inaccessible, so the guy who knew [about the threat] couldn't be in touch with him."
Morris told Hannity the oversight was typical of the way the administration worked.
"Clinton was a one-issue-at-a-time guy," he said, adding that the only foreign policy issue that seemed to engage him was Bosnia.
The reference to Bosnia prompted this exchange:
HANNITY: The only time he paid attention to foreign policy was when he had Monica working - who was he speaking to, what Alabama congressman?
MORRIS: Yeah, right. But the - well, he spoke to me on one of those ...
HANNITY: Ahhhwwww!
MORRIS: He did. No, no, I'm in the Starr Report. I'm one of the four conversations [where Clinton had sex with Lewinsky while talking to others on the phone].
Citing another example of Clinton's lax attitude toward terrorism, the former White House political guru noted his boss never visited the World Trade Center after it was bombed in February 1993.
"When the bombing happened, he just issued a statement saying we'll fight them and all that. And then he gave it his Saturday radio address. ... It was never a big priority."
During Clinton's second term, Morris said, he was "terribly, terribly and totally distracted by impeachment. There was no way that he was going to pay enough attention to an issue like terrorism.
"In the second term," Morris said, "we didn't have a president. Now, was it his fault for Monica? Was it the Republicans' fault for impeaching? Was it his fault for not resigning? Who knows.
"But the fact is the United States didn't have a president for two years and that's why." |
