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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (201984)	11/12/2001 7:20:07 AM
From: Carolyn	Respond to of 769670

Grub!

To: Carolyn who wrote (201984)	11/12/2001 7:42:42 AM
From: Ish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

<<Why Clinton failed to stop bin Laden>> He was spending too much time trim wrangling to be concerned with national security.

To: Carolyn who wrote (201984)	11/12/2001 8:53:43 AM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 769670

Page got some important elements wrong. The most important one being that Sudan offered to serve up OBL to the US - and the Clinton regime refused that offer. Please read: Sudan's Angle How Clinton passed up an opportunity to stop Osama bin Laden. BY RICHARD MINITER Monday, October 8, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT "....President Bashir saw a unique opportunity to weaken his bitter foe while simultaneously repairing his ties with America and Western Europe by arresting and deporting the gun-toting guardians of his rival. Through a back channel--an Arlington, Va.-based woman who had frequent contact with President Bashir--Sudan made an approach to both the CIA and the FBI in the spring of 1996. A secretive meeting near the Rosslyn Metro stop on March 3, 1996, and a series of cables and faxes fleshed out the offer. Sudan would take bin Laden into custody and turn him over to Washington--or to any other government the Clinton administration designated. A few facts made Sudan's claim credible. Sudan turned over the infamous "Carlos the Jackal" to France--which makes it plausible that Khartoum would agree to hand over a then less infamous terrorist to a much greater power. To prove its bona fides, Sudan provided a series of surveillance photographs and other intelligence material that revealed that they kept close watch on bin Laden. They knew his whereabouts and had the ability to bring a large force to bear in a surprise attack on bin Laden. In fact, a Sudanese representative told me, bin Laden could have been captured as his truck moved through the streets of Khartoum. In addition, Sudan offered to turn over all of its files on bin Laden--the result of more than four years of day-to-day surveillance. A Sudanese government representative indicated that these files filled several rooms and included the history of numerous financial transactions, which could be used to expose the global spider web known as al Qaeda. Finally, Sudan has little incentive to lie about bin Laden these days. The U.N. Security Council recently lifted its sanctions on Khartoum, and Washington has warmed to the dictatorship whose help it may need to win the war on terrorism. Ultimately the Clinton administration refused Khartoum's offer. Instead, the Clinton administration simply asked the Sudanese to deport bin Laden. Steven Simon, director of counterterrorism on President Clinton's National Security Council, told the Washington Post: "I really cared about one thing, and that was getting him out of Sudan." The Clinton administration hoped that Saudi Arabia might agree to arrest, try and execute the terrorist. This was a mind-bogglingly shallow reading of Saudi politics. The Saudi regime is weak and fears the retaliation of the many militant groups active on its soil. "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," Mr. Simon told the Post. The Clinton administration focused on buying time, not fighting terrorists. "My calculation was, 'it's going to take him a while to reconstitute, and that screws him up and buys time.,' " Nor did the administration believe that extraditing bin Laden to America would be wise. "In the United States, we have this thing called the Constitution, so to bring him here is to bring him into the justice system," Sandy Berger, who in 1996 was deputy national security adviser, told the Post. "I don't think that was our first choice. Our first choice was to send him someplace where justice is more"--Mr. Berger paused, according to the Post--"streamlined." Senior Clinton staffers told the Post about a "fantasy" in which the Saudis would kill bin Laden. But let's not pass too quickly over Mr. Berger's careless words. If the Clinton administration sought "streamlined" justice and saw bin Laden as a great enough threat to America's interests that they hoped another country would kill him, the president could have secretly overturned the executive order banning assassinations of terrorists and sent in a U.S. Army sniper team. Clearly what Clinton officials really wanted was for another country to take the political heat...." opinionjournal.com