PRESIDENT CLINTON: All right, let's talk about it (AL Qaida). I will answer all those things on the merits. But first, I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I'm being asked this on the Fox network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative running their little "Pathway (sic/Path) to 9/11," falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicting the 9/11 commission report.
And I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say I didn't do enough claim that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush's neocons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office -- all the right-wingers who now say I didn't do enough said I did too much, same people. They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993, the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk Down. And I refused to do it, and stayed six months, and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.
Okay, now let's look at the all the criticisms. Black Hawk Down, Somalia: There is not a living soul in the world who thought Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down, or was paying any attention to it, or even knew al Qaeda was a growing concern in October '93.
MR. WALLACE: I understand that. And I --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, wait. No wait. No wait. Don't tell me -- you ask me why I didn't do more to bin Laden. There was not a living soul -- all the people who now criticize me wanted to leave the next day. You brought this up, so you get an answer. But you can't --
MR. WALLACE: Bin Laden said that it showed the weakness of the United States.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: But it didn't. It would have shown the weakness if we had left right away. But he wasn't involved in that. That's just a bunch of bull. That was about Mohamed Aidid, a Muslim warlord murdering 22 Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all there on a humanitarian mission, and we had no mission -- none -- to establish a certain kind of Somali government or keep anybody out. He was not a religious fanatic --
MR. WALLACE: May I ask a general question --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: You brought it up.
MR. WALLACE: And then you can answer? The 9/11 commission, which you talk about -- and this is what they did say, not what ABC pretended they said.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: What do they say?
MR. WALLACE: They said about you and President Bush, and I quote, "The U.S. government took the threat seriously, but not in the sense of mustering anything like the kind of effort that would be gathered to confront an enemy of the first, second, or even third rank."
PRESIDENT CLINTON: First of all, that's not true with us and bin Laden.
MR. WALLACE: Well, I'm talking about the 9/11 commission.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: All right, let's look at what Richard Clarke said. You think Richard Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, I do.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: You do, don't you?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, he has a variety of opinions and loyalties, but yes.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: That's right. He has a variety of opinions and loyalties now, but let's look at the facts. He worked for Ronald Reagan; he was loyal to him. He worked for George H.W. Bush; he was loyal to him. He worked for me, and he was loyal to me. He worked for President Bush; he was loyal to him. They downgraded him in the terrorist operation. Now, look what he said. Read his book and read his factual assertions -- not opinions; assertions.
He said we took vigorous action after the African embassies. We probably nearly got bin Laden. I authorized -- now, wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Now, wait a minute.
MR. WALLACE: You fought to use cruise missiles.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, no. I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him. The CIA was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom; he said he did a good job setting up all these counterterrorism things. The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there. And if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and launch a full-scale attack to search for bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible. While I was there, they refused to certify. So that meant I would have had to send a few hundred Special Forces in, in helicopters and refuel at night. Even the 9/11 commission didn't do that.
Now, the 9/11 commission was a political document, too. All I'm asking you is, anybody who wants to say I didn't do enough, you read Richard Clarke's book --
MR. WALLACE: Do you think you did enough, sir?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, because I didn't get him.
But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terrorist strategy, and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.
So, you did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice, little conservative hit job on me.
MR. WALLACE: But --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: What I want to know --
MR. WALLACE: But wait a minute, sir. I'm going to ask a question. You don't think that's a legitimate question?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question. But I want to know, how many people in the Bush administration you ask this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you ask, why didn't you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many people you ask, why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know how many people you ask about this.
MR. WALLACE: We ask, we ask -- have you ever watched "Fox News Sunday," sir?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I don't believe you ask them that.
MR. WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: You didn't ask that, did you? Tell the truth, Chris.
MR. WALLACE: On the USS Cole?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris.
MR. WALLACE: With Iraq and Afghanistan, there's plenty of stuff to ask, sir.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Tell the truth, Chris. Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you're going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch's supporting my work on climate change. And you came here on false pretenses and said that you've spend half the time talking about --
MR. WALLACE: I --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: About -- you said you've spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion plus, in three days, from 215 different commitments, and you don't care.
MR. WALLACE: I -- President Clinton, if you look at the questions --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I thought you'd (have an audience here ?).
MR. WALLACE: You'll see half the questions about it. I didn't think this was going to set you off on such a tear.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: You launched into it. It set off on a tear because you didn't formulate it in an honest way, and because you people ask me questions you don't ask the other side.
MR. WALLACE: Sir, that's not so.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: And Richard Clarke --
MR. WALLACE: That is not true.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Richard Clarke made it clear in his testimony --
MR. WALLACE: Would you like to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, I want to finish this thing.
MR. WALLACE: All right.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: All I'm saying is, you falsely accuse me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew al Qaeda existed then.
MR. WALLACE: But did they know --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Now, wait. Wait.
MR. WALLACE: -- in 1996 when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998 --
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Absolutely.
MR. WALLACE: When he bombed the two embassies?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: And who talked about it?
MR. WALLACE: Did they know in 2000 when he hit the Cole?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to kill him than anybody's gotten since. And if I were still president, we'd have more than 20,000 troops there, trying to kill him. Now, I've never criticized President Bush, and I don't think this is useful. But, you know, we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive thing, when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror.
And you've got that little smirk on your face. You think you're so clever. But I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending Special Forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter. And no one thought we got do it otherwise because we could not get the CIA and the FBI that al Qaeda was responsible while I was president. And so, I left office. And yet, I get asked about this all the time.
They had three times as much time to deal with it, and no one every asked them about it. I think that's strange. |
