In the Midst of Scandal, Clinton Planned
Strikes
White House Contemplated Military Action for Two Weeks
By John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 21, 1998; Page A01
Nine days ago, President Clinton flew overnight from a political trip in
California for a White House meeting at which his national security team
laid out planning for a military attack against a terrorist network linked to
Osama bin Laden.
The next day Clinton sent word to some of his advisers that he had
decided, after months of stalling, that he had no choice but to address the
nation about his extramarital relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky.
The day after that, last Friday, he met again with the security team and
gave approval for yesterday's retaliatory airstrikes in Afghanistan and
Sudan. Then he spent the weekend closeted in the White House, preparing
to meet with prosecutors for queries into his sex life.
On Monday, before his meeting with prosecutors about Lewinsky and his
televised speech that night, there was a series of discussions with advisers
about preparations for the military strike.
On Tuesday, the president flew to Martha's Vineyard, Mass., for what
aides said would be two weeks of healing time with his family. All the
while, he and a small number of national security officials knew the truth:
Clinton planned to return soon to Washington so he could speak again to
the nation, this time from the Oval Office about the U.S. military action he
had ordered to avenge the Aug. 7 embassy bombings in Kenya and
Tanzania.
And so it went for nearly two weeks, several close presidential advisers
said yesterday, as Clinton's schedule and thoughts hurtled back and forth
between two crises of a very different nature. Even as Clinton was
preparing to acknowledge a difficult truth about one secret in his private
life, he was harboring another secret dealing with the most difficult
responsibility of his public life.
The White House yesterday asserted that Clinton's decision to bomb
suspected terrorist installations was in no way linked to or affected by the
Lewinsky controversy. At a minimum, however, the response to Clinton's
action showed how his legal and personal problems have altered the prism
through which his presidential decisions are viewed.
Several Republicans yesterday raised the issue expressly. Sen. Dan Coats
(R-Ind.) said: "After months of lies and deceit and manipulations and
deceptions -- stonewalling -- it raised into doubt everything he does and
everything he says," Coats said.
Administration officials said yesterday they had anticipated criticism that
Clinton was following a "Wag the Dog" strategy -- so-named after the
recent movie in which a president tries to draw attention away from a
sexual scandal by staging a phony war -- but had no choice but to ignore
it. Yesterday's comments were an echo of similar criticism made when
Clinton contemplated military action against Iraq last February.
To the contrary, Clinton aides said the president's schedule in recent
weeks highlights a remarkable ability to separate his public duties from his
personal woes.
"He's got his priorities straight," said White House press secretary Michael
McCurry. Even as the Clinton family is "working through some issues," he
said, the president realizes "that his first responsibility . . . is always
commander in chief."
That responsibility, national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger
said yesterday, even involved an element of subterfuge -- behaving as if a
vacation was underway when in fact Clinton was working. "One of the
things that was indispensable to this operation was secrecy," Berger told
reporters. "I have to say I have some degree of collective pride on the part
of my colleagues that we were actually able to, for once, do that."
Even though Clinton had approved the concept of airstrikes last Friday,
Berger said the president could have stopped execution until about 6 a.m.
yesterday. Clinton spent Wednesday, his birthday, on Martha's Vineyard
taking calls from Vice President Gore, Secretary of State Madeleine K.
Albright, Berger and others about the impending mission.
After returning from a small birthday party to his borrowed vacation estate
about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, aides said Clinton stayed up until about 2
a.m. taking calls about the operation. He went to sleep with all systems go.
Shortly after 6 a.m., a military jet spirited Air Force Brig. Gen. Donald
Kerrick, the No. 3 official on the National Security Council, to Martha's
Vineyard so he would be with Clinton when the strikes were launched.
Earlier this week, the circle of people in the White House who knew of the
impending attack had begun to widen. Speechwriters had begun drafts on
Clinton's Oval Office address. McCurry said he had learned that a military
strike was probable several days ago. On Wednesday, Berger had alerted
a handful of congressional leaders in both parties.
But, unlike many military actions in recent years, the news media was
thoroughly unprepared for the prospect of a strike.
Early yesterday afternoon, White House officials alerted the pool of
reporters waiting outside Clinton's vacation spread that his motorcade was
getting ready to move. Reporters assumed that Clinton would be driving to
a nearby golf course. As it happened, the video recorder in the press tent
at the end of Clinton's driveway was at that very moment playing "Wag the
Dog."
Clinton, of course, was not going golfing. The first stop for his motorcade
was the main press filing center at the nearby Edgartown school. A few
minutes earlier, in the middle of his daily briefing, McCurry had received a
page -- his signal to let stunned reporters know Clinton would soon make
a statement on an unspecified national security matter.
Clinton walked into the school gymnasium and announced the airstrikes,
and said he was returning immediately to Washington. Aboard Air Force
One, Clinton had a scratchy, broken conversation with British Prime
Minister Tony Blair. Once on the ground, he called Blair and other foreign
leaders. |
