# It's Amazing Just How Badly Bill Clinton Dropped The Ball RE: Bin Laden **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 4, 2005, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954 "2005-09-04T00:21:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/1 "2005-09-04T00:21:08Z")
Check out this article: [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1764035,00.html](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1764035,00.html) \*PREVIOUSLY unseen footage of Osama Bin Laden taken by a CIA spy drone reveals how close the Americans came to killing the Al-Qaeda leader two years before the September 11 attacks. \* \*The pictures are part of a mass of evidence now emerging of the missed opportunities to kill or capture Bin Laden and his associates before they launched the terror attacks on America in 2001. They include at least three further occasions in Afghanistan between 1998 and 2000 when the CIA had Bin Laden in its sights but was prevented from acting. There were divisions between the agency and the White House over who would have the authority to fire and the legality of killing the Al-Qaeda leader. \* \*It describes how Bill Clinton’s administration turned down an offer from the Sudanese government to help to capture Bin Laden when he was living in Khartoum in the early to mid-1990s. It also shows how the Americans “lost” two of the September 11 hijackers despite having them under surveillance. The two men later entered America. \* Add all this to the increasing evidence that Clinton’s White House did indeed have 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta’s name and picture a full year before the WTC attacks, and I think we can really begin to suspect just what Sandy Burglar was busy stuffing down his pants and socks in the National Archives. ---
**Author:** ![Soapbox\_Monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Soapbox\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soapbox_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/2 "2005-09-04T00:32:02Z")
And it’s amazing how badly Bush is dropping the ball with killing him now, considering the THOUSANDS of troops we have in the general region and the fact that we have a pretty good idea of where he may be. Osama? Osama who? Can’t you see we got a country to liberate!? ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/3 "2005-09-04T00:50:27Z")
> [@Soapbox Monkey](#): > > And it’s amazing how badly Bush is dropping the ball with killing him now, considering the THOUSANDS of troops we have in the general region and the fact that we have a pretty good idea of where he may be. > > Osama? Osama who? Can’t you see we got a country to liberate!? Well, all Bill Clinton had to do was pull the trigger on just one of the _many_ opportunities he had…and we all indeed _would_ be asking, “Osama who?” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/4 "2005-09-04T00:57:33Z")
Looks like too many people are bashing Bush over the Katrina issues. ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/5 "2005-09-04T00:59:00Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Looks like too many people are bashing Bush over the Katrina issues. Ha ha ha! Hey, I can’t help when this article came out! ---
**Author:** ![Soapbox\_Monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Soapbox\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soapbox_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/6 "2005-09-04T00:59:40Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Well, all Bill Clinton had to do was pull the trigger on just one of the _many_ opportunities he had…and we all indeed _would_ be asking, “Osama who?” And all the US would have had to do was never support Saddam OR Osama in their past ventures and we wouldn’t be in any of this mess. So what exactly is your point? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/7 "2005-09-04T01:05:16Z")
> [@](#): > > The pictures, t… have been obtained from American sources by Al-Jazeera, the Arabic language television station. That’s the pro-Osama network. You can’t believe anything coming from _them_! ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/8 "2005-09-04T01:23:54Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Looks like too many people are bashing Bush over the Katrina issues. Gee, you think?? 😛 I’ve never seen such a feeding frenzy on this board before…and one driven by emotion instead of fact. There is a GD thread that is casually asking whether or not a president can be impeached from inaction…wonder what the OP is REALLY getting at there… :rolleyes: As for THIS OP…while I have a lot of problems with Clinton I don’t think he dropped the ball on ObL…after all, he didn’t have a magic time machine and KNOW what was going to happen. -XT ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/9 "2005-09-04T01:25:08Z")
Is this guy really lambasting Clinton because he wouldn’t order a missile strike against members of the royal family of an allied nation? The cad! What’s a little collateral damage compared to capturing someone you have no idea is going to commit a heinous crime years down the road when you are no longer in office? A crime the sitting president will entirely fail to prevent despite none-too-subtle hints like memos titled “Wake up, you dumb fuck: bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.”. A sitting president who, I might add, has not only also failed to capture the guy responsible despite the greater resources dedicated to doing so, but has brushed off that failure. No one who holds the Clinton Administration in contempt for its failure to capture bin Laden has any business supporting the Bush Administration. The stuff about Sudan making offers to the U.S. is NewsMax guff. From the 9/11 Commission’s [statement](http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_rpt/staff_statement_5.pdf)(pdf): > [@](#): > > During the winter and spring of 1996, Sudan’s defense minister visited Washington and had a series of meetings with representatives of the U.S. government. To test Sudan’s willingness to cooperate on terrorism the United States presented eight demands to their Sudanese contact. The one that concerned Bin Ladin was a request for intelligence information about Bin Ladin’s contacts in Sudan. These contacts with Sudan, which went on for years, have become a source of controversy. Former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/10 "2005-09-04T01:25:53Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Well, all Bill Clinton had to do was pull the trigger on just one of the _many_ opportunities he had…and we all indeed _would_ be asking, “Osama who?” And Bush’s CIA director says he has a “very good idea” of where Osama is right now. Seriously, why has Bush not killed him yet? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/11 "2005-09-04T01:31:07Z")
“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” - G.W. Bush, 3/13/02 ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/12 "2005-09-04T01:31:52Z")
[QUOTE=The Tooth] Is this guy really lambasting Clinton because he wouldn’t order a missile strike against members of the royal family of an allied nation? The cad! What’s a little collateral damage compared to capturing someone you have no idea is going to commit a heinous crime years down the road when you are no longer in office? A crime the sitting president will entirely fail to prevent despite none-too-subtle hints like memos titled “Wake up, you dumb fuck: bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.”. [QUOTE] Well, really, here’s the point: Clinton has made a big deal about how he told Bush that Osama was dangerous. In fact, Clinton said on _Larry King Live_ that as soon as the 2nd plane hit the WTC, he thought, “Osama.” Now given that Clinton would have us believe that he _knew_ Osama was capable of such a thing (no _other_ names seemed to have leapt to his mind on 9/11), why the hell _didn’t_ he take him out when he had the chance? It’s kind of stupid to brag about how you _knew_ he would do something like this, but then complain that you really didn’t have enough evidence on hand to pull the trigger on the guy. You really can’t have it both ways. Did Osama magically become more dangerous at the exact instant Bush was sworn into office? For the record, I don’t really blame Clinton or Bush for failing to stop 9/11. ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/13 "2005-09-04T01:39:07Z")
> [@The Tooth](#): > > The stuff about Sudan making offers to the U.S. is NewsMax guff. From the 9/11 Commission’s [statement](http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_rpt/staff_statement_5.pdf)(pdf): By the way, I’m impressed that, given all the recent ‘Able Danger’ revelations, you can actually cite the 9/11 Commission with a straight face. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/14 "2005-09-04T01:45:31Z")
What is this, _Minority Report_? Leaders of countries should be killed _before_ they commit a heinous crime? Should George Bush have been assassinated by Saddam Hussein so as to prevent him attacking Iraq? Is such an idea ever right? ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/15 "2005-09-04T01:50:19Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > What is this, _Minority Report_? Leaders of countries should be killed _before_ they commit a heinous crime? > > Should George Bush have been assassinated by Saddam Hussein so as to prevent him attacking Iraq? Is such an idea ever right? Bin Laden was obviously important enough to send Predator spy drones after. Why, if he hadn’t done anything? ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/16 "2005-09-04T01:53:53Z")
I think it was the **correct decision** not to shoot Bin Laden from an UAV, for the reasons laid out in the article, and also according to the principle that **we don’t do extrajudicial assassinations**. I do agree, however, that Clinton dropped the ball at least twice. One is the Sudan episode. If it’s true that Sudan offered to extradite Bin Laden, and Clinton did not take up that offer, then he made a grave mistake. That was exactly the way how it should have been handled. Bring him to justice with any and all **legal** means. There was a later episode where Afghanistan(!) had **already decided** to extradite Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. The guy was **already on his way to the gallows**. Then Clinton ruined it with his militarism. After which Bin Laden became best buddies with the Taliban. And we all know what came from _that_. (Actually I don’t support the way “justice” works in Saudi Arabia, or the way they impose death penalties, but other than that, this would have been the exact right way to handle it (also noting that Bin Laden is a Saudi citizen)). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/17 "2005-09-04T01:57:40Z")
So you’re blaming Clinton for not launching missiles at members of the royal family of an allied nation in order to kill someone he believed capable of doing bad things, but hadn’t actually done these bad things, and wouldn’t until a nine months into the next president’s term. Yes, I can see how suspecting someone could do bad things some time in the future justifies killing highly placed citizens of other nations. What impresses you does not interest me. If you have proof that the Commission’s findings regarding Sudan are false, then by all means provide this proof. Otherwise I’ll just have to suspect that you’re dismissing them because they make your whining about Clinton look even sillier than it did when you started. Which is no mean feat, believe you me. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/18 "2005-09-04T01:59:38Z")
Not you, **Frankenstein’s Monster**. My post was meant for **Stephe96**. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/19 "2005-09-04T02:00:49Z")
Hooray, coding! ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2005, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954/20 "2005-09-04T02:02:11Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Now given that Clinton would have us believe that he _knew_ Osama was capable of such a thing (no _other_ names seemed to have leapt to his mind on 9/11), why the hell _didn’t_ he take him out when he had the chance? You really need to read “Against All Enemies” by Richard Clarke, the head of the antiterrorism operation throughout. Synopsis of Clinton’s actions: > [@](#): > > Page 129: Declared “a war on terror before the term became fashionable.” This was back in 1996, after the first World Trade Center attack, the Bush assassination attempt, the Khobar Towers attack, and the Oklahoma City bombing. (On Page 127, Clarke notes that it’s possible that al-Qaida operatives in the Philippines “taught Terry Nichols how to blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building.” Intelligence places Nichols there on the same days as Ramzi Yousef, and “we do know that Nichols’s bombs did not work before his Philippines stay and were deadly when he returned.”) > > Page 225: Thwarted al-Qaida’s efforts to establish a militant Islamist state in Bosnia. Clinton’s efforts to quell the war in the Balkans “defeated Al Qaeda when it had attempted to take over Bosnia by having its fighters dominate the defense of the breakaway state from Serbian attacks.” > > Pages 79-84: Responded to Saddam Hussein’s assassination attempt on George H.W. Bush with force. He ordered the bombing of Iraq’s intelligence headquarters, which, Clarke says, paired with a “stark warning” to the Iraqis, “successfully deterred Saddam from ever again using terror against us.” > > Pages 112-21, 129: Responded to Iran’s role in the 1996 Khobar Towers attack with an unspecified “intelligence operation” intended to deter further Iranian terrorism. > > Page 186: Responded to the African embassy bombings with strikes on terrorist camps in Afghanistan and a chemical plant in Sudan, even though he anticipated criticism for the timing. (The strikes took place on Aug. 20, 1998, at the height of the Lewinsky scandal.) According to Clarke, Clinton said: “Do you all recommend that we strike on the 20th? Fine. Do not give me political advice about the timing. That’s my problem. Let me worry about that.” > > Pages 211-12: Worked to prevent al-Qaida attacks planned for the millennium. In December 1999, Clinton’s National Security Adviser Sandy Berger "convened the Principals [Cabinet-level officials] in crisis mode. ‘We have stopped two sets of attacks planned for the Millennium. You can bet your measly federal paycheck that there are more out there and we have to stop them too. I spoke with the President and he wants you all to know.’ " Clarke adds: “It was the sort of attention we needed in the summer of 2001.” > > Page 225: Recognized early on that terrorism was a primary post-Cold War threat, and “greatly increased funding for counterterrorism and initiated homeland protection programs” [More to your immediate question:]([http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/](http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/) Public/Articles/000/000/003/938ztlwc.asp?pg=2) > [@](#): > > Clarke reports actually seeing Osama bin Laden in Afghan training camps on three occasions in real time as he watched live video from a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle hovering over the sites. Each time, U.S. military assets were not in a position to fire on bin Laden, and the Predator was not armed with missiles to conduct an offensive strike, as it would be during the Bush administration. > > Clarke later criticizes the Bush administration for failing to push aggressively for deployment of Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles before September 11. Yet he also quotes a report that the head of the CIA’s directorate of operations opposed use of the armed Predator against bin Laden on the grounds that it would “endanger the lives of CIA operatives around the world.” And in a White House meeting one week before September 11, Clarke cites a source quoting CIA director Tenet as saying, “It would be a terrible mistake for the [Deputy of Central Intelligence] to fire a weapon like this.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-amazing-just-how-badly-bill-clinton-dropped-the-ball-re-bin-laden/319954.md?page=2)