How Bill Clinton Dropped the Ball on Bin Laden

That's a pretty big leap you make there, if we both read the same article. The one you linked to doesn't even mention Clinton, so if you were reading something else, please provide the link.

Clinton could have done more, yes, but I don't think you can put the blame what happened solely on either president's shoulders. If you remember, though, Clinton did launch strategical strikes to try and take out Bin Laden, and maybe he could have devoted more energy to it if a politically-motivated Congress wasn't so obsessed with his private life.

Posted August 21, 2007 6:51 PM

The fact that it doesn't name Clinton as the president during the time period it describes and as the man who appointed Tenant is the WHOLE POINT of this post, you idiot.

Try reading the post moron. From 1993-2000, Bill Clinton was president. It's during that time that NOTHING significant was done by the CIA.

Your comments are offensive, belligerent and totally uninformed. Either that, or blatant dishonest propaganda.

Posted August 21, 2007 9:41 PM

911 - The Clinton Legacy

Posted August 21, 2007 11:11 PM

"Al Gore should consider himself lucky he lost the election he claims he won; had he become president, Clinton's chickens would have come home to roost."

Bush was given a memo "Bin Laden Determined to Attack." He ignored it and continued chopping wood frantically on his ranch. Al Gore would not have been frantically chopping wood somewhere in rural Texas. He would have been in meetings planning extra security for the nation.

Posted August 22, 2007 12:33 AM

"From 1993-2000, Bill Clinton was president. It's during that time that NOTHING significant was done by the CIA."

"Try reading the post moron."

I read the whole post. It basically takes an objective article and inserts the poster's own partisan politics. Now you try reading the original article.

I don't have a problem with criticizing Clinton for not doing more. But saying NOTHING was done is nothing but politics. The article lists several programs and activities that were going on to monitor Bin Laden/Al Qaeda at the time. It's not that nothing was being done, but there was a systematic failure. Clinton also tried to take Bin Laden out in 1998.

Yes, more could have been done. I'm not arguing against that. But saying "100% of the blame lies with Clinton" is just petty politics and is counterproductive.

Posted August 22, 2007 7:24 AM

EXOCET:

George Bush had been president only a few months when bin Laden attacked. Since no appropriate report was written DURING THE ENTIRE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION for him to read when he took power, there was no way for him to get a complete picture within the short period of time he had to work with. This report is an official finding by the CIA itself that it fell down on the job during the Clinton years, not only under Tenant but before him. Bill Clinton could and should have dealt with bin Laden, but he didn't. As Jonathan properly says, 911 is HIS legacy (so is impeachment and two elections without getting a majority of the popular vote).

Posted August 22, 2007 8:39 AM

ELYAS:

How dare you claim I wrote that "100% of the blame lies with Clinton." There is no such quote in my text. Your propaganda is reprehensible and exposes you as an amazing hypocrite, calling for accuracy whilst perverting the truth.

It might well be that during the few short months he was president, Bush could have done more than he did. But since there was NO INFORMATION waiting for him about bin Laden when he took power from Clinton, because of Clinton's GROSS NEGLIGENCE, it's simply ridiculous to say that his inaction was in any way causal. He had to go from nothing to a response in less than one year while Clinton had eight years.

Clinton and his DCI were primarily responsible for failing to protect us from 911. Since then, Bush has kept the homeland 100% free from further terrorist events. Those are the two key facts. Spew your propaganda as much as you like, it changes nothing.

Posted August 22, 2007 8:44 AM

Since when is trying to be nonpartisan "propaganda"? I'm not saying Clinton isn't to blame at all. But you're saying there was NO INFORMATION (your caps, not mine), which is factually untrue. There was no COMPREHENSIVE report, according to the article, but there was some intelligence. They had pieces of the puzzle, but neither Bush or Clinton put the puzzle together.

From the article: "Yet the review team led by Inspector General John Helgerson found neither a "single point of failure nor a silver bullet" that would have stopped the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people."

I'm not trying to put the blame solely on your fearless leader, so take it easy. Although I can't believe you're trying to say that Bush had NO INFORMATION on Bin Laden when he came into office, when he was handed a report titled "Bin Laden determined to attack..."

And although I've reminded you twice, you still can't seem to remember that Clinton launched missiles into Afghanistan trying to take Bin Laden out.

Posted August 22, 2007 10:04 AM

Speaking as someone who *cheered* when Tenet was thrown out...

Clinton bears the responsibility for appointing Tenet in the three years before 9/11.

Bush bears the responsibility for *keeping* Tenet in that same position for a further 3 years, even after he'd proven his incompetence.

What's the worst mistake, appointing someone that later proves to be incompetent, or keeping someone in the position *after* he's proven to be incompetent?

IMO, the latter is the far worse sin. You're only displaying your bias in the field of American politics when you're only mentioning Clinton here. "Idiot" and "Moron"? I'm returning those characterizations to the sender.

And the name is Tenet, not Tenant.

"George Bush had been president only a few months"

Close to 8 months. Does that count for "few"?

"Since then, Bush has kept the homeland 100% free from further terrorist events."

Certainly, by sacrificing a couple thousand American lives and hundredfold that amount of Iraqi lives in Iraq. But who cares about American lives lost abroad, as long as the "homeland"'s soil remains pure.

And in that amount of time, Iraq has also turned from a secular dictatorship in opposition to Iran, to an islamofascist one subservient to it.

That's Bush's legacy, alongside the abolition of the Habeas Corpus and torture becoming business as usual.

Posted August 22, 2007 11:40 AM

Do you remember when Bin Laden did his first attack on the WTC with bombs or when he bombed the USS Cole? Or when the Sudanese offered Bin Laden on a plate? http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/Clinton_let_bin_laden.htm What did Clinton do then? Or when he bombed an innocent aspirin factory to get attention off of Monica. I'm not a big fan of Bush, but who is more at fault?

Posted August 22, 2007 12:59 PM

ARIS:

Thanks for the spelling correction!

I think it's rather harsh of you to fault Bush for keeping the DCI in place at least for the first few months of his presidency. It's ridiculous to suggest that he should have acted in a blindly partisan way in regard to this important agency, and it's to his credit that he didn't do so. In fact, it implies he understood the general threats the country was facing and the need to keep an experienced hand on the wheel.

It's also outrageous in the extreme to minimize Bush's achievement in keeping the homeland safe since 911. Undoubtedly Bush made errors in dealing with national security, as any human being would have done, but facts are facts. Clinton allowed the 911 attack to be planned an executed; Bush allowed no such activity.

I doubt there's anybody who's a harsher critic of Bush than me, I find his policy on Russia to be utterly barbaric. But where American lives and terrorism are concerned, it's Clinton who deserves by far the lion's share of the blame, and he hasn't gotten it.

Posted August 22, 2007 1:14 PM

"Bush was given a memo "Bin Laden Determined to Attack." He ignored it and continued chopping wood frantically on his ranch."

Of all the weak spin the Left has used over the years this one has to be the most braindead. A memo in 2001 saying bin Laden wants to attack means nothing because he had already said years earlier that he wanted to kill Americans. AQ had already attacked Americans and it wasn't considered off limits for them to attack the homeland. That he wanted to attack us was nothing new, and the idea that this memo was some revelation of important data is about as disingenuous as is humanly possible.

Posted August 23, 2007 3:11 PM

The point is, the Clinton defenders want to keep bringing up that Clinton left the Bush administration a comprehensive plan to catch Bin Laden and that Bush ignored it.
Here's the point, and read very carefully-Clinton had 8 long years to see to it that HE took out Bin laden and that the next administration shouldn't have to. There never should have been a plan left for Bush because Clinton had so much more time to do it himself it's not even funny. 8 Yeras, liberals, and you all want to just sweep it under the rug, totally ignore it, "Oh, who cares if he had 12 times the amount of time Bush had?"

Posted March 31, 2008 12:16 PM