Clinton had three chances to kill Osama Bin Laden

[cycloneye]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/ ... index.html

At the hearings of the 9/11 commision today it was known that Bill Clinton's security team debated three times in 1998 and 1999 if there was an opportunity to kill Osama Bin Laden or not and they decided to not take action because civilians may haved been killed there and also an important visitor was in Afganistan at that time of the date of the bombing.Many people from the Clinton and the Bush administrations went to this important hearing today to depose about what happened to the intelligence pre 9/11.For example Donald Rumsfeld said that killing Osama Bin Laden days before 9/11 would not prevented the 9/11 attack to happen because already the 19 people who did it were inside the US.

[Lindaloo]

Yep. Albright even admitted they were trying to handle it diplomatically with the Taliban to turn over Bin Laden. Go figure!

[blizzard]

Donald Rumsfeld said that killing Osama Bin Laden days before 9/11 would not prevented the 9/11 attack to happen because already the 19 people who did it were inside the US.

This is a good point. Wether The Clinton Administration would have pursued the assasination of Bin Ladin is a moot point. The wheels were in motion for the 9/11 attack long before hand. Killing him would have set off a chain reaction such as Israel is facing now by assasinating Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Killing Bin Laden would have propogated mass terror attacks on the US alot earlier than what happened already. IMO...

Not that I think that killing him would have been a bad thing mind you....

Bin Laden is not Al Queda, Al Queda is not Bin Laden. Al Queda is a virus, spreading like wild fire. Killing one germ of the virus will not stop it. We need to find a way to innoculate it and rid the world of the whole virus.

There, you have my 1/2 cent worth. For whatever it may be worth.

[chadtm80]

Yes Breeze.. And to do that you start at the top and work your way down. That means OBL

[Aslkahuna]

probably began right after the WTC bombing in 1993 since by 1995 there were already plans afoot (foiled by the Philippine Intelligence people) to hijack airliners and to crash them into buildings.

Steve

[Anonymous]

Yes Breeze.. And to do that you start at the top and work your way down. That means OBL

Perhaps so, but anyone claiming that Clinton taking the opportunity to go after bin Laden would have prevented or even altered the 9/11 terrorist attacks is a Bush fanatic with no perception of reality. It certainly would have been a good step towards eliminating al Qaeda, but that is a long drawn-out process that will take many years and many Presidents to accomplish. I think we should give Clinton the benefit of the doubt here as the article says that there was concern over civilian casualties.

[chadtm80]

Perhaps so, but anyone claiming that Clinton taking the opportunity to go after bin Laden would have prevented or even altered the 9/11 terrorist attacks is a Bush fanatic with no perception of reality.

Wouldnt it be just as stupid to say that it wouldnt of prevented or altered the mission then? Wouldnt that just as well make you a Liberal with no perception of reality?

Truth is NO one knows for sure now do they?

[Anonymous]

Perhaps so, but anyone claiming that Clinton taking the opportunity to go after bin Laden would have prevented or even altered the 9/11 terrorist attacks is a Bush fanatic with no perception of reality.

Wouldnt it be just as stupid to say that it wouldnt of prevented or altered the mission then? Wouldnt that just as well make you a Liberal with no perception of reality?

No... that is exactly what I am saying... it seems highly unlikely, if not completely false, that a U.S. attack on bin Laden would have prevented the September 11 terrorist attacks. You are right... we will never know for sure since that's not the course reality took... but to claim that Clinton is largely to blame for the attacks is insane. To make statements that even discretely imply that the lives of those 3,000 victims were lost due to blatant actions taken by the former President is completely off-base, in my opinion; we have to recognize that both Clinton and Bush had some intelligence that indicated that a threat was there, but both failed to act on them properly because the threat understandably didn't seem like a priority prior to 9/11. Hindsight is always 20/20, and I'm sure both men deeply wish they had taken a different course of action.

The bottom line is that I think it is completely wrong to point the finger at either President WRT 9/11; doing so just makes the accuser look like the ignorant partisan fanatic they are. Mistakes were made by individuals on both sides of the aisle, and who can blame them in light of the fact that lots of other issues (economy, education, etc.) seemed far more pressing than a bizzare airline highjacking threat BEFORE the terrorism materialized?

[stormchazer]

Perhaps so, but anyone claiming that Clinton taking the opportunity to go after bin Laden would have prevented or even altered the 9/11 terrorist attacks is a Bush fanatic with no perception of reality.

Wouldnt it be just as stupid to say that it wouldnt of prevented or altered the mission then? Wouldnt that just as well make you a Liberal with no perception of reality?

No... that is exactly what I am saying... it seems highly unlikely, if not completely false, that a U.S. attack on bin Laden would have prevented the September 11 terrorist attacks. You are right... we will never know for sure since that's not the course reality took... but to claim that Clinton is largely to blame for the attacks is insane. To make statements that even discretely imply that the lives of those 3,000 victims were lost due to blatant actions taken by the former President is completely off-base, in my opinion; we have to recognize that both Clinton and Bush had some intelligence that indicated that a threat was there, but both failed to act on them properly because the threat understandably didn't seem like a priority prior to 9/11. Hindsight is always 20/20, and I'm sure both men deeply wish they had taken a different course of action.

The bottom line is that I think it is completely wrong to point the finger at either President WRT 9/11; doing so just makes the accuser look like the ignorant partisan fanatic they are. Mistakes were made by individuals on both sides of the aisle, and who can blame them in light of the fact that lots of other issues (economy, education, etc.) seemed far more pressing than a bizzare airline highjacking threat BEFORE the terrorism materialized?

Look, there is plenty of blame to go around. Pres Clinton and Bush might have done more. Congress, who is supposed to oversee the Intelligence Agencies could have done more. I do not believe that most Americans would have supported the War before 9/11.

We need to quit the blame-game and stay the course. We have the right President with the right resolve. Lets get these bastards!