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| 2006/9/7-12 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton] UID:44303 Activity:nil |
9/7 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,212743,00.html See, it's Clinton's fault. Clinton was preoccupied with Lewinsky and thus failed to kill Bin Laden. \_ In at least one case, that's true. The Clinton administration did miss several chances to get bin Laden. Not because they wanted to, but because the risks at the time weren't considered worth it, and during the Lewinsky mess Clinton was in fact distracted. Read "Dereliction of Duty" and "The Cell" for some of the details. \_ So Republicans sacrificed national security at the altar of Lewinsky by distracting the president? Nothing new. \_ Wow. Can you actually think for yourself, or are you this bitterly partisan all the time? \_ Have you even read the Constitution? National security falls under the Executive Branch. \_ Yes, playing "gotcha" with Clinton was more important to the Republican Congress than national security. They are still playing this game, it seems. \_ Apparently, the Plame story was more important to the lefties than security. \_ what is the Plame story about if not security? what is the case about? REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION INTENTIONALLY COMPROMISES AGENT. Anyone NOT concerned with this story is the one not interested in security- you can't have it both ways, liar \_ The Plame story was about the left wing media inventing a story, an overzealous special prosecutor who knew the truth persecuting innocent people, and the non-victim and her lying husband finally getting caught and the very very quiet follow up from the media who owe Karl Rove and a lot of other innocent people an apology. What did you think it was about? \_ You know, I actually agree with this assessment and I am a Bush hater. \_ As I understand it, every single time Clinton had a chance to kill bin Laden (other than Infinite Reach), the information was single-sourced or there were other circumstances inhibiting a clean kill. http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.htm \_ As well as having a standing order with the CIA to execute kill or capture on actionable intelligence. \_ You mean capture, and if CIA judges this is not feasible, then kill. But it's still a big deal anyway for the President to order killing someone, but that was Osama \_ Two Buddhist monks, one young, one old, were walking when they came to the banks of river. A young woman, too small to ford the river by herself, was waiting for anyone to help her across. Without saying a word, the old monk put the woman on his back and carried her across. After he'd dropped her off, he and the young monk continued walking. Some miles later, the young monk said, "I can't believe you broke your vows and carried that woman." The old monk replied, "I carried her across the river and then I put her down. You've been carrying her in your mind ever since." Clinton got a blowjob and suffered. You're still suffering because you're jealous. \_ Clinton was preoccupied with occupying Lewinsky. |
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| www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,212743,00.html VIDEO STORIES ABC's upcoming miniseries "The Path to 9/11" is generating a firestorm among members of the Clinton administration, who claim the two-part, made-for-TV film is filled with factual errors and lies. Walt Disney Company, parent of ABC, demanding that it re-edit or pull the five-hour film, scheduled for air Sunday and Monday nights without commercial interruption. Albright, who is featured prominently in the film, wrote a letter to Disney chief Robert A Iger, complaining that she had requested a copy of the film, but that ABC had not given her one, according to a New York Times report. Albright wrote that she had been told by people who had seen the film that it "depicts scenes that never happened, events that never took place, decisions that were never made and conversations that never occurred." "It asserts as fact things that are not fact," she wrote, according to the Times. Advertise Here Albright specifically objected to a scene that showed her insisting on warning the Pakistani government before an airstrike on Afghanistan, and that she was the one who made the warning. "The scene as explained to me is false and defamatory," she said. In a statement released Thursday afternoon, ABC said, "No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible." "For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, and time compression," ABC said in its statement. "We hope viewers will watch the entire broadcast of the finished film before forming an opinion about it." The miniseries is drawn from interviews and documents including the report of the Sept. ABC has described it as a "dramatization" as opposed to a documentary. "The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has the duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely," Lindsey wrote, according to the New York Post. Lindsey's letter accused ABC of "bias" and "fictitious rewriting of history that will be misinterpreted by millions of Americans," the Post reported. Lindsey and Douglas Band, a top lawyer in Clinton's office, objected to advertisements for the miniseries, which they said suggested that Clinton wasn't paying enough attention to the threat of terrorism. "While ABC is promoting "The Path to 9/11" as a dramatization of historical fact, in truth it is a fictitious rewriting of history that will be misinterpreted by millions of Americans," they said. "Given your stated obligation to 'get it right,' we urge you to do so by not airing this drama until the egregious factual errors are corrected, an endeavor we could easily assist you with given the opportunity to view the film," the said. ABC spokesman Jonathan Hogan defended the miniseries, telling the Post, it is a "dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and personal interviews." "Many of the people who have expressed opinions about the film have yet to see it in its entirety or in its final broadcast form, " Hogan said. "We hope the viewers will watch the entire broadcast before forming their own opinion." Executive producer Marc Platt reportedly told the Washington Post that he worked "very hard to be fair." "If individuals feel they're wrongly portrayed, that's obviously a concern," Platt said. "We've portrayed the essence of the truth of these events. Our intention was not in any way to be political or present a point of view." Tom Kean, who also co-chaired the federal 9/11 Commission and served as the film's paid adviser. Kean reportedly admitted that some scenes were made up, and said producers would say so in a statement to viewers before broadcast, the New York Post reported. Kean defended the miniseries, saying that like the 9/11 Commission Report, it was balanced. "People in both administrations are not going to be happy if it's portrayed accurately," he told the Times. Monica Lewinsky affair instead of focusing on the threat from Usama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Lindsey's letter to Iger reportedly points out that the 9/11 Commission -- which Kean co-chaired -- actually stated that Clinton was "deeply concerned about bin Laden," and that he received constant updates from administration intelligence and security officials. The letters also pointed to a fictional CIA character in the series, "Kirk," played by actor Donnie Wahlberg, and how he is ordered to abort a mission to kill bin Laden. The Berger complained that "no such episode ever occurred -- nor did anything like it." "The fabrication of this scene (of such apparent magnitude) cannot be justified under any reasonable definition of dramatic license," Berger wrote. The Times reported that ABC was considering last-minute changes to the film. "It is common practice to continue to make edits to strengthen a project right up to the broadcast date," Hope Hartman, an ABC spokeswoman, told the Times. The series reportedly cost about $40 million to produce, and is to be aired without commercials as a public service, Hartman said. This is not the first time political pressure has been exerted against a TV film. CBS dropped a four-hour miniseries about the Reagans in 2003, after Republican and conservative groups complained about its portrayal of the former president and first lady. |
| www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.htm As we pointed out in chapter 3, the White House is not a natural locus for program management. Hence, government efforts to cope with terrorism were essentially the work of individual agencies. President Bill Clinton's counterterrorism Presidential Decision Directives in 1995 (no. They reinforced the authority of the National Security Council (NSC) to coordinate domestic as well as foreign counterterrorism efforts, through Richard Clarke and his interagency Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG). Spotlighting new concerns about unconventional attacks, these directives assigned tasks to lead agencies but did not differentiate types of terrorist threats. Thus, while Clarke might prod or push agencies to act, what actually happened was usually decided at the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, or the Justice Department. The efforts of these agencies were sometimes energetic and sometimes effective. Terrorist plots were disrupted and individual terrorists were captured. But the United States did not, before 9/11, adopt as a clear strategic objective the elimination of al Qaeda. Early Efforts against Bin Ladin Until 1996, hardly anyone in the US government understood that Usama Bin Ladin was an inspirer and organizer of the new terrorism. In 1993, the CIA noted that he had paid for the training of some Egyptian terrorists in Sudan. The State Department detected his money in aid to the Yemeni terrorists who set a bomb in an attempt to kill US troops in Aden in 1992. State Department sources even saw suspicious links with Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh" in the New York area, commenting that Bin Ladin seemed "committed to financing 'Jihads' against 'anti Islamic' regimes worldwide." After the department designated Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993, it put Bin Ladin on its TIPOFF watchlist, a move that might have prevented his getting a visa had he tried to enter the United States. "^1 In 1996, the CIA set up a special unit of a dozen officers to analyze intelligence on and plan operations against Bin Ladin. David Cohen, the head of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, wanted to test the idea of having a "virtual station"-a station based at headquarters but collecting and operating against a subject much as stations in the field focus on a country. Taking his cue from National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, who expressed special interest in terrorist finance, Cohen formed his virtual station as a terrorist financial links unit. He had trouble getting any Directorate of Operations officer to run it; he finally recruited a former analyst who was then running the Islamic Extremist Branch of the Counterterrorist Center. This officer, who was especially knowledgeable about Afghanistan, had noticed a recent stream of reports about Bin Ladin and something called al Qaeda, and suggested to Cohen that the station focus on this one individual. A few months later, as the Bin Ladin unit was gearing up, Jamal Ahmed al Fadl walked into a US embassy in Africa, established his bona fides as a former senior employee of Bin Ladin, and provided a major breakthrough of intelligence on the creation, character, direction, and intentions of al Qaeda. Corroborating evidence came from another walk-in source at a different US embassy. They learned that al Qaeda had a military committee that was planning operations against US interests worldwide and was actively trying to obtain nuclear material. These plans were directed at both physical assets and sources of finance. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. These contacts contributed to intelligence about Bin Ladin's local movements, business activities, and security and living arrangements, and helped provide evidence that he was spending large amounts of money to help the Taliban. The chief of the Counterterrorist Center, whom we will call "Jeff," told Director George Tenet that the CIA's intelligence assets were "near to providing real-time information about Bin Ladin's activities and travels in Afghanistan." The indictment was publicly disclosed in November of that year. When Bin Ladin moved to Afghanistan in May 1996, he became a subject of interest to the State Department's South Asia bureau. At the time, as one diplomat told us, South Asia was seen in the department and the government generally as a low priority. "^12 In the State Department, concerns about India-Pakistan tensions often crowded out attention to Afghanistan or Bin Ladin. Aware of instability and growing Islamic extremism in Pakistan, State Department officials worried most about an arms race and possible war between Pakistan and India. The South Asia bureau believed it might have a carrot for Afghanistan's warring factions in a project by the Union Oil Company of California (UNOCAL) to build a pipeline across the country. While there was probably never much chance of the pipeline actually being built, the Afghan desk hoped that the prospect of shared pipeline profits might lure faction leaders to a conference table. US diplomats did not favor the Taliban over the rival factions. "^14 Though Secretary Albright made no secret of thinking the Taliban "despicable," the US ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, led a delegation to South Asia-including Afghanistan-in April 1998. No US official of such rank had been to Kabul in decades. Ambassador Richardson went primarily to urge negotiations to end the civil war. In view of Bin Ladin's recent public call for all Muslims to kill Americans, Richardson asked the Taliban to expel Bin Ladin. The CIA's Counterterrorist Center was developing a plan to capture and remove him from Afghanistan. Parts of the Justice Department were moving toward indicting Bin Ladin, making possible a criminal trial in a New York court. Meanwhile, the State Department was focused more on lessening Indo-Pakistani nuclear tensions, ending the Afghan civil war, and ameliorating the Taliban's human rights abuses than on driving out Bin Ladin. After the Afghan tribals reported that they had tried such an ambush and failed, the Center gave up on it, despite suspicions that the tribals' story might be fiction. CIA officers were able to map the entire site, identifying the houses that belonged to Bin Ladin's wives and the one where Bin Ladin himself was most likely to sleep. Working with the tribals, they drew up plans for the raid. Tenet apparently walked National Security Advisor Sandy Berger through the basic plan on February 13. One group of tribals would subdue the guards, enter Tarnak Farms stealthily, grab Bin Ladin, take him to a desert site outside Kandahar, and turn him over to a second group. This second group of tribals would take him to a desert landing zone already tested in the 1997 Kansi capture. From there, a CIA plane would take him to New York, an Arab capital, or wherever he was to be arraigned. Briefing papers prepared by the Counterterrorist Center acknowledged that hitches might develop. People might be killed, and Bin Ladin's supporters might retaliate, perhaps taking US citizens in Kandahar hostage. But the briefing papers also noted that there was risk in not acting. "^19 Clarke's Counterterrorism Security Group reviewed the capture plan for Berger. Noting that the plan was in a "very early stage of development," the NSC staff then told the CIA planners to go ahead and, among other things, start drafting any legal documents that might be required to authorize the covert action. "^21 "Mike" thought the capture plan was "the perfect operation." The plan had now been modified so that the tribals would keep Bin Ladin in a hiding place for up to a month before turning him over to the United States-thereby increasing the chances of keeping the US hand out of sight. The lead CIA officer in the field, Gary Schroen, also had confidence in the tribals. In a May 6 cable to CIA headquarters, he pronounced their planning "almost as professional and detailed . as would be done by any US military special operations el... |