| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 4/4 |
| 2006/10/2-4 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton] UID:44634 Activity:kinda low |
10/2 Michael Scheuer (former head of the bin Laden unit) calls Clinton a
flat-out liar.
http://newsbusters.org/node/8034 (transcript and video clip)
Last week, he also criticized Clinton's interview with Wallace (which
Harry Smith of CBS was a bit flustered about):
http://newsbusters.org/node/7871 (transcript and video clip)
\_ i guess scheuer's views of the truth were insufficient to be
included in the 9/11 report. anyway, the report said Clinton had
a "capture or kill" policy, and left it up to CIA (Tenet) to
determine whether "capture" was feasible, and if not, the memo
gave permission to kill.
also note that the first opportunity to kill bin Ladin that Scheuer
cites is one in which well over 200 innocent bystanders were
estimated to have been killed, and that later intelligence appeared
to show that bin Ladin left before the strike would have occurred.
\_ The report was a political product. I'm sure there's a fair
amount of truth in it but you'll never get the whole truth from
a public report like that. Which is not to say that this guy
is in any way honest or truthful. I know nothing about him.
But being included or excluded from the 9/11 commission report
is insufficient to question his credibility. --DA
\_ Maybe he's been hanging out with Orson Scott Card,
Mr. "When Clinton Attempted to Kill Bin Laden, it was
Tryanny, but when Bush attempted it, it was awesome!!!!"
\_ actually, he is in the report, as "Mike". Search for
"wikipedia" in the first newsbusters link. |
| 4/4 |
|
| newsbusters.org/node/8034 bin Laden's-Still-Alive Blame Game since it started in September are aware of a gentleman named Michael Scheuer. He is a retired CIA agent that used to be the head of the agency's bin Laden unit, and has been communicating with me for several weeks regarding what the intelligence community did and didn't do concerning the hunt for al Qaeda's leader. What ensued was a fabulous discussion (video link and full transcript follow) that coincidentally did not include former "Terrorism Czar" Richard Clarke who refused an invitation to join the panel - makes one wonder why. Regardless, Scheuer made his feelings on this subject crystal clear: Mr Wallace, my opinion is not all that important. I went to a little Jesuit school in Buffalo called Canicius, and the priests taught us never to lie, but if you had to lie, never lie about facts. Mr Richard Clarke, Mr Sandy Berger, President Clinton are lying about the opportunities they had to kill Osama bin Laden. Men and women at the CIA risked their lives to provide occasions to kill a man we knew had declared war and had attacked America four or five times before 1998. We had plans that had been approved by the Joint Operations Command at Fort Bragg. But for him to get on the television and say to the American people he did all he could is a flat lie, sir. Later, Scheuer reiterated a position that he has made to me on several occasions, that the 9/11 Commission ignored and refused to declassify documents that would have made all of us much more aware of what really happened in the years prior to the calamity in the fall of 2001: The 9/11 Commission ignored those documents, didn't publish them to the American people, let no one involved with the effort to get bin Laden testify to the American people. And the documents will show the president had the opportunity. Scheuer also reiterated what most in the media have totally ignored: "Mr Clarke, Mr Berger, Mr Clinton did have opportunities that were delivered by the men and women of the CIA to kill Osama bin Laden. In the first eight months of the Bush administration, there were no such opportunities." WALLACE: Bill Clinton said a lot of things in our interview last week. Well, we've assembled a panel of experts to discuss just that: Daniel Benjamin, a counterterrorism expert for the Clinton National Security Council; Michael Scheuer, who ran the CIA unit that hunted Osama bin Laden; and Lawrence Wright, author of a behind-the- scenes new book on the run-up to 9/11 called "The Looming Tower." We should note we invited Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism expert President Clinton mentioned last week, but he declined. Let's start with President Clinton's claim in our interview that he may not have known in 1993 about Osama bin Laden but that, as time went on, he became very knowledgeable about him. I got closer to killing him than anybody's gotten since. I don't want to go into all 10, but what was the problem? MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CIA AGENT: Well, the president is correct, in that he got - President Clinton is correct that he got closer than anyone, but, of course, he always refused to pull the trigger. And in addition, we were never authorized, while I was the chief of operations, to kill Osama bin Laden. In fact, Mr Richard Clarke definitely told us we had no authorization to kill bin Laden. Why they didn't shoot, of course, is, at least from Mr Tenet's viewpoint it was because one time they were afraid to have shrapnel hit a mosque when they killed bin Laden. And two other times I think they were afraid they actually would have to do something, so they warned the emirates on one occasion, the princes from the United Arab Emirates, to move so we couldn't attack bin Laden. And Richard Clarke called the emirates and warned them that they should get out of that area, which cost us the chance to kill him. WALLACE: Mr Benjamin, you were working in the National Security Council at that time. Weren't there a number of cases where the Clinton administration had bin Laden in their sights and refused or failed to pull the trigger? DAVID BENJAMIN, FORMER MEMBER OF CLINTON'S NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Well, as the 9/11 Commission report has shown, the answer to that is no. On three different occasions we had some intelligence that bin Laden might be in a particular place at a particular time, and we had warships off the coast of Pakistan ready to shoot cruise missiles. I have the greatest respect for Mike Scheuer, but on this case I think he's wrong, because, quite simply, we never had enough information to do this with confidence, knowing that we would get the target. And it doesn't help your deterrence and it doesn't help your case if you fire and you don't hit the right person. WALLACE: Mr Wright, one of the strongest points I picked out from your book was, you talk a lot about the so-called wall that was barring the sharing of information between the CIA and the FBI. And you say repeatedly that it blocked, it hindered efforts to get bin Laden. There was a small legal wall constructed within the FBI between criminal and intelligence agents. But the mythical wall, the nonexistent legal wall, grew up between these cultures, and they naturally decided not to share information. There's a natural jealousy in all intelligence agencies about their information. WALLACE: But give us one, very briefly, an example of the kind of case where if one side, the FBI, had known what the CIA knew or vice versa, it could have made all the difference. WRIGHT: Well, in January of 2000, two members of Al Qaida flew from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles and then moved to San Diego. In March of 2000, the CIA learned of this, and they didn't tell the FBI. And once they're in the US, they really belong to the FBI. WALLACE: In our interview, President Clinton was very emphatic that after the attack on the USS Cole in October of 2000, he was ready to go to war. WRIGHT: Well, they took place 25 days before the general election, for one thing, so it would have been politically difficult. I think this whole thing about the FBI and the CIA not warranting that Al Qaida did it was done as a kind of "you don't want to know" basis. And, you know, the intelligence agencies were reporting to the NSC what the FBI guys on the ground in Yemen were finding. But the leadership of those two agencies wouldn't certify it, in my opinion, because they didn't want the president to have to know that. WALLACE: Let me ask you about that, Mr Benjamin, because that was one of the points that President Clinton made in our interview, that it wasn't certified by the FBI and the CIA. Two points about that: One, he's the commander in chief. The CIA and the FBI don't work for - I mean, they work for him, he doesn't work for them. And two, doesn't this get to the whole issue as to whether or not this was viewed as law enforcement or a war? BENJAMIN: No, I don't think it has anything to do with that. I think it has to do with having a standard of proof that you know that there was outside leadership of Al Qaida directing an attack in Yemen, and could you attack that outside leadership in Afghanistan on that basis? The whole discussion of a law enforcement paradigm versus a war paradigm is, in many ways, just a myth, because the war on terror, if you want to call it that, was conducted in a way before 9/11 that involved an awful lot of intelligence operations that had nothing to do with law enforcement. WALLACE: But, Mr Scheuer, I can see you beginning to shake your head. I mean, whether or not they had certifiable proof about the Cole, they certainly knew that Al Qaida had been involved in the 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Africa. In your opinion, as somebody who was up close and personal, why didn't the Clinton administration go after Al Qaida after the USS Cole? SCHEUER: Mr Wallace, my opinion is not all that important. I went to a little Jesuit school in Buffalo called Canicius, and the priests taught us never to lie, but if you had to lie, never lie about facts. Mr Richard Clarke, Mr Sandy Berger, President Clinton are lying about the opportunities they had to kill Osama bin Laden. Men and women at the CIA risked t... |
| newsbusters.org/node/7871 Despite Bill Clinton's angry protestations, the bulk of the blame for America's failure to catch or kill Osama bin Laden lies squarely on the Clinton administration, at least according to terrorism analyst Michael Scheuer. Scheuer's words, delivered on today's edition of CBS's "Early Show," must have come as a shock for co-host Harry Smith since the liberal media's usual refrain on bin Laden is to blame Bush for the failure to kill him back in the early days of the Afghanistan campaign. That just isn't the case, Scheuer argued, implicitly criticizing the press. "The former president seems to be able to deny facts with impugnity. Bin Laden is alive today because Mr Clinton, Mr Sandy Berger, and Mr Richard Clarke refused to kill him," he said. On Monday's "Early Show", co-host Harry Smith talked with Scheuer about the war in Iraq and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Smith was shocked when Scheuer laid the blame at the feet of the Clinton administration, and attempted to put the focus back on failures of the Bush Administration. Smith highlighted president Clinton's defense of his administration: "Let's talk about what President Clinton had to say on Fox yesterday. He basically laid blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to certify or verify that Osama bin Laden was responsible for a number of different attacks. Scheuer refuted Smith's portrayal of Clinton: "No, sir, I don't think so. The president seems to be able, the former president seems to be able to deny facts with impugnity. Bin Laden is alive today because Mr Clinton, Mr Sandy Berger, and Mr Richard Clarke refused to kill him. And every time he says what he said to Chris Wallace on Fox, he defames the CIA especially, and the men and women who risk their lives to give his administration repeated chances to kill bin Laden." Smith couldn't let these facts tarnish the Clinton legacy, so he attempted to change the subject back to the Bush Administration: "All right, is the Bush administration any less responsible for not finishing the job in Tora Bora?" But it's just, it's an incredible kind of situation for the American people over the weekend to hear their former president mislead them." Scheuer's points may have hit at Clinton too hard for Smith, as Smith used his final word to assert that President Bush is responsible too: "And, and, and with this also further revelation that, in fact, the war in Iraq has only exacerbated the terrorist situation." Scheuer's facts about the failures of the Clinton administration in catching bin Laden are largely ignored by the media, but keep them in mind the next time a reporter starts hammering the Bush administration because Osama bin Laden is still at large. Transcript of the relevant portion of the interview follows: Harry Smith: "Elizabeth Palmer live in Pakistan this morning, thank you. Let's talk about what President Clinton had to say on Fox yesterday. He basically laid blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for not being able to certify or verify that Osama bin Laden was responsible for a number of different attacks. The president seems to be able, the former president seems to be able to deny facts with impugnity. Bin Laden is alive today because Mr Clinton, Mr Sandy Berger, and Mr Richard Clarke refused to kill him. And every time he says what he said to Chris Wallace on Fox, he defames the CIA especially, and the men and women who risk their lives to give his administration repeated chances to kill bin Laden." Harry Smith: "Alright, is the Bush administration any less responsible for not finishing the job in Tora Bora?" Michael Scheuer: "Oh, I think there's plenty of blame to go around, sir, but the fact of the matter is that the Bush Administration had one chance that they botched, and the Clinton Administration had eight to ten chances that they refused to try. But it's just, it's an incredible kind of situation for the American people over the weekend to hear their former president mislead them." Harry Smith: "And, and, and with this also further revelation that, in fact, the war in Iraq has only exacerbated the terrorist situation. Michael Scheurer, we thank you so much for your time this morning." Roger the Shrubber Says: September 25, 2006 - 10:45 I have to admit, gang, that this finger-pointing is getting rather tiresome. As much energy is being spent by my colleagues on the right as is being spent on damage-control by the guys on the left. I think we can safely say that BOTH SIDES dropped the ball here. All this Monday-morning QB'ing is a futile exercise in party politics. We are committing the First Rule of Liberalism: "Accuse the right of doing exactly what the left is doing." Also, in my not-so-humble opinion, other than the fact that it took a Fox reporter to ask Willy the right questions, this whole Clinton fiasco is not even an example of liberal media bias, and this site has stepped into Hufftard territory here. n2sooners Says: September 25, 2006 - 10:57 First, I only see one side here that is trying to pin all the blame on the other. One side is saying that there was failure on both sides while the other is saying it's all Bush's fault. The fact that for the past five years Clinton has been all over the media and this is the first time he has been confronted in any way, shape, or form. This is a prime example of how the liberal media has softballed Clinton for years and how he imploded at the very first question to challenge his legacy as the perfect president. Roger the Shrubber Says: September 25, 2006 - 11:03 While I agree on your assessment on the "liberal media bias" topic (as I said in my original post), I do not know what you have been reading or listening to for the past 5 years. I do not know how you CANNOT see how both sides have been pinning 9/11 on the each other... Sooner, you are being the Kool-Aid chugger you accuse the lefties of being. Roger the Shrubber Says: September 25, 2006 - 11:10 But Sarc, your guys are to blame for about every other problem in America, I thought I'd give you (collectively) a break on the 9/11 thang. Roger the Shrubber Says: September 25, 2006 - 11:38 I have no comeback for that clever, witty retort. I am one of the staunchest conservatives on this site, but I am not blind, or stupid. SportPolitics Says: September 25, 2006 - 13:02 Well, you're certainly not smart on this. If the democrats like Clinton get away with hiding all their lax wimpy crap now, they'ell get awy with it in office when they get back there. If you're so conservative why are you cheering for the opposition all of a sudden ? It's a lot more Clinton's and the left's fault than it is the rights, there ain't any doubt about that, at all. The left including the clinton cabal is blocking away right now as we speak, and you want to give them a break so " we aren't dirty like democrats?" Hey, I've got loads of boxcutters here since you're willing to slice your own throat, need a few ? His party is still trying to make it all go away, stop the wiretaps, end the war in Iraq, rescind the patriot act, and lay the blame everywhere but at the feet of their 30 years program to stop our forces from doing what WAS neccessary, and IS NOW still. Roger the Shrubber Says: September 25, 2006 - 13:54 Who said anything about cheering for the opposition? Have any of you been reading or watching how this interview has been spun to show how the poor, innocent ex-president was "ambushed" by the evil neo-cons? All this interview did was reinforce all of us on the right that Clinton was a lousy president, and to those on the left that there is a "vast right-wing conspiracy" out to defame the greatest president ever. n2sooners Says: September 25, 2006 - 13:10 Sorry, but that is about as serious a response as the koolaid chugger remark deserved. So let me ask you this, where have you been hanging out that you haven't heard conservatives saying things like "there is plenty of blame to go around?" I haven't heard any conservatives (at least none that can be taken seriously) claim Bush has no fault here. They have just pointed out that history didn't start at Jan 20, 2001 and that Clinton had a lot more time to deal with O... |