How Clinton set the scene for 9/11
Dick Morris
New York Post
When terrorists controlled by Osama bin Laden exploded a bomb in the World Trade Center in 1993, killing six and injuring 650 others, Bill Clinton, then U.S. president, did not visit the site of the attack. In a radio address the next day, he expressed his grief and outrage and four days later visited New Jersey, where he sent a message to New Yorkers saluting our courage. Other than that, he remained aloof and uninvolved.
The attack occurred in the second month of Mr. Clinton's presidency. Issues such as gays in the military, the recession and withdrawing U.S. troops from Somalia loomed larger. Mr. Clinton deliberately remained removed from the attack, perhaps in the hope he would not be blamed so early in his presidency.
Where George W. Bush insisted, from the outset, that the Trade Center attack that took place on his watch was a declaration of war by foreign terrorists against the United States, Mr. Clinton treated the attack as a criminal justice situation not unlike the subsequent bombing of the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. But while he connected emotionally with victims in Oklahoma, he had nothing to do with them in 1993.
His failure to mobilize the United States to confront foreign terror after the 1993 attack had dire consequences and led directly to the 2001 disaster. Two years after the 1993 attack, Sudan, sick of sheltering bin Laden, offered to turn him over to the United States for prosecution. But, without the president breathing down their neck, investigators had not yet discovered bin Laden was behind the 1993 attack. The United States, claiming it lacked evidence to proceed, refused Sudan's offer and suggested he be turned over to the Saudis instead. This was disingenuous. Americans knew full well the Saudi Arabian kingdom could not afford politically to prosecute its homegrown terrorist.
Mr. Clinton was distant where the war on terror was concerned. James Woolsey, a former CIA director, has revealed he never had a private personal meeting with Mr. Clinton during the first two years of his tenure as head of the CIA -- exactly the key period in investigating the 1993 attack.
I had a good illustration of Mr. Clinton's remoteness from terrorist issues in 1996, when Dick Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, called me, several months after the terrorist attack on U.S. barracks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Holbrooke, who told me he had never spoken with Mr. Clinton directly during the months he was negotiating the Dayton peace accords in Bosnia, asked that I get hold of the president to pass along a message. He said he had information the terrorists were planning another attack in Riyadh and that U.S. troops were highly vulnerable.
"They are stuck in the same buildings the terrorists attacked last time," Mr. Holbrook told me. "All that has changed is that there are more formidable concrete barriers against car bombs. But a bigger bomb would be just as lethal. They need to be dispersed and camped in the desert in tents with a secured perimeter," he warned.
I passed along Mr. Holbrooke's message. Mr. Clinton had no idea the troops were still in the barracks, and said he had ordered them dispersed to the desert six weeks before. "I've got a meeting with the Joint Chiefs in the morning," the president said, "I'll raise Hell with them."
Shockingly, he was so little involved in protecting his troops -- already the object of a terrorist attack -- that he had no idea his order had not been executed until I happened to call.
Mr. Clinton was a one-thing-at-a-time president. Capable of intense focus on the issue du jour, he neglected all back-burner concerns. And terror was always on the back burner.
Throughout the first part of his second term, Mr. Clinton was battling to save his presidency and had neither the time nor the mental energy to immerse himself in a war against terror. Blame him for the perjury that caused impeachment. Blame the GOP for pursuing him. Blame whoever you want, but the United States was without a president from January, 1998, until April, 1999.
Thereafter, his administration was devoted to electing Hillary to the Senate and, to a lesser extent, to making Al Gore president. Again, terrorism was not the priority. It never was. Now it is.
Dick Morris was Bill Clinton's chief political strategist and is president of vote.com.
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this was an article which appeared in the november 30th national post(1 of 2 canadian national dailies) though it appears to have original been from the ny post.
i find the article quite interesting though i don't know much of clinton's apparent detached approach to the '93 wtc attack.
one intriguing point which is not mentioned in the note at the end is that dick morris' www.vote.com recently entered into an agreement with the national post to hold twice weekly polls via www.nationalpost.com , no doubt leading to his appearance in the post.
------------------
bottom line: U2 rules.
Dick Morris
New York Post
When terrorists controlled by Osama bin Laden exploded a bomb in the World Trade Center in 1993, killing six and injuring 650 others, Bill Clinton, then U.S. president, did not visit the site of the attack. In a radio address the next day, he expressed his grief and outrage and four days later visited New Jersey, where he sent a message to New Yorkers saluting our courage. Other than that, he remained aloof and uninvolved.
The attack occurred in the second month of Mr. Clinton's presidency. Issues such as gays in the military, the recession and withdrawing U.S. troops from Somalia loomed larger. Mr. Clinton deliberately remained removed from the attack, perhaps in the hope he would not be blamed so early in his presidency.
Where George W. Bush insisted, from the outset, that the Trade Center attack that took place on his watch was a declaration of war by foreign terrorists against the United States, Mr. Clinton treated the attack as a criminal justice situation not unlike the subsequent bombing of the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. But while he connected emotionally with victims in Oklahoma, he had nothing to do with them in 1993.
His failure to mobilize the United States to confront foreign terror after the 1993 attack had dire consequences and led directly to the 2001 disaster. Two years after the 1993 attack, Sudan, sick of sheltering bin Laden, offered to turn him over to the United States for prosecution. But, without the president breathing down their neck, investigators had not yet discovered bin Laden was behind the 1993 attack. The United States, claiming it lacked evidence to proceed, refused Sudan's offer and suggested he be turned over to the Saudis instead. This was disingenuous. Americans knew full well the Saudi Arabian kingdom could not afford politically to prosecute its homegrown terrorist.
Mr. Clinton was distant where the war on terror was concerned. James Woolsey, a former CIA director, has revealed he never had a private personal meeting with Mr. Clinton during the first two years of his tenure as head of the CIA -- exactly the key period in investigating the 1993 attack.
I had a good illustration of Mr. Clinton's remoteness from terrorist issues in 1996, when Dick Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, called me, several months after the terrorist attack on U.S. barracks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Holbrooke, who told me he had never spoken with Mr. Clinton directly during the months he was negotiating the Dayton peace accords in Bosnia, asked that I get hold of the president to pass along a message. He said he had information the terrorists were planning another attack in Riyadh and that U.S. troops were highly vulnerable.
"They are stuck in the same buildings the terrorists attacked last time," Mr. Holbrook told me. "All that has changed is that there are more formidable concrete barriers against car bombs. But a bigger bomb would be just as lethal. They need to be dispersed and camped in the desert in tents with a secured perimeter," he warned.
I passed along Mr. Holbrooke's message. Mr. Clinton had no idea the troops were still in the barracks, and said he had ordered them dispersed to the desert six weeks before. "I've got a meeting with the Joint Chiefs in the morning," the president said, "I'll raise Hell with them."
Shockingly, he was so little involved in protecting his troops -- already the object of a terrorist attack -- that he had no idea his order had not been executed until I happened to call.
Mr. Clinton was a one-thing-at-a-time president. Capable of intense focus on the issue du jour, he neglected all back-burner concerns. And terror was always on the back burner.
Throughout the first part of his second term, Mr. Clinton was battling to save his presidency and had neither the time nor the mental energy to immerse himself in a war against terror. Blame him for the perjury that caused impeachment. Blame the GOP for pursuing him. Blame whoever you want, but the United States was without a president from January, 1998, until April, 1999.
Thereafter, his administration was devoted to electing Hillary to the Senate and, to a lesser extent, to making Al Gore president. Again, terrorism was not the priority. It never was. Now it is.
Dick Morris was Bill Clinton's chief political strategist and is president of vote.com.
---------------------------------------------
this was an article which appeared in the november 30th national post(1 of 2 canadian national dailies) though it appears to have original been from the ny post.
i find the article quite interesting though i don't know much of clinton's apparent detached approach to the '93 wtc attack.
one intriguing point which is not mentioned in the note at the end is that dick morris' www.vote.com recently entered into an agreement with the national post to hold twice weekly polls via www.nationalpost.com , no doubt leading to his appearance in the post.
------------------
bottom line: U2 rules.
