What was President Clinton reason to let Osama Bin Laden go after having 10 different chances???

What was Bush's reason for not getting Bin laden? Could it be he didn't want to capture his close buddy...his good friend...his homey...

Can anyone answer this question?

After all that "waterboarding" and "interrogating"....Bush and Cheney couldn't get Bin Laden. I wonder why? Oh yeh, friends don't harm friends.

melinda purcell, What is this obsession with a twentieth century president? Come into the 21st!

You do realize that the towers fell, not on Clinton's watch, but GWB's?

And a year ago Obama did have him taken out. What is your point, if you have one?

The World Trade center was first BOMBED on the President Bill Clinton watch

I know i was there!!!

And Bush and Cheney BOMBED it the second time on Bush's watch...We know, we all watched it happen.

See Dem Elizabeth's post.

Also, why did Bush get all of the Bin Ladin family and friends out of the country when all planes were grounded? Bush always bragged about being a "family member" of the Saudi family.

They say blood is thicker than water. Oil may be thicker than blood.

And the people who bombed the Twin Towers under Clinton were caught tried and convicted. Poor little righty selective memory syndrome at play.

They just don't post the entire story. Only the part that gives what they want. And Malinda has an obsession with Clinton but no facts. GWB had OBL in the cross hairs and called the troops back to invaded Iraq. Remember the conflict he lied us into?

Larry

What the hell do you care about all these "conflicts" you whine about. You're not paying for them so STFU.

Sorry but neither are you and yet you continue post your rewrites of history as told to you by the likes of Sarah Palin, OxyRush and the liars over on Fox news.

Here is what gw said about the 9/11 attack ......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZBmfRBv-Go

DemElizabeth, Thanks for that fine post. I don't think Melinda is clear on the facts.

Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA effort to get bin Laden under President Bill Clinton, is telling a different story. Scheuer says in The New York Daily News that plans for an invasion were never presented or discussed in his presence. And he says the only order he received following the attack on the Cole was to come up with a target list for air strikes. He also says Mr. Clinton had 10 chances to kill or capture bin Laden before 9/11, but the president did not use the information he was given.

Melinda "can't handle the truth"...

Bottom line Melinda:

OBAMA GOT OSAMA AND BUSH DIDN'T HAVE THE BALLS TO ACT...

Clarke's book Against All Enemies is also a crucial complement to the September 11 panel's failure to condemn Mr. Clinton's failure to capture or kill bin Laden on any of the eight to 10 chances afforded by CIA reporting. Mr. Clarke never mentions that President Bush had no chances to kill bin Laden before September 11 and leaves readers with the false impression that he, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, did their best to end the bin Laden threat. That trio, in my view, abetted al Qaeda, and if the September 11 families were smart they would focus on the dereliction of Dick [Clarke], Bill [Clinton] and Sandy [Berger] and not the antics of convicted September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.^[28]

Melinda, and GWB had eight years to get him and didn't.

What is your point????

Here's the date: 9-11-01 Who was president? Under whose watch did the towers come down? Who ignored his and intelligence reports?

Exactly....what a waste Bush was...

Melinda, did you catch the phrase "In my view"? It is opinion NOT FACT!

Here's the date February 26, 1993

Who was president?

The word and doesn't belong in that last sentence. typo.

What the hell difference does it make? That was years before the towers came down and there was proper intelligence against Bin Ladin.

We ALL KNOW who was president in 1993.

Those terrorists are currently serving life without parole in a secure Federal prison. while after OBL brought down the Towers on 9/11 went free the entire 8 years GWB was president. So once again we get distraction from the facts by a less then honest poster.

Melinda doesn't want to get into the 21st century. She too hung up on Clinton. But when we bring up the crap GWB did, we're told he's not president anymore. Can you say hypocrit?

Melinda still believes in the theory that if you tell a lie long enough, sooner or later everyone will buy it. Well melinda, that certainly holds true for your fellow zombies over at Fake 'news' but not here.

Pretty plainly, Bin Laden was killed as an extension of policies Hussein Obama campaigned against, with Liberals protesting the patriot act at every turn. What happened? Hussein has followed the implementations of GWB and You have the death of Bin Laden is the result. P.S. Think the military votes Liberal?

Right because you knew all about Obama's plans before he got sworn in because you are a trusted Obama aide. Then there is reality that you are just another delusional righty who was let out of the mental ward after your electro shock treatment.

During a February 2002 speech, Clinton explained that he turned down an offer from Sudan for bin Laden's extradition to the U.S., saying, "At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him."

But that wasn't exactly true. By 1996, the 9/11 mastermind had already been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by prosecutors in New York.

9/11 Commissioner former Sen. Bob Kerrey said that Clinton told the Commission during his private interview that reports of his comments to the LIA were based on "a misquote."

During his interview with the 9/11 Commission, Clinton was accompanied by longtime aide and former White House counsel Bruce Lindsey, along with former national security advisor Sandy Berger, who insisted in sworn testimony before Congress in Sept. 2002 that there was never any offer from Sudanese officials to turn over bin Laden to the U.S.

But other evidence suggests the Clinton administration did not take advantage of offers to get bin Laden -- and that the Monica Lewinsky scandal was exploding during this time period.

At least two offers from the government of Sudan to arrest Osama bin Laden and turn him over to the U.S. were rebuffed by the Clinton administration in February and March of 1996, a period of time when the former president's attention was distracted by his intensifying relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

One of the offers took place during a secret meeting in Washington, the same day Clinton was meeting with Lewinsky in the White House just miles away.

On Feb. 6, 1996, then-U.S. Ambassador to the Sudan Tim Carney met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Osman Mohammed Taha at Taha's home in the capital city of Khartoum. The meeting took place just a half mile from bin Laden's residence at the time, according to Richard Miniter's book "Losing bin Laden."

During the meeting, Carney reminded the Sudanese official that Washington was increasingly nervous about the presence of bin Laden in Sudan, reports Miniter.

Foreign Minister Taha countered by saying that Sudan was very concerned about its poor relationship with the U.S.

Then came the bombshell offer:

"If you want bin Laden, we will give you bin Laden," Foreign Minister Taha told Ambassador Carney.

Still, with the extraordinarily fortuitous offer on the table, back in Washington President Clinton had other things on his mind.

A timeline of events chronicled in the Starr Report shows that during the period of late January through March 1996, Mr. Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky was then at its most intense.

On Feb. 4, 1996, for instance - two days before Ambassador Carney's key meeting with the Sudanese Foreign Minister, the president was focused not on Osama bin Laden, but instead on the 23-year-old White House intern.

Their rendezvous that day included a sexual encounter followed by a leisurely chat between Clinton and Lewinsky, as the two "sat and talked [afterward] for about 45 minutes," according to the Starr Report.

Later in the afternoon that same day, as Sudanese officials weighed their decision to offer bin Laden to the U.S., Clinton found time to call Lewinsky "[to say] he had enjoyed their time together." If there were any calls from Clinton to the State Department or Khartoum that day, the records have yet to surface in published reports.

The Feb. 4 encounter with Lewinsky followed a period of intense contact detailed in the Starr report in interviews with the former White House intern, including a sexual encounter on Jan. 6, 1996, several sessions of phone sex during the week of Jan. 14 - 21, and another sexual encounter on Jan. 21.

Sudan's offer to the U.S. for bin Laden's extradition remained on the table for at least a month, and was reiterated by Sudanese officials who traveled to Washington as late as March 10, 1996.

On March 3, Sudan's Minister of State for Defense Elfatih Erwa met secretly with Ambassador Carney, another State Department official and the CIA's Africa bureau Director of Operations at an Arlington, Va., hotel, according to Miniter's book.

Erwa was handed a list of issues the U.S. wanted taken care of if relations were to improve. The list included a demand for information on bin Laden's terrorist network inside Sudan.

Erwa replied that he would have to consult with Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir about the list. When he returned for a March 10, 1996 meeting with the CIA's Africa bureau chief, "Erwa would be empowered to make an extraordinary offer," writes Miniter.

On instructions from its president, the government of Sudan agreed to arrest bin Laden and hand him over to U.S law enforcement at a time and place of the Clinton administration's choosing. "Where should we send him?" Erwa asked the CIA representative.

In his 2002 speech President Clinton has acknowledged being fully briefed on the Sudanese efforts to turn over the 9/11 mastermind, admitting that he made the final decision to turn the offer down.

As chronicled in the Starr report, however, Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky proved to be a growing distraction around this time.

Two weeks before the secret meeting between Erwa, Carney and the CIA bureau chief, the president summoned Lewinsky to the White House to inform her that he "no longer felt right" about their relationship and it would have to be suspended until after the election.

Lewinsky explained, however, that Clinton's decision to put their relationship on hold did little to change its basic character, telling Starr's investigators, "There'd continue to be this flirtation when we'd see each other."

The Starr report noted, "In late February or March [1996], the president telephoned her at home and said he was disappointed that, because she had already left the White House for the evening, they could not get together."

The call, Lewinsky said, "sort of implied to me that he was interested in starting up again."

On March 10, 1996, as Sudanese Defense Minister Erwa was making his extraordinary offer for bin Laden's arrest to the CIA's Africa bureau chief, Clinton met with Lewinsky in the White House.

The Starr report:

"On March 10, 1996, Ms. Lewinsky took a visiting friend, Natalie Ungvari, to the White House. They bumped into the president, who said when Ms. Lewinsky introduced them, 'You must be her friend from California.' Ms. Ungvari was 'shocked' that the president knew where she was from."

Though there was no physical contact that day, three weeks later, on March 31, 1996, Clinton resumed his sexual relationship with Lewinsky.

It was around this time, the president later admitted, that he was involved in delicate negotiations to try to persuade Riyadh to take bin Laden, after refusing to accept his extradition to the U.S.

"I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have," Clinton admitted in the 2002 speech. "But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."

On April 7, 1996, Monica Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. Around the same time, the administration's hunt for bin Laden finally seemed to begin in earnest. Just weeks after Clinton spurned Sudan's bin Laden offer, for instance, the CIA created a separate operational unit dedicated to tracking down bin Laden in Sudan.

But it happened too late to capture the 9/11 mastermind. On May 18, 1996, bin Laden boarded a chartered plane in Khartoum with his wives, children, some 150 al-Qaida jihadists and a cache of arms - and flew off to Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

TRANSCRIPT: Ex-President Clinton's Remarks on Osama bin Laden Delivered to the Long Island Association's Annual Luncheon Crest Hollow Country Club, Woodbury, NY Feb. 15, 2002

To hear NewsMax.com's exclusive audio recording of ex-President Clinton explaining why he turned the Sudanese offer down, Click Here.

Question from LIA President Matthew Crosson:

CROSSON: In hindsight, would you have handled the issue of terrorism, and al-Qaeda specifically, in a different way during your administration?

CLINTON: Well, it's interesting now, you know, that I would be asked that question because, at the time, a lot of people thought I was too obsessed with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

And when I bombed his training camp and tried to kill him and his high command in 1998 after the African embassy bombings, some people criticized me for doing it. We just barely missed him by a couple of hours.

I think whoever told us he was going to be there told somebody who told him that our missiles might be there. I think we were ratted out.

We also bombed a chemical facility in Sudan where we were criticized, even in this country, for overreaching. But in the trial in New York City of the al-Qaeda people who bombed the African embassy, they testified in the trial that the Sudanese facility was, in fact, a part of their attempt to stockpile chemical weapons.

So we tried to be quite aggressive with them. We got - uh - well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan.

And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again.

They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan.

We then put a lot of sanctions on the Afghan government and - but they inter-married, Mullah Omar and bin Laden. So that essentially the Taliban didn't care what we did to them.

Now, if you look back - in the hindsight of history, everybody's got 20/20 vision - the real issue is should we have attacked the al-Qaeda network in 1999 or in 2000 in Afghanistan.

Here's the problem. Before September 11 we would have had no support for it - no allied support and no basing rights. So we actually trained to do this. I actually trained people to do this. We trained people.

But in order to do it, we would have had to take them in on attack helicopters 900 miles from the nearest boat - maybe illegally violating the airspace of people if they wouldn't give us approval. And we would have had to do a refueling stop.

And we would have had to make the decision in advance that's the reverse of what President Bush made - and I agreed with what he did. They basically decided - this may be frustrating to you now that we don't have bin Laden. But the president had to decide after Sept. 11, which am I going to do first? Just go after bin Laden or get rid of the Taliban?

He decided to get rid of the Taliban. I personally agree with that decision, even though it may or may not have delayed the capture of bin Laden. Why?

Because, first of all the Taliban was the most reactionary government on earth and there was an inherent value in getting rid of them.

Secondly, they supported terrorism and we'd send a good signal to governments that if you support terrorism and they attack us in America, we will hold you responsible.

Thirdly, it enabled our soldiers and Marines and others to operate more safely in-country as they look for bin Laden and the other senior leadership, because if we'd have had to have gone in there to just sort of clean out one area, try to establish a base camp and operate.

So for all those reasons the military recommended against it. There was a high probability that it wouldn't succeed.

Now I had one other option. I could have bombed or sent more missiles in. As far as we knew he never went back to his training camp. So the only place bin Laden ever went that we knew was occasionally he went to Khandahar where he always spent the night in a compound that had 200 women and children.

So I could have, on any given night, ordered an attack that I knew would kill 200 women and children that had less than a 50 percent chance of getting him.

Now, after he murdered 3,100 of our people and others who came to our country seeking their livelihood you may say, "Well, Mr. President, you should have killed those 200 women and children."

But at the time we didn't think he had the capacity to do that. And no one thought that I should do that. Although I take full responsibility for it. You need to know that those are the two options I had. And there was less than a 50/50 chance that the intelligence was right that on this particular night he was in Afghanistan.

Now, we did do a lot of things. We tried to get the Pakistanis to go get him. They could have done it and they wouldn't. They changed governments at the time from Mr. Sharif to President Musharraf. And we tried to get others to do it. We had a standing contract between the CIA and some groups in Afghanistan authorizing them and paying them if they should be successful in arresting and/or killing him.

So I tried hard to - I always thought this guy was a big problem. And apparently the options I had were the options that the President and Vice President Cheney and Secretary Powell and all the people that were involved in the Gulf War thought that they had, too, during the first eight months that they were there - until Sept. 11 changed everything.

But I did the best I could with it and I do not believe, based on what options were available to me, that I could have done much more than I did. Obviously, I wish I'd been successful. I tried a lot of different ways to get bin Laden 'cause I always thought he was a very dangerous man. He's smart, he's bold and committed.

But I think it's very important that the Bush administration do what they're doing to keep the soldiers over there to keep chasing him. But I know - like I said - I know it might be frustrating to you. But it's still better for bin Laden to worry every day more about whether he's going to see the sun come up in the morning than whether he's going to drop a bomb, another bomb somewhere in the U.S. or in Europe or on some other innocent civilians. (END OF TRANSCRIPT)

Marvelous Mitt who loves the Paul Ryan plan. Paul Ryan a disciple of Ayn Rand, who from my reading is clearly a narcissistic maniac!

Now it makes sense, the narcissistic maniacs have taken over the republican party!

The "It's all about ME" society also known as the current republican party!

WoW!

Voting for President Obama !

I said months ago the the Tea Party would be the undoing of the Republican Party and it looks more and more to be true....

Turn out the lights the parties over!

I don't know about that xxx, the ones I know do awful evil things in the name of what they think is good. They are a group who think "self" is all there is in life, they never consider thinking about anyone else. Just what serves their purpose. Selfish.

I did, thats why I vote Democrat.

Feeling the pressure of becoming a loser once again sixpack?

Loser? seen the economy lately?

Why yes I have Einstein. 24 months of continuous growth despite the 'loser' agenda the teabaggers adopted of obstructing the growth out of this recession. I swear to God they should write a book on how to lose an election. See ya at the polls scottie!

I am turning in. I am rereading Jane Eyre and it is so good I can't wait to curl up in the den. Goodnight Toyota3.

goodnight, sixpick.

Good night India sweet dreams!

Hi six what's new? Hot video!!!

http://youtu.be/pG7WkocijbY

Good night India... I know you don't like to see these comments, but isn't it the right thing to do to let people know sometimes things aren't exactly as they appear? Can we all not be fooled at some point sometimes? Do we just have an opinion and ignore any possible facts that may give us a better view of reality? Or should we just follow blindly without investigating all possibilities?

SIX: Its a hot one!!!

http://youtu.be/bIHmMHshTko

@sixpick,

My personal favority is "The Idiots That Voted For Obama". It is from the documentary 'Media Malpractice' which I'm sure not many here have seen. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see how far in the tank the mainstream media was in the effort to elect Barack Obama in 2008. It was almost criminal.

Look what we got, a Community Organizer with no executive experience who wants to turn America into Europe. The entire country is suffering for it. Does anyone feel a tingle up their leg now?

See post 98.1 above.

HAHAAaaaaa, Their last resort, grasping for straws in a Windstorm!

hey leave poor 6 pack alone you know how many 6 packs it takes to be able to write the crap he writes and believe what your posting is fact. ffs poor 6 pack will have to seek help from AA pretty soon.

Another brilliant post.

And its still more factual then anything you have posted. Poor little righty OxyRush still hasn't gotten back to you on how to post on left leaning blogs I see. Well don't fret I'm sure as soon as OxyRush figures out how to sell Mittens to the voting public he will solve all of your little problems for you cause lord knows you refuse to make a move before you have someone to blame for your screw ups.

Was Dale Earnhart a rascist?

Tparty/Gop theme song: You got me goin in Circles...HAAHAAaaaaaaa!

Billy Preston

http://youtu.be/cuFOkAL8ihM

http://youtu.be/0tl59FST-LQ

sixpick

The rich get richer because they keep doing what made them rich.

And what is that????? they take from the middle class, either in price hikes or tax cuts......... each cut has to be paid for..... by whom???

Oh, and some like Governor Scott from Florida stole from the old and disabled....Medicare!

Six...Finish School.

You checked the price of school lately? And they want to do away with public schooling all together.... One giant leap to 18th century.

Excuses Tom.... At least finish high school. I think about 50% are doing that now and it's free. I know mechanics that make way over a hundred thousand a year because they had a vision and pursued it. I don't believe in getting rid of public schools and when that happens, please let me know. You don't have to have a 4 year college education to be successful in this life. You do have to have a good work ethnic and determination to be successful. Something that seems to be missing in too many today. By the way the last statement I wrote above is Don't just become a part of a group, be an individual. I guess that old say, "Can't never Could" is the way so many follow today. Yet, there are those that don't fit into that category, because there are still people that are being successful in spite of everything. Then there are those that fall prey to the idea of hopeless that is promoted by so many.

SECRETS TO A SUCCESSFUL LIFE. Don't know why there is such reluctance to

put checks on this one. These values were instilled in me growing up, they

were instilled in my children. My grand children are in for the same

message. Maybe I messed up on a few, I know my kids did and since they are

human, my grand kids will too. Do to your best ability and with honest

comittment, that's all. The message has value.