Time to Blame Clinton
Posted on | September 7, 2006
Ah! The election cycle nears the home stretch. You can smell that hint of fall in the air. You can see the sudden drop in gas prices, and fresh bin Laden video. You can hear a touch of regret in Da Prez’ voice. You can practically taste the desperation in ABC’s Clinton-bashing, Bush-boosting 9/11 “documdrama.” Former Bush Administration official Roger Cressey cries baloney on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country:
CRESSY: Joe, it’s amazing, based on what I’ve seen so far is how much they’ve gotten wrong. They got the small stuff wrong such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed instructing Ahmed Rassam to carry out the millenium attacks. Then they got the big stuff wrong, this fantasy about how we had a CIA officer and the Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Massoud looking at Bin Laden and they breathlessly call the White House to say we need to take him out and the White House said no. I mean it’s sheer fantasy. So, if they want to critique the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, based on fact, I think that’s fine. But what ABC has done here is something straight out of Disney and fantasyland. It’s factually wrong. And that’s shameful.
Scarborough actually lets his talking point be debunked:
SCARBOROUGH: But at the same time, doesn’t history show that Bill Clinton had several opportunities to go after bin Laden, but the President and his cabinet were afraid to do so because they may offend some people in the Arab world?
CRESSY: Actually, Joe, that had nothing to do with it. If you read the 9/11 Commission report, it makes it very clear. In most of those cases, George Tenet, the Director of the CIA, said because there was single source intelligence it was his recommendation to the President not to take the shot. There was never a case where we had a clear shot at Bin Laden and the decision to take it wasn’t made.
Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke offers an even more pointed rebuttal:
1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.
2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was nowhere near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL.
3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.
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