The Report the CIA Didn't Want You to See

[XMan]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20381551/site/newsweek/

"The report also criticized intelligence problems when Bill Clinton was president, detailing political and legal ?constraints? agency officials felt in the late 1990s. In September 2006, during a famous encounter with Fox News anchor Wallace, Clinton erupted in anger and waived his finger when asked about whether his administration had done enough to get bin Laden. ?What did I do? What did I do?? Clinton said at one point. ?I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since.?

Clinton appeared to have been referring to a December 1999 Memorandum of Notification (MON) he signed that authorized the CIA to use lethal force to capture, not kill, bin Laden. But the inspector general?s report made it clear that the agency never viewed the order as a license to ?kill? bin Laden?one reason it never mounted more effective operations against him. ?The restrictions in the authorities given the CIA with respect to bin Laden, while arguably, although ambiguously, relaxed for a period of time in late 1998 and early 1999, limited the range of permissible operations,? the report stated. (Scheuer agreed with the inspector general?s findings on this issue, but said if anything the report was overly diplomatic. ?There was never any ambiguity,? he said. ?None of those authorities ever allowed us to kill anyone. At least that?s what the CIA lawyers told us.? A spokesman for the former president had no immediate comment.)

Wow - when did Newsweek become a member of Hilary's "vast right-wing conspiracy"?

Somebody should ask Sandy Berger about this . . . . he must not have been able to stuff all the pertinent reports into his socks.

 

[XMan]

<crickets>

 

[senseamp]

Capturing Bin Laden would have been a lot more valuable from intelligence point of view.

 

[OrByte]

So I guess it is true that Clinton wasn't ignore Osama like some winguts want us to believe.

 

[senseamp]

Plus the CIA did try to kill Bin Laden under Clinton, but missed him by some hours in that camp they bombed, so the story doesn't really hold water. Not only that, but when Clinton did strike Bin Laden, he took a lot of heat from the Republicans, not because he missed, but because it distracted them from their obsession with Clenis.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: senseamp
Plus the CIA did try to kill Bin Laden under Clinton, but missed him by some hours in that camp they bombed, so the story doesn't really hold water. Not only that, but when Clinton did strike Bin Laden, he took a lot of heat from the Republicans, not because he missed, but because it distracted them from their obsession with Clenis.

ummm he tried ONE time... ohhhhh wow...

I should add that we spent 78 days bombing Serbia in order to stop the Kosovo war.
Flew a few thousand missions and drops thousands of bombs.
Meanwhile we launched around 70 cruise missiles at Osama.

 

[Lemon law]

The point is that Clinton did take extreme pains to warn the GWB administration about Bin Laden. They did zero, zippo, zit about Bin laden between the time they tool office in late January 2001 and up to the fateful day of 911. And now they try to sell the myth they and not the democrats had a clue on the dangers of Bin Laden before 911.

More adventures into the joys of revisionist history. And for that matter, GWB had a great chance to get Bin Laden at Tora Bora and muffed that one also. And GWB&co. not been even close ever since. Sadly, we have a new NIE that states AL-Quida is now back to pre-911 strength while we weaken ourselves pouring lives and money down a rat hole in Iraq.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: senseamp
Plus the CIA did try to kill Bin Laden under Clinton, but missed him by some hours in that camp they bombed, so the story doesn't really hold water. Not only that, but when Clinton did strike Bin Laden, he took a lot of heat from the Republicans, not because he missed, but because it distracted them from their obsession with Clenis.

ummm he tried ONE time... ohhhhh wow...

I should add that we spent 78 days bombing Serbia in order to stop the Kosovo war.
Flew a few thousand missions and drops thousands of bombs.
Meanwhile we launched around 70 cruise missiles at Osama.

Talk about bitching over 20/20 hindsight. One of the Bush officials said Clinton had been 'too obsessed' with bin Laden. The US was not too worried about terrorism before 9/11.

So, we put more effort into an actual war of a nation with hundreds of thousands of people affected, than into a small camp of terrorists? Gee.

 

[umbrella39]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
The point is that Clinton did take extreme pains to warn the GWB administration about Bin Laden. They did zero, zippo, zit about Bin laden between the time they tool office in late January 2001 and up to the fateful day of 911. And now they try to sell the myth they and not the democrats had a clue on the dangers of Bin Laden before 911.

More adventures into the joys of revisionist history. And for that matter, GWB had a great chance to get Bin Laden at Tora Bora and muffed that one also. And GWB&co. not been even close ever since. Sadly, we have a new NIE that states AL-Quida is now back to pre-911 strength while we weaken ourselves pouring lives and money down a rat hole in Iraq.

The revised neocon history is so much more fun that the real truth. They are scrambling like rats to come up with anything to make their failures look more palatable before the next elections. Too bad for them the vast majority of the country aren't stupid sheep.
ha ha ha

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Talk about bitching over 20/20 hindsight. One of the Bush officials said Clinton had been 'too obsessed' with bin Laden. The US was not too worried about terrorism before 9/11.

So, we put more effort into an actual war of a nation with hundreds of thousands of people affected, than into a small camp of terrorists? Gee.

Are you sure about the ?obsessed? with Bin Laden thing? I don?t remember that quote.

Guess I?ll google around for it.

I thought it was Clinton who claimed to be obsessed with Osama when the truth seems to point out that he, like Bush pre 9-11, hardly paid much attention to him.

*Update*
Google "clinton osama obsessed" and you end with a bunch of stories about Clinton claiming HE was obsessed with Osama. The "All of President Bush's neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden" quote comes from Clinton himself. Not from any 'neocon'

Now there could be some story floating around out there with some necon makes this claim, but can't seem to find it on Google.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
The point is that Clinton did take extreme pains to warn the GWB administration about Bin Laden. They did zero, zippo, zit about Bin laden between the time they tool office in late January 2001 and up to the fateful day of 911. And now they try to sell the myth they and not the democrats had a clue on the dangers of Bin Laden before 911.

More adventures into the joys of revisionist history. And for that matter, GWB had a great chance to get Bin Laden at Tora Bora and muffed that one also. And GWB&co. not been even close ever since. Sadly, we have a new NIE that states AL-Quida is now back to pre-911 strength while we weaken ourselves pouring lives and money down a rat hole in Iraq.

I don?t want to sound like I am making excuses for our government however?

When Bush took office they set out to change our tactics when it came to fighting terrorism. When 9-11 hit they were still in the midst of writing up a new terror policy etc etc.

The real villain here is our government?s inability to react quickly to change and instead require months of meetings, planning etc etc.

This was no different under Clinton either. Remember the movie ?Path to 9-11? where they had all these debates on whether they could or should go in and kill Osama etc.

 

[Hacp]

IIRC, wasn't it the right wing guys that cried foul at Clinton's attempts to get bin laden?

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Hacp
IIRC, wasn't it the right wing guys that cried foul at Clinton's attempts to get bin laden?

I believe some people called the bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan a ?stunt? or some such. This all happened at the time of Monica etc.

At the same time though Clinton claims that Monica never effected his policy decisions. So whatever the Republicans may have charged is kind of irrelevant.

 

[NTB]

Haven't read the story yet, but I can already tell you: I'm going to have a hard time taking seriously anything written by a guy named Hozenball :laugh:

Nathan

 

[senseamp]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: senseamp
Plus the CIA did try to kill Bin Laden under Clinton, but missed him by some hours in that camp they bombed, so the story doesn't really hold water. Not only that, but when Clinton did strike Bin Laden, he took a lot of heat from the Republicans, not because he missed, but because it distracted them from their obsession with Clenis.

ummm he tried ONE time... ohhhhh wow...

I should add that we spent 78 days bombing Serbia in order to stop the Kosovo war.
Flew a few thousand missions and drops thousands of bombs.
Meanwhile we launched around 70 cruise missiles at Osama.

It contradicts the report that there was an order not to kill bin Laden, unless you are going to claim Clinton launched cruise missiles at someone he didn't intend to kill. Also, how many missiles did Bush launch at Osama before 9/11?

 

[senseamp]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Hacp
IIRC, wasn't it the right wing guys that cried foul at Clinton's attempts to get bin laden?

I believe some people called the bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan a ?stunt? or some such. This all happened at the time of Monica etc.

At the same time though Clinton claims that Monica never effected his policy decisions. So whatever the Republicans may have charged is kind of irrelevant.

It is relevant, because those Republicans are running for election, while Bill Clinton isn't.
They have to answer for what they did.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: senseamp

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: senseamp
Plus the CIA did try to kill Bin Laden under Clinton, but missed him by some hours in that camp they bombed, so the story doesn't really hold water. Not only that, but when Clinton did strike Bin Laden, he took a lot of heat from the Republicans, not because he missed, but because it distracted them from their obsession with Clenis.

ummm he tried ONE time... ohhhhh wow...

I should add that we spent 78 days bombing Serbia in order to stop the Kosovo war.
Flew a few thousand missions and drops thousands of bombs.
Meanwhile we launched around 70 cruise missiles at Osama.

It contradicts the report that there was an order not to kill bin Laden, unless you are going to claim Clinton launched cruise missiles at someone he didn't intend to kill. Also, how many missiles did Bush launch at Osama before 9/11?

Two different issues?
One is launching missiles at terrorist training camps hoping to kill someone

The other is authorizing the CIA to send in a ?hit? squad to track down and kill Osama.

Huge difference.

If Clinton was so ?obsessed? why didn?t he launch a multi-day bombing campaign against AQ terrorist camps using stealth bombers? Why didn?t he continue to bomb the terrorist camps whenever intelligence suggested they were regrouping?

The terrorists blew up two US embassies so Clinton figured that we needed some kind of response, so he bombed an Aspirin factory and some terrorist camps and claimed that his response had real meaning.

Face the truth, Clinton never saw Osama as a big enough threat to actually take real and meaningful action against him. And neither did Bush pre-9-11.

 

[Termagant]

Why is the CIA even being believed now? We all know they are completely responsible for the bad intelligence and lies which got us into the Iraq mess. The liberal career analysts at the CIA wanted to screw Bush over, and told him that Iraq would be a cake walk which payed for itself. The agency lost all credibility over their inability to reliably inform our commander in chief during the Global War on Terror.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: Termagant
Why is the CIA even being believed now? We all know they are completely responsible for the bad intelligence and lies which got us into the Iraq mess. The liberal career analysts at the CIA wanted to screw Bush over, and told him that Iraq would be a cake walk which payed for itself. The agency lost all credibility over their inability to reliably inform our commander in chief during the Global War on Terror.

ROFLMAO! While that's a fine parroting of the BushCo propaganda points, I don't think there's a single thing you said that's accurate. Much of the bad intel came from the Office of Special Projects, a competing intel [sic] agency set up by Cheney and Rumsfeld because the information from the CIA was too accurate, i.e., it didn't support their anti-Iraq agenda. The OSP was staffed with neo-con zealots and established specifically to create the most negative possible assessment of Iraq. To the extent the Bush administration used professional CIA intel at all, they discarded the caveats and qualifications, then exaggerated the findings to most demonize Iraq.

As far as "The liberal career analysts at the CIA wanted to screw Bush over...", I have some bad news for you. Somebody spiked your Kool-Aid. Call 911 immediately and tell them you've OD'd on either hallucinogens or AM talk radio (pretty much the same thing). Oh, and you might want to invest in a couple of more rolls of foil.

It's been four years. It's time to face facts: you were duped by a group of professional liars who decided to invade Iraq first, then shopped around for excuses to justify their war-mongering.

 

[magomago]

sarcasm bowfinger...i'm pretty sure that is what it is

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: magomago
sarcasm bowfinger...i'm pretty sure that is what it is

Ahh. I hope so, my bad. Knew I should have replaced the batteries on my meter sooner. My apologies, Termagant.

(The problem is I know people who still truly believe that kind of idiocy. One of my aunts is that way, still thinks Bush is our second-best President ever -- second only to Reagan, of course -- and all his failures and lies are always the fault of somebody else, invariably liberal. Gets all her "news" from Fox and AM talk radio.)

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: senseamp
Plus the CIA did try to kill Bin Laden under Clinton, but missed him by some hours in that camp they bombed, so the story doesn't really hold water. Not only that, but when Clinton did strike Bin Laden, he took a lot of heat from the Republicans, not because he missed, but because it distracted them from their obsession with Clenis.

ummm he tried ONE time... ohhhhh wow...

I should add that we spent 78 days bombing Serbia in order to stop the Kosovo war.
Flew a few thousand missions and drops thousands of bombs.
Meanwhile we launched around 70 cruise missiles at Osama.

And yet we have 160,000 troops in Iraq. How many are looking for bin laden?

 

[Pabster]

This report blows the doors off Bill's claim that he "tried" to kill Bin Laden. He specifically stated that he authorized his killing but the documents tell a far different story.

I'm not surprised by the many crickets...

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: senseamp
It is relevant, because those Republicans are running for election, while Bill Clinton isn't.
They have to answer for what they did.

Bill's wife is also running for election, and considering that she is touting her husband's record in the White House as a reason to elect her, I think Bill's mistakes and shortcomings are fair game. This report is damning and pretty much tells me exactly what I expected. If the last name is Clinton, don't believe a fvcking word.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Pabster


Bill's wife is also running for election, and considering that she is touting her husband's record in the White House as a reason to elect her

I haven't seen or heard her do that, link?

If the last name is Clinton, don't believe a fvcking word.

George Clinton is as cool as the other side of the pillow, you take that back.