Wednesday, Mar. 24, 2004 10:26 AM EST
9/11 Commission: Clinton Refused to Let CIA Kill Bin Laden

Announcing some of its preliminary findings on Wednesday, the 9/11 Commission has confirmed that President Clinton ordered the CIA to take Osama bin Laden alive or not at all - a directive that made the task of neutralizing the terrorist kingpin infinitely more difficult.

In a statement read at the beginning of Wednesday's session, 9/11 staffer Michael Hurley revealed:

"CIA senior managers, operators and lawyers uniformly said that they read the relevant authorities signed by President Clinton as instructing them to try to capture bin Laden.

"They believed that the only acceptable context for killing bin Laden was a credible capture operation. 'We always talked about how much easier it would have been to try to kill him,'" a former chief of the bin Laden station told the Commission.

"Working level CIA officers were frustrated by what they saw as the policy restraints of having to instruct their assets to mount a capture operation," the Commission statement said.

Commission staffer Hurley detailed one attempt to recruit indigenous Afghan forces in a bin Laden capture operation, explaining, "When Northern Alliance leader Massoud was briefed on the carefully worded instructions for him, the briefer recalled that Massoud laughed and said, 'You Americans are crazy. You guys never change.'"

The Commission found that at least two senior CIA officers would have objected to killing bin Laden even if Clinton had authorized the hit. "One of them, a former counterrorism center chief, said that he would have refused an order to directly kill bin Laden," the Commission statement said.

Last week NBC News quoted former CIA official Gary Schroen as saying that White House orders to spare bin Laden's life cut the chances of getting him in half, from 50 to 25 percent.

Schroen's revelation - now confirmed by the 9/11 Commission - was ignored by the mainstream press beyond its initial coverage by NBC.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...4/102828.shtml

Soft on terror Clinton should apologize to those 3000 dead people's families for letting Bin Laden go so many times.

Another case of reading what you want to read.

"CIA senior managers, operators and lawyers uniformly said that they read the relevant authorities signed by President Clinton as instructing them to try to capture bin Laden."

If you had been watching ANY of the testimony before the 9/11 commission, SEVERAL of the speakers (including, but not limited to Clarke), stated that Clinton signed an order to KILL Bin Laden. The problem came between the White House and CIA, where it was misread, somehow. As we don't have the orders, we don't know if it was ambiguous wording, or what. But you're being extremely dishonest, yet again.

That statement does not say that the "relevant authorities signed by President Clinton stated for them to capture Bin Laden", it says that they "read it" as stating that. There IS a distinct difference, and I believe the 9/11 commission will find that the faults lie in the lines of communication between CIA, FBI, DOD, White House.

It just shows how unclear Clinton was, if his entire administration saw the opposite of what he may have intended.

By the way, capturing versus killing would've been far more beneficial.

And far more difficult, putting more lives at risk.

But far more rewarding.
The information alone from him would be an amazingly large help.

His entire administration? A few CIA officials.

All it takes is one person to see something wrong in order to make everyone see something wrong.
Shared Psychotic Disorder

I'd rather see his brains.

Meaning: the people who could have made a difference.

Sadist.

More name calling from our resident troller.

It's not name calling if its true.

Thanks, so you agree with me.

No. I don't. And I'd appreciate you not put words in my mouth.

I didn't. You said it was not name calling if it was true. That means you agree with me.

Or that I disagreed with you, and considered the statement to be true.

Another situation of reading what you want to see, instead of evaluating the statement on its own objective grounds.

Ambiguity is lost on some people, it seems.