Clarke debunks ABC Mockudrama

The upcoming 2-Part ABC Docudrama "The Path to 9/11" features a key scene during it's first night "where former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger refuses to give the order to the CIA to take out bin Laden -- even though CIA agents, along with the Northern Alliance, have his house surrounded".

But Thinkprogress now has a response from former Counter-Terrorism Chief [and on-air ABC Consultant] Richard Clarke which indicates that this scene never happened.

In the film the situation is depicted as:

The CIA, the Northern Alliance, surrounding a house where bin Laden is in Afghanistan, they're on the verge of capturing, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to proceed.

So they phoned Washington. They phoned the White House. Clinton and his senior staff refused to give authorization for the capture of bin Laden because they're afraid of political fallout if the mission should go wrong, and if civilians were harmed...Now, the CIA agent in this is portrayed as being astonished. "Are you kidding?" He asked Berger over and over, "Is this really what you guys want?"

Berger then doesn't answer after giving his first admonition, "You guys go in on your own. If you go in we're not sanctioning this, we're not approving this," and Berger just hangs up on the agent after not answering any of his questions.

This is an old canard, one that first arose just days after the 9/11 attack.

Clarke's response:

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 no where near the alleged bin Ladin 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.

Thinkprogress notes:

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (pg. 199), then-CIA Director George Tenet had the authority from President Clinton to kill Bin Laden. Roger Cressy, former NSC director for counterterrorism, has written, "Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda."

The facts stand in stark contrast to the film, which was apparently written by a "friend" of Rush Limbaugh's.

Yet there's even more data which makes the claims made by this movie against the Clinton Administration even more outlandish. As early as 1996 concerted efforts by Clinton to increase our anti-terrorism funding and the capabilities were blocked by the Republican Congress.

"We need to keep this country together right now. We need to focus on this terrorism issue," Clinton said during a White House news conference.

But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures.

One key GOP senator was more critical, calling a proposed study of chemical markers in explosives "a phony issue."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, emerged from the meeting and said, "These are very controversial provisions that the White House wants. Some they're not going to get."

"If they want to, they can study the thing" already, Hatch asserted. He also said he had some problems with the president's proposals to expand wiretapping.

It may be possible that "Path to 9/11" author Cyrus Nowrasteh didn't completely make up the scene of Bin Laden's escape from U.S. Forces - he simply transplanted it to before 9/11, when in fact this harrowing escape by Bin laden took place in 2001 at Tora Bora.

The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.

Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the first 10 days of December.

During his term President Clinton considered Osama Bin Laden to be a grave threat and top priority. He vastly increased counter-terrorism funding, refocused priorities including creation of the "Bin Laden Desk" at CIA which was headed by Michael Scheuer - but the fact is that Clinton not only had enemies in the Republican Congress, he had enemies within the goverment and military who sloughed off his requests and even dragged their feet when given direct orders to Kill Bin Laden.

From Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies pg 225-226.

Because of the intesity of the political opposition that Clinton engendered, he had been heavily criticized for bombing al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, for engaging in "Wag the Dog" tactics to divert attention from a scandal about his personal life. For similar reasons, he could not fire the recalcitrant FBI Director [Republican Louis Freeh] who had failed to fix the Bureau or to uncover errrorists in the United States. He had given the CIA unprecedented authority to go after bin Laden personaly and al Qaeda, but had not taken steps when they did little or nothing.

Because Clinton was criticized as a Vietnam War opponent without a military record, he was limited in his ability to direct the military to engage in anti-terrorist commando operations they did not want to conduct.

In the absense of a bigger provocation from al Qaeda to silence his critics, Clinton thought he could do no more. Nonetheless, he put in place the plans and programs that allowed America to respond to the big attacks when they did come, sweeping away political barriers to action.

Despites his efforts and his hammering on counter-terrorism as a priority - Clinton was often ignored and derided by his political opponents. He could "do no more" because Congress and the Military wouldn't let him do more.

"..Enemies" page 204.

On the issue of the White House authorizing CIA to kill bin Laden, much has been written. Several reporters, including Barton Gellman in the Washington Post of December 19, 2001, have written that President Cliton approved multiple intelligence documents authorizing CIA to use lethal force against Osama bin Laden and his deputies. Sandy Berger elaborated before the Join House-Senate Inquiry Committee, saying. "We received rulings in the Department of Justice not to prohibit our efforts to try to kill bin Laden, because [the assasination ban] did not apply to situation in which you're acting in self-defense or you're acting against command-and-control targets"

Yet bin Laden was not killed. President Clinton as reported in USA Today [November 13.3001] reflectetd his frustration by noting "I tried to take bin Laden out... the last four years I was in office."

The Assasination Ban was no small legal issue, but was simply used as an excuse to not accomplish the mission. Time after time, the Military and CIA balked when oppurtunities arose to kill bin Laden. When the issue of arming the Predator drone with missles was considered, then CIA director George Tenet didn't want responsibility for giving kill order, he was quoted by reporters as saying "It would be a terrible mistake" to have the CIA conduct an assasination as it would endanger the lives of CIA operatives around the world.

The bottom line is that they didn't take bin Laden seriously and thought Clinton and his deputies including Berger and Clarke had "Osama on the Brain". Clarke continued...

When Clinton left office many people, including the incoming Bush administration leadership, thought that he and his administration were overly obsessed with al Qaeda. After all, al Qaeda had killed only a few Americans, nothing like the hundreds of Marines who died at the hands of Beirut terrorists during the Reagan administration or the hundreds of Americans who were killed by Libya on Pan Am 103during the first Bush's administration. Those two acts had not provoked U.S. military retaliation. Why was Clinton so worked up about al Qaeda and why did he talk to President-elect Bush about it and have Sandy Berger raise it with his successor as National Security Advisor Condi Rice?

Why indeed?

Better question, why did BushGov completely ignore these urgent warnings about OBL - and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole - until August of 2001?

Vyan