I've seen frequently mentioned a comparison between our sitting President and his predecessor as it relates to their approach and relative effectiveness in their response to terrorism, both in the United States and abroad. Usually such comparisons are in passing, without focusing much on details. So I thought it might be useful to actually put the two up on a board and really examine what took place during each's administration and review the differences (and similarities) and their perceived effectiveness.

The second part of this topic will focus on 9-11 and the impact it had on our collective ability to fight against terrorism. In particular, I'd like to reference a chain of events from Clinton's administration, as detailed in the 9-11 Commission's final report, May 1998 where a detailed plan to capture Bin Laden was crafted, but ultimately abandoned due to both the risk of failure (70%) and the possibility of extreme casualties. I won't quote the contents here as its a bit long but definitely worth reading, as you get a real feel for both the planning and influence of politics in the matter. What had me intrigued in reading this though was the idea of the influence 9-11, had it occurred prior, might have had on the deliberations. Ie, what if the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had been 9-11? Or, in the reverse, what if 9-11 hadn't happened, would Bush 2 have had the willingness (or desire) to pursue terrorism as aggressively has he had?

Questions for Debate:

1) How would you rate Bill Clinton's focus/activity on terrorism during his adminstration (Jan 93- Jan 01)? What could he have done more of (or not done)?

2) How would you rate George W. Bush's focus/activity on terrorism during his adminstration (Jan 01- Present)? What could he have done more of (or not done)?

3) If 9-11 had occurred during Clinton's administration, what might have changed in his approach to fighting terrorism?

4) If 9-11 had not occurred during Bush's administration, what might have changed in his approach to fighting terrorism?

Note: Admittedly, questions #3 & #4 are hypothetical, so the tin-foil hats are certainly acceptable here, but please keep them focused on the matter to be discussed vs. rampant conspiracy theories.

For questions #1 & #2, please focus on the actions and details of the respective administrations, not talking points or generalizations such as "Bush lied" or "Clinton did nothing". There are lots of good resources that provide details for each administration's actions and approach to terrorism, lets use them and see if we can have a contructive debate about it

edit: fixed dates on #2

I don't think they can be compared - yet.

When Al Qaida tried to blow up the WTC the first time in the early 90's, Clinton made strategic strikes as needed. Unfortunately, these were labeled as diversions from the Monica Lewinski scandal.

But for 10 years, we were not attacked on our soil. Clinton didn't need to spend 300+ billion dollars to build a nation. Clinton did not send 2200+ Americans off to their deaths. Clinton did not pony up 30K+ Iraqi lives to "fight terror". Clinton did not alienate virtually every ally we had that had battle ready troops and money. Clinton did not divide his country regarding an issue we should all be united on. Clinton did not need Patriot acts that took away some of our liberties. And Clinton didn't need to do warrantless tapping of phone calls to fish for bad guys.

Without doing all that, we were not attacked for TEN YEARS. Al Qaida openly declared war on us and attacked foreign targets (for which Clinton responded). But they didn't attack us.

Under Bush, we haven't been attacked on our soil for 5 years. However, attacks on foreign soil have increased substantially. The countries we need to help us, hate us. We've turned passive Muslims into extremist Muslims were they are taught to fight us in places in Iraq.

With this, I'm not sure Clinton and Bush are playing under the same rules to make a comparison.

I agree, and I'm afraid this thread will simply become a forum for those on the right who loathe Clinton, or those who loath Bush Jr. to voice their respective bile.


Worse, it is nigh-impossible to judge the actions of Clinton (for good or for ill) without using 20/20 hindsight. I'm sure Clinton out of office was just as surprised and staggered by 9/11 as Bush Jr. was in office. How Clinton would have responded to 9/11 is again a very difficult hypothetical.


I think you CAN say that Clinton, as Bush Jr., would have invaded Afghanistan. The methodology of the invasion would have been different, and I like to think Clinton would have stayed the course post-invasion in Afghanistan as opposed to instantly turning his eye elsewhere and allowing the country to sink back into Talibanesque, warlord controlled anarchy as has happened now...

Just fact checking a few things here, DR:

The first WTC attack occurred 3 weeks after Clinton took office. The Lewinski scandal came near the end of his term. The diversion you're referring to was the cruise missile attack on Aug 20, 1998 in response to the Embassy bombings two weeks prior. The irony of the response to the strikes was that it was viewed as "too harsh" at the time by many and of course the inevitable "Wag the Dog" references due to the scandal being at its zenith at the time. Unfortunately, our intel was off by a few hours and the missiles didn't achieve any of its goals.

Just to be clear, the length of time between 9-11(01) and the first WTC(2/93) was 8 years, not 10.

That was part of the point of the topic though, and I'll admit its a hypothetical. Part of the issue during Clinton's term was the unwillingness of the Department of Defense (under Cohen) to put "boots on the ground" when we knew it might count in fighting terrorism. I can't help but wonder what the difference in attitude might have been had the '93 attack been on the scale of 9/11.

I'm still working on my own response, but wanted to frame thing a bit and correct a few items.

How would you rate George W. Bush's focus/activity on terrorism during his adminstration (Jan 93- Jan 01)? What could he have done more of (or not done)?

Uh, Jan 93-Jan 01? I suppose I can't hold him too much to account, seeing as how the highest post he held during that time was governor of Texas.

Seriously, comparing the approaches of Bush to the approaches of Clinton may not be as easy as it appears at first. Pre-9/11, a lot depended on Congress as well as the President. Post-9/11, of course, Congress would be far more likely to get behind the President, of whatever party he may be. I do believe that Clinton would have been inclined to invade Iraq in the aftermath of an attack like 9/11, because during the '90s, many Democrats (including John Kerry) were pushing for exactly that.

Although the decision to invade would likely have been the same in both cases, the way of implementing it may well have been different. Clinton may not have acted independently of the UN Security Council, but then, he might not have had to. The UNSC may have been more inclined to approve of the invasion if the idea came from Clinton and the Democrats, than when it came from Bush and the Republicans. Whether that's a plus or a minus depends in large part on what one might think of the UN and the role (if any) it should have over our foreign policy.

A strike against Bush is that he has a way of needlessly annoying allies and potential allies, whereas Clinton might possibly have been able to smooth-talk them. A strike against Clinton would have been his political managment of military operations, although hopefully he had learned his lesson in Somalia. It was during that operation that he made the very ill-considered decision to try to disarm the Somali people in Mogadishu - or, I should say, he let Boutros Boutros-Ghali make that decision, and implemented it for him. That changed the Somali people's attitude towards us from mostly supportive to downright hostile. That almost irrepressible instinct Clinton had to personally get involved with everything and try to manage it himself would not have boded well for a successful campaign in Iraq.

And then there's a prime difference between them which could go either way, depending on the situation. Bush, whatever he may or may not have done wrong in Iraq, does seem to have the ability to weather bad publicity, and not fold just because the heat from the media is getting too hot. Clinton never showed that ability. Both tendencies can potentially be disastrous, and both tendencies can potentially be the only thing that prevents a disaster. But if I had to pick, I think I'd feel more comfortable with Bush's tendency than with Clinton's.

1) How would you rate Bill Clinton's focus/activity on terrorism during his adminstration (Jan 93- Jan 01)? What could he have done more of (or not done)?

Clinton foiled numerous terrorist plots, while making relatively few sacrifices in the forms of money, morality, and civil rights. A few attacks against us however, were successful overseas, during his reign.

2) How would you rate George W. Bush's focus/activity on terrorism during his adminstration (Jan 01- Present)? What could he have done more of (or not done)?

Bush had not tampered with the anti-terrorist program set up by Bill Clinton, before the 9/11 bombings. He had however, given terrorism a lot less personal focus then Clinton had, and he did not meet with Richard Clarke (the guy incharge of anti-terrorism efforts) at any time before the 9/11 attacks. Would have his attention made a difference? Maybe, maybe not. Does Clinton's administration deserve any blame for 9/11, seeing as it was the one which created the anti-terror policy in place when 9/11 sliped through? Well, at least partially.

Now later on, we see that under Bush, we have not had any terrorist attacks on our soil, since 9/11. This comes at the cost of large amounts of money, torture, and surrendered civil liberties. It also comes at the cost of tens of thousands of cumulative deaths overseas, assuming that operations in places like Iraq are even really helping rather then hurting our security anyway.

3) If 9-11 had occurred during Clinton's administration, what might have changed in his approach to fighting terrorism?

His response would have been more intense, but it would have been less intense then Bushes. It would also likely have focused a lot on what he calls "Religious Reconciliation".

4) If 9-11 had not occurred during Bush's administration, what might have changed in his approach to fighting terrorism?

Before the 9/11 attacks occurred, Bush was already set to meet with Richard Clarke around late September 2001. Maybe Bush would have made anti-terrorism more hardline, or maybe he would have just tweaked what was already there a bit, or maybe he just would have left it alone. Its impossible to know, and I don't think myself knowledgable enough to make a good educated guess.

Bill Clinton’s view of Terrorism in the 90’s was that it could be dealt with primarily as a “police action”. Some on the left believe we should be doing this today. This focus allowed Al Qaeda to operate freely in Afghanistan free of the fear that the US would actually attack. The few cruse missiles launched by Clinton at the training camps (missing Bin Laden) were worthless. As we were hit again and again we failed to respond aggressively, fueling the terrorists fever to hit us at home.

We know that the recommendations of Anti Terrorism Commissions (in 1988 and the 90s) were largely ignored by Clinton and Bush did not move early in his Administration to correct this. Both the FBI and CIA Chiefs testified before Congress after 9/11 and related that when the Congress suggested they combat terrorism both agencies told the congress the people and funds NEEDED to get the job done. The Congress DID NOT fund but a tiny fraction of what was requested and actually cut the CIA budget.

This IMO is why the Congress, in setting up the focus of the 9/11 Commission decided they did not want to “point fingers and assign blame” – principally because a good deal of the blame would lead right back to the people and programs THEY refused to fund.

We got exactly what we paid for on 9/11 and IMO the Congress deserves as much blame as either President.

IMO if 9/11 had not happened Bush would have developed a much stronger response to the ongoing terrorist attacks. He would have responded more as Reagan would have.

Maybe Clinton was too passive, mind you, under him we weren't hit in our homeland for almost 8 years, despite numerous foiled efforts by the terrorists to attack us on our shores.

Looking at the plain facts, terrorism has hurt us much more under Bush, then it did under Clinton: It has cost us more lives (overseas), more money, and more civil rights.

Bushes aggressions have exacerbated the problem, via incitation of arab anger with infidel occupations and torture.

His actions against Aphganistan were also too slow and too little. In order to make the invasion completely painless for us, he had us sit back and wait forever while the Northern Alliance slowly did our dirty work for us, giving the terrorists ample time to pack up. He also never instituted a full occupation, and portions of the country are still controlled by the Taliban, along with numerous warlords.

AHUH? They tried to drop the WTC in 1993 and his response was tepid at best. They did nothing but get stronger from that time on and it culminated in 9/11.

Bush on the other hand had destroyed most of of the terrorists training camps, cut off most of their money and put them on the run.. These people hated us for decades so to say that there are more of them now because of the very few we have treated un professionally is ludicrous.

As the truth comes out from the tapes about Iraq WMD and terrorist connections we will see that Mr. Bush was RIGHT from day one and that the corruption was UN, France , Russia and China.

HUH? They tried to drop the WTC in 1993 and his response was tepid at best. They did nothing but get stronger from that time on and it culminated in 9/11.

If his response was inadequate, why were all subsequent terrorist attacks against us on our soil (and many abroad) foiled for the next 8 years? It is perfectly possible that Bushes current policies are over kill.

These people hated us for decades so to say that there are more of them now because of the very few we have treated un professionally is ludicrous.

There are more attacks now then there were under Clinton. This infers either that there are more terrorists now then there used to be, or that there is now a higher percentage them situated in good places to attack to us, or both. It cannot be denied that the terrorists are now receiving shelter and recruits from Iraqi sunnis, at a much higher rate then they ever did before. Arab anger at the west seems to be intensifying, as they grow angry at both trivial and substantial actions by us.

The invasion of Aphganistan was probably a good idea, but as I stated previously, it wasn't done fully or promptly, many terrorists escaped before our war got to them, and many still run free in Aphganistans hills.

As the truth comes out from the tapes about Iraq WMD and terrorist connections we will see that Mr. Bush was RIGHT from day one and that the corruption was UN, France , Russia and China.

To our knowledge Saddam had no direct connections with Al Quida. He did however have blatant connections with other terrorist organizations, and individuals who joined Al Quida after receiving training in Iraq.

As the truth comes out from the tapes about Iraq WMD

We as of yet however, have at best sketchy suspicions regarding post-invasion WMDs. As for the recent tapes allegedly being a "smoking gun", I have a strong suspicion that the tapes refer to a conversation which took place in the 90s, and I won't take take stock in them until I am proven otherwise.

Tepid? The bombing happened 3 weeks after Clinton took office. Or are you willing to give Reagan and Bush I proper credit for allowing the '93 attack to occur. Last time I checked, six people are in prison serving 240 year terms each for their role in the attack.

And it is my contention that Bush wouldn't have had the capital to do so without 9-11. And invading Iraq had very little to do with eliminating training camps or their financing. In fact, Bush created the single largest terrorist training camp in the world. Iraq.

The truth you speak of Ted is still very much subject to debate. As has been argued in the WMD tapes topic, the conversations proved very little about his capability at the time of the invasion, which was the biggest reason Bush advocated invading. Otherwise he simply wasn't a threat.

Clinton did frustrate me at times in his response to terrorism. Admittedly he made his own handcuffs in some respects. Had the Lewinsky stuff not happened, I wonder if he would have been more aggressive when we seemed to have some small windows to get Bin Laden.

1. I believe that Clinton's focus was not on terrorism during his entire 8 years. If you review his state of the union addresses, Bin Laden wasn't even mentioned until 1999, his last year in office.

Clinton 1999 SOTU

There were some vague references to terrorism prior to that usually in conjunction with specific legislation, but no overall strategy.

More damaging was what the Clinton justice department did to prevent the intelligence services from coordinating data. The "wall" as it came to be called was a terrific obstacle to the practical efforts to prevent terrorist acts.

Clinton clearly had other priorities. As a poll driven, rather than principle driven politician, his priorities varied from year to year depending on the mood of the people. Bin Laden was mentioned after the USS Cole bombing. The "era of big government was over" only after Newt Gingrich and the GOP swept to victory in the congress. Prior to that, Clinton only talked about "more investment" (i.e, more government spending). I take my hat off to Bill Clinton for his "slick" ability to be all things to all people and to measure the mood of the public and then tailor his message to best fit that mood. That is why his poll numbers were high in spite of his poor character, poor judgement, and lack of follow-through on any initiatives that may have been popular any one year and then abandoned the next when the poll numbers fluctuated. His represented, in my view, the cult of personality.

2. I give Bush high marks for taking the initiative against the terrorists and for attacking them in a coordinated and comprehensive way. I believe that is the right approach, not a very limited "law enforcement" effort that targets only specific individuals, not the infrastructure and state sponsorship that makes those groups dangerous to nations like the USA. On the other hand, I think that Bush's biggest failure as a president has not been that he's been a "fascist dictator and far right wing lying religious zealot" as he's been portrayed by the ultra-left in this forum and via many outlets such as "air america", "democratic underground", "moveon.org" and the like. Instead, Bush's biggest failure in my view has been his insufferable idealism and his lack of cynicism as to human nature. His (and his administration's) view that all people share an innate desire to "be free and democratic" is wrong in my view and has led to the current situation in Iraq. I don't share Bush's idealism. I think people's brains are far more primitive and freedom/democracy are "higher level" concepts. I think that people are more afraid of change than progress, even when the status quo is something that limits freedom. I think that change can occur in most people, but that it has to be done in a gradual way that is not threatening (to the masses) and in a fashion that just sneaks up on them over a period of time. The Bush people, I believe, truly believed several things were true including (1) Iraq had WMD's and would give them to terrorists and (2) The people of Iraq would greet us as liberators. That was not true. Yet, Bush didn't "lie" about those things because the belief in those two fundamental factors was deeply held. There are a lot of lessons to be learned about Iraq but that doesn't change the fact that our nation has to make the best of a bad situation and find the best way out of it with the minimum loss of US lives. That effort is not helped by the radical anti-war crowd who seems to be rooting for a US defeat in that war and who's acted tirelessly to undermine our troops, our military, and our government in a near-treasonous way since the war began.

3. If 9/11 would have occurred on Clinton's watch, he would have launched punitive airstrikes against Afghanistan but I doubt any invasion of any country would have taken place. We would have heard a lot of speeches by Clinton (which is what he does best, talk, not act), imploring our country to be tolerant and to "understand" the nature of the terrorists and then hear him go off about AIDS and global warming as he did in his post 9/11 speeches.

Clinton Georgetown 2001 Speech

In this speech, he was attacked by the right for his implication, via his moral relativistic mentioning of past USA "sins", that somehow the attack was something that the "USA had coming". The pro-Clinton people, obviously, have disputed this interpretation. I won't join that debate. The bottom line with Clinton was action, not speech. If you listened and read his speeches, one could conclude that he was the best president who ever presided. The follow through of his government and the implementation of his grand and glorious pontifications left a lot to be desired.

4. If 9/11 had not occurred, I suspect that the focus of the Bush administration would be on tax reform, tort reform, social security reform, and doing things like building a national missile defense. He would be portraying our threat as coming from nations like N. Korea and Iran, not outfits like Al Qaeda. Of course, that is hypothetical but that's where the focus was prior to 9/11. Admittedly, the Bush administration was just starting to get moving when 9/11 hit and his staff had barely enough time to replace the missing "w" keys and dinner china that the childish Clinton staffers stole from the White House as they stomped out of their jobs not being employed by Albert Gore Jr. Which, brings me to the next point which the question of what would Gore have done had he been president during 9/11? Personally, I think that Lieberman would have been made the president after Gore would have suffered a massive nervous breakdown requiring hospitalization and long term treatment. Lieberman would have taken an approach very similar to that of Bush with respect to an offensive stance against terrorists AND the sponsor states. Is this far fetched? Not by a long shot. Gore has clearly gone off the deep end emotionally after his defeat in 2000 as exemplified in a series of speeches that could best be characterized as "rants" most frequently in Saudi Arabia when he essentially blamed the US for the attitudes of radical Islamists toward America.

Gore's rant in Saudi Arabia

I can't believe that the American people would have tolerated this lunacy and would have had him removed one way or the other.

In conclusion, the Bush administration has been far from perfect. But the real hypothetical question is not what "Clinton would have done". It's what would "Gore" have done. Those were the choices and given that choice, America was far better off. The real question that faces us now is what to do given the current situation. That's why the endless spinning and posturing with respect to the run up to the Iraq war, which is currently being exploited by democrats in spite of their own record of "being for it before being against it" to coin a relevant political quote, is wasted energy given the fact that our troops are in harm's way and that our country is embroiled in a tough fight that we should be focused on winning instead of wasting energy looking for blame, villains and scapegoats.

More damaging was what the Clinton justice department did to prevent the intelligence services from coordinating data. The "wall" as it came to be called was a terrific obstacle to the practical efforts to prevent terrorist acts.

Is that something we can specifically blame Clinton for, or was it something that had been around for a long time? Can you point out any direct actions carried out by Clinton, which made the intelligence community more insular? If not, then the blame spreads out equally among every past president we've had.

To my knowledge it was the 9/11 commision, not Bush, which finally kicked lawmakers into integrating the intelligence community. Bush by the way, was originally opposed to the creation of the 9/11 commision.

I could get into a wider debate about Clintons presidency in general, as I disagree with many of your statements against him, however, doing so would lead us into a long protracted debate that would be very off topic, so I won't.

Interesting, but mostly inaccurate.

We didn't have an attack on US Shores, but our people and interests were attacked on numerous occasions (USS Cole, Barracks bombings, the embassies, etc) by Al Qaeda related forces.

What you negate to understand is that even after we'd been attacked by Bin Laden's men (more than once) we didn't even take Bin Laden, even though the Northern Alliance had him in their cross hairs. This actually happened three times. read this

Read Deriliction of Duty, by Col Robert Patterson. The book is by a non-partisan airforce officer that outlines the very nature of Clinton's inaction.

9/11 was a culmination of inaction and years worth of planning. It wasn't all the Clinton administration's fault, but moreover an overwhelming attitude that "it won't happen here".

As some have mentioned, it all depends on how you look at this situation. Clinton allowed us to be attacked numerous times and did nothing. Bush invaded Iraq and thousands of soldiers died. Which was a better strategy?

I guess history will tell. I don't really suppose that it's possible to ascertain right now. Our actions in the middle east may or may not have a direct impact in long-term security, and regardless of speculation we won't really have any objective answers until years post Iraqi-War...

This statement is disingenuous at best and outright false at the worst. If you think Clinton did nothing, prove it. Here's a start if nothing is what you think was done about terrorism between 1993 and 2001.

EPIC: White House Counter-Terrorism Proposal
Here is a decent digest of what Clinton did during his administration on terrorism. Some of the links are broken and some sites are obviously more reputable than others.
9-11 Commission Report - Gives a pretty thorough chronicle of everything the US has done before and after 9-11. Several pages walk thru 93-01, far from nothing.

Oh, and a lot more than soldiers died as a result of the invasion of Iraq, Aevans. Thousands of innocent people have died too. The country is currently on the bring of a religious civil war. History may prove to be a harsh judge if this situation gets worse. Oh, and Bush was warned about the prospect of civil war several times.


Facts are stubborn things, LordHelmet. Look closer and you'll see that terrorism was a focus for Clinton as early as 1995: from the 9-11 report

I think the bolded summary of that paragraph is pretty accurate.

Bin Laden became a specific focus of the CIA in 1996 (same cite)

I can't quote any more without copyright issues, but you get the point I hope. Clinton didn't do everything he could to stop Al Qaeda and prevent 9-11, but terrorism was a focus and Bin Laden was most definitely a focus for the latter half of his presidency. Where most people agree is that as a country we lacked the stomach for pursuing Al Qaeda with the force necessary to prevent a 9-11.

Now, Ted, I was with you for most of your first post, as it placed blame mostly where I believe it should have fallen - on Congress. More on that in a minute.

But now you've gone and basically repeated the old "clinton did nothing" routine. I can't tell you how many times that's been debunked here. Like in this post here

Clinton on more than one occasion, proposed new legislation similar to the Patriot Act, to allow tracking and freezing terrorist bank accounts, allowing "roving" wiretaps and the like, additional airport security (after the Lockerbie incident), and to allow tagging of explosives to allow us to trace where they came from and how they got to the terrorist.

It all fell on deaf ears in a Republican controlled congress. They accused Clinton of draconian measures that would strip the rights of the average citizen, they said he was focused too much on terrorism (too much?), and when he ordered concrete revetments around the White House and congressional buildings, they accused him of "hysteria".

So much for "doing nothing" about terrorism. The "Patriot Act" of the 90's was shot down by a Republican congress worried that it was overkill, at the expense of the innocent citizens of the country. Now, where have I heard that before?

Yes, Clinton had a more "law enforcement" approach to terrorism than Bush did. But let's be fair about this. Clinton was able to bring in and convict everyone involved with the first WTC bombing.

Additionally, as a lot of conservatives are want to point out, 9/11 changed everything. No one would have authorized a full scale invasion of Afghanistan prior to 9/11. The proof? Congress, and a lot of ordinary folks practically had coronaries over the fact that we even bombed sites in Afghanistan, and accused Clinton and Co of getting us into another Viet-Nam by sending 3,000 troops into Kosovo. Invade Afghanistan or Iraq? Unthinkable at the time.

I still put primary blame on Congress but Bill did not deal with the terrorists aggresively. Clinton Tightened airport security all right??? They knew (in the FBI) suspicious were taking flight lesions yet they never notified the FAA and as you know box cutters were ok to take in carry-on luggage. A total failure to “connect the dots” .

So Clinton talked tough. But he did not act tough. Indeed, a review of his years in office shows that each time the president was confronted with a major terrorist attack — the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers attack, the August 7, 1998, bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole — Clinton was preoccupied with his own political fortunes to an extent that precluded his giving serious and sustained attention to fighting terrorism.

The First WTC Attack
Clinton had been in office just 38 days when terrorists bombed the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000. Although it was later learned that the bombing was the work of terrorists who hoped to topple one of the towers into the other and kill as many as 250,000 people, at first it was not clear that the explosion was the result of terrorism. The new president's reaction seemed almost disengaged. He warned Americans against "overreacting" and, in an interview on MTV, described the bombing as the work of someone who "did something really stupid."

From the start, Clinton approached the investigation as a law-enforcement issue. In doing so, he effectively cut out some of the government's most important intelligence agencies. For example, the evidence gathered by FBI agents and prosecutors came under the protection of laws mandating grand-jury secrecy — which meant that the law-enforcement side of the investigation could not tell the intelligence side of the investigation what was going on. "Nobody outside the prosecutorial team and maybe the FBI had access," says James Woolsey, who was CIA director at the time. "It was all under grand-jury secrecy."

Khobar Towers
"In June of 1996, it felt like an entire herd was converging on the White House," wrote Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos in his memoir, All Too Human. A herd of scandals, that is: In late May, independent counsel Kenneth Starr had convicted Jim and Susan McDougal and Jim Guy Tucker in the first big Whitewater trial; in June, the Filegate story first broke into public view, and Sen. Alphonse D'Amato issued his committee's Whitewater report recommending that several administration officials be investigated for perjury. It was also in June that the White House went into full battle mode against a variety of allegations contained in Unlimited Access, a book by former FBI agent Gary Aldrich.

All these developments were heavy on the minds of Clinton, Dick Morris, and the other members of the re-election strategy team when the bomb went off at Khobar Towers on June 25. As it had after the World Trade Center bombing, a distracted White House gave the case to law enforcement. But there is significant evidence to suggest that the White House was even less interested in finding answers than it had been in the World Trade Center case. In the Khobar investigation, the Clinton administration not only failed to follow potentially productive leads but in some instances actively made the investigators' job more difficult.



http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york-issue112901.shtml

Let's take this one to start with, shall we?

So, when it was finally determined that the first WTC bombing was indeed terrorism (even your own article says it wasn't clear at first) Clinton approached the investigation as a law enforcement issue.

Ok, so what? We hunted down and captured everyone involved! They are currently serving 240 year sentences in Federal maximum security prisons. What's the downside?


Ok, now let's look at the truth of the matter, courtesy of Snopes.com, shall we?



Hmm.... Saudi officials refuse to let us even question the suspects they have in custody, and we have no extradition treaty with them, even though if I recall correctly we sent over a hundred FBI agents over to investigate.

So tell me Ted, what productive leads did we fail to follow up on? Sounds like, at the time, we did about all we could do, within the confines of Saudi law. We were able to investigate the bombing site itself, but were not permitted to even talk to the people suspected of committing the bombing.

Again, Ted, I ask you. Prior to 9/11, just what is it you would have done differently?

No one at the time - Saudi, Pakistan, certainly not any of the other middle east countries, assisted in hunting down terrorist suspects like they do now.

No one in our own country would have supported sending large scale troops into Afghanistan or Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, like we do now. A full scale invasion of Afghanistan at the time would have been impossible.

Hell, we couldn't even get a Republican congress to pass Patriot Act-like laws concerning roving wiretaps and the like, until after 9/11. And they raised all kinds of commotion for the little military action he did take, calling it "over-reaching" and an "unprecedented violation".

So, what is it you think we could have done? No co-operation from anyone in congress, no co-operation from any of the countries "holding" suspects, and yet we were still able to gain indictments, apprehend suspects, try them, and imprison them for the rest of their natural lives.

Sounds like a pretty good record to me.

The downside is that far more than the people who were captured were involved and even when it was known who it was we maintained the “law enforcement posture.





Interesting isn’t it. But the FBI did go there in fact John O’Neil was with L. Freeh (director of the FBI) on the trip and after leaving he told LF that the Saudi’s were blowing smoke and funding a group lead by OBL. LF blew him off and it ended up costing O’Neil his job. He had the Al Qaeda organization nailed and no one would listen. Go to the link below and see more on the story.

IMO if the Clinton Administration had mover with the “military” forcefully against Al Qaeda we might have prevented 9/11 but we will never know will we………


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew