Quote:
Originally Posted by SgtAJC
To the poster who knows everything...I WAS around for 9-11. I worked Ground Zero for over six weeks so don't get all sanctimonious to me. You liberals kill me....Clinton had two opportunities to take out Osama Bin Laden and REFUSED to do so. Stop rewriting history. If we hold Bush responsible for 9-11 and not Clinton because he removed all of our assets on the ground and totally crushed the morale of our intelligence gatherers then 9-11 may not have happened. I guess we can now hold the Messiah responsible for all the problems we are facing now and stop talking about "Failed Bush Policies"......
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CLINTON: ...And I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn't do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush's neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden.
They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn't do enough said I did too much — same people.
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CLINTON: No, no. I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him.
The CIA, which was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to, he said, "He did a good job setting up all these counterterrorism things."
The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.
Now, if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden.
But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11.
The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would've had to send a few hundred Special Forces in helicopters and refuel at night....
WALLACE: Do you think you did enough, sir?
CLINTON: No, because I didn't get him.
WALLACE: Right.
CLINTON: But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.
So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.
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WALLACE: Did they know in 2000 when he hit the Cole?
CLINTON: What did I do? What did I do?
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. And if I were still president, we'd have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him.
Now, I've never criticized President Bush, and I don't think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq.
And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive thing? When all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's book to look at what we did in a comprehensive, systematic way to try to protect the country against terror.
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WALLACE: And all I can say is, I'm asking you this in good faith because it's on people's minds, sir. And I wasn't ...
CLINTON: Well, there's a reason it's on people's minds. That's the point I'm trying to make.
There's a reason it's on people's minds: Because there's been a serious disinformation campaign to create that impression.
This country only has one person who's worked on this terror. From the terrorist incidents under Reagan to the terrorist incidents from 9/11, only one: Richard Clarke.
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The people on my political right who say I didn't do enough
spent the whole time I was president saying, "Why is he so obsessed with bin Laden? That was "wag the dog" when he tried to kill him."
My Republican secretary of defense — and I think I'm the only president since World War II to have a secretary of defense of the opposite party — Richard Clarke and all the intelligence people said that I ordered a vigorous attempt to get bin Laden and came closer, apparently, than anybody has since.
WALLACE: All right.
CLINTON: And you guys try to create the opposite impression, when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's findings and you know it's not true. It's just not true.
FOXNews.com - Transcript: William Jefferson Clinton on 'FOX News Sunday' - FOX News Sunday | Chris Wallace