Barbara J. Stock
March 22, 2004
In search of the Clinton legacy
By Barbara J. Stock

Should Leonard Nimoy ever decide to exhume the television show "In Search Of..." hopefully the first show he will air will be the endless search for Bill Clinton's true legacy.

This week Bill Clinton's minions will be out in force regurgitating their old boss' lies that he did everything he could to kill bin Laden and deal with the terrorism problem. Of course, they are also attempting to salvage whatever reputation they had prior to hitching their wagons to man who did nothing for eight years but fight off political death from self-inflicted wounds and campaign for re-election.

It's interesting that one of the Clintonista's main arguments is that the Bush administration didn't heed their warning that al Qaeda was the "biggest threat to America." If this was so, why did Bill Clinton take no real action against bin Laden in the eight years of his administration?

Dick Morris — an important member of Clintons' staff — repeatedly tried to get Clinton to pay attention to the terror threat. Morris stated than whenever he tried to bring it up for discussion "Clinton's eyes would glaze over." Morris said Clinton simply didn't want to hear about it. Morris added he warned him then that failing to deal with the terrorism problem would come back to haunt him. Clinton's failure to deal with the threat came back to haunt us all.

Richard Clarke, presently making the rounds claiming Bush dropped the ball, was singing a different tune when he was in the Clinton Administration. "What's it going to take to get them {Clinton and staff} to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?" Clarke's advice to Clinton to take immediate action against bin Laden was completely ignored. Now, he blames President Bush.

The Clinton people are going to say that there is no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. This is interesting since documents and intelligence used to bomb the al Shifa plant in Sudan in 1998 were based on that very information. Osama bin Laden had invested money in the Sudan factory and it was believed that a chemical compound called EMPTA, whose only function is to make VX nerve gas, was being made there. Several telephone calls between that plant and Baghdad were also intercepted.

It should be pointed out that this bombing was then and still is widely believed to be a bombing of convenience, based on intelligence which was later proven wrong. Numerous independent inspectors went through the ruins of the plant and found no evidence of EMPTA. Bill needed something to take the Monica scandal off the front page of the newspapers. However, the connection between the plant, bin Laden and Baghdad was real.

Sudan had just offered bin Laden to Clinton as a gesture of good will hoping to improve its strained relations with the U.S. Even more distressing is that the Sudan also offered two men, Sayyid Iskandar Suliman and Sayyid Nazir Abbass, believed to have direct ties to bin Laden and wanted by the U.S. for their part in the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Clinton's response was to destroy Sudan's only pharmaceutical plant.

Clinton's expert on Iraq, Laurie Mylroie, has been saying for years that there is no doubt that Saddam and bin Laden worked hand in hand and that Saddam was involved in several attacks on the U.S. including the first WTC bombing in 1993 and 9/11 via money and training camps in Iraq. It is unlikely that the Democrats on the committee will want her to testify since Clinton spent eight years ignoring her.

Then there is the strange tale of Ramzi Yousef. Ramzi is now in prison for his part in the 1993 WTC bombing. His capture in 1995 is an interesting story. The information the CIA obtained after his arrest was so simple to understand that it can only be said that this information was unwanted and thus it was ignored.

Ramzi Yousef is an Iraqi, was an agent for Saddam and he is a member of al Qaeda. The police in the Philippines were on high alert because of an upcoming Papal visit and while investigating an apartment fire the police stumbled upon a bomb making factory. Not realizing the police were in his apartment, Yousef literally walked himself into custody. The information found on his computer was the blueprint for 9/11. Found there were the detailed plans for attacks on America called "Operation Bojinka" or "Operation Big Bang."

The Clinton Administration knew, in 1995, that al Qaeda planned to high-jack airliners and use them as missiles against strategic American targets on American soil. It was all laid out, step by step on Yousef's computer. Trained pilots were all that was needed. The people due to testify for the Clinton Administration this week did nothing with this information — absolutely nothing.

What Clinton did do in 1995 was direct the FBI to concentrate its efforts on investigating perceived domestic terrorist threats such as militias and right-wing radio personalities averting their attention away from foreign terrorists. This was called "Project Megiddo."

The CIA warned Clinton in 1996 that it had uncovered a branch of al Qaeda called "The Martyrdom Battalion." These terrorists planned to hijack planes and use them as missiles against American targets. Was this information ever related to the proper congressional committees? Could this explain congressional anger after the 9/11 attack that it was so ill-informed about this threat?

In 1998, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the first World Trade Center bombing, Dale Watson, the FBI's top expert on international terror, reported to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that "although we should not allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security ... I believe it is important to note that in the five years since the Trade Center bombing, no significant act of foreign-directed terrorism has occurred on American soil."

Madeleine Albright, who will also be testifying this week in defense of Bill Clinton, stated after the 9/11 attack, "This is hard to say and I haven't found a way to say it that doesn't sound crass, but it is the truth that those {attacks before Sept. 11} were happening overseas and while there were Americans who died, there were not thousands and it did not happen on U. S. soil." American Embassies and military ships were not considered "American soil" to Clinton's secretary of state and since there were not "thousands" of dead it apparently was not important enough to loose any sleep over.

William Cohen, Clinton's secretary of defense, in a July 1999 op-ed piece in the Washington Post, predicted a terrorist attack on America's mainland. If he did not have intelligence warning him of this, why would he write an editorial a full two years before 9/11 predicting some kind of attack? Is he just psychic?

Yet, with all this and much more, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, their senior staff and cabinet will stand before Congress and America and swear that they did everything they could to stamp out the terror threat to Americans.

Personally, I don't have to search very far to find the Clinton legacy. It's a legacy of neglect, lies, cover-ups and scandals. The truth is out there and far to often we can't trust our politicians to put partisan bickering aside long enough to find it.

NOTE: References for this article available at: Republican and Proud.

© Barbara J. Stock

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
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Barbara J. Stock

Barbara is a retired Registered Nurse after over 35 years in the field. She is pro-life at both ends of life's journey. Mother of two, Grandmother of two, she is pro-America and anti-progressive. Absent from writing for too long, she is back and determined to make a difference.

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