Can this be accurate?
Gareth Porter argues in Asia Times that the Bush administration never had any plans to get Osama bin Laden — they were too busy planning an attack on Iraq to have time to get the man who led the attacks against us. So Osama bin Laden went free, free to attack the U.S. again and again.
New evidence from former United States officials reveals that Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were able to skip Afghanistan for Pakistan unimpeded in the first weeks after September 11, 2001, as the George W Bush administration failed to plan to block their retreat.
Top administration officials instead gave priority to planning for war with Iraq, leaving the United States with not nearly enough troops or strategic airlift capacity to close the large number of possible exit routes through the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area where Bin Laden escaped in late 2001.
Because it had not been directed to plan for that contingency, the US military was also forced to turn down an offer from then Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in late November 2001 to send 60,000 troops to intercept the al-Qaeda leaders.
Nuts. Who could ever have guessed that incompetence in the White House could so cripple our military, and ultimately, so cripple our nation?
Can we move inauguration day up to December 1? Please?
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
And as for you, Mssc, now imagine what could have happened to bin Laden if the Republicans hadn’t been having childish hissy fits about Clinton and investigating him for every imagined charge they could come up with. You say Clinton was distracted. Do bother to keep in mind it was the Republicans doing the distracting.
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Evolution is false mentions something about vandalized White House?
What vandalized White House? They investigated Bush’s claims that Clinton’s people left the White House vandalized..and oops they didn’t find any vandalization.
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It may well be that Bush bad/Clinton good. I didn’t say that. I didn’t ask you to induce that. It’s your own conclusion, one that I think is unwarranted from the one item I’ve discussed here.
I suspect you didn’t get to where you are by avoiding leaps of logic, though.
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Very good points. However, I suppose we will never know what the highly classified papers Berger stole and subsequently said.
I’m sure everything else he said and did was above board. That possible act of treason was an isolated instance.
Great guy that Sandy Berger to be so helpful to the Bush administration.
Once again I get it. Bush bad. Clinton good.
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I was a Tsongas supporter in 1992, Clinton delegate only because he was the guy left standing. Same in ’96. Which is totally irrelevant to the history. Don’t take my word for it — look it up.
Put yourself in the shoes of Sandy Berger. Some people claim he’s gone around the bend.
Berger called the Bush transition team daily from election day 2000 to January 21 — literally — to give them the National Security Advisor’s briefing on bin Laden and the project to get al Quaeda. The last brushoff was January 21. Bush’s people avoided all information about terrorism, intentionally. Berger made a final offer after the inauguration, and was told to pound the pavement.
If you knew a terrorist was planning to kill thousands of Americans, if you’d spent seven years on a project to stop him, and if the incoming president ignored every effort you made to warn him, and then killed the project to stop the carnage, do you think you could maintain your sanity after the event?
It doesn’t matter how you voted in any election: Can you learn from the errors of history?
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bush is in bed with to emirites and the oilers
and clinton is in bed with his girlfriend and the stolen godds from the white house and the vadilized white house the vandelized economy
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Ed in the interest of full disclosure what roll(s) did you play in the Clinton’s campaing(s). Also did you serve in a law enforcement capacity for either of them?
I get it now. Bush bad. Clinton good. Gotcha.
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I think that failing to hit the target is quite a bit different from “taking a pass.” Clinton issued orders to get bin Laden. He repeated the orders. CIA failed to act at least once, missed at least one other time.
Bush rescinded Clinton’s orders on January 22, 2001, and killed the entire program to track down bin Laden and we know the result.
Clinton wasn’t busy with cigars, pizza and hummers, Congress was — and Clinton was busy with Congress.
What should have been? Congress should have stuck to the nation’s business instead of trying to “get” Clinton in the worst possible way.
You’re right, it was all before 9/11. Clinton looks like Churchill in comparison to the Republicans in Congress and Bush’s turn as Neville Chamberlain.
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As long as we are pointing out what “could have been” let’s also point out what “should have been.”
President William Jefferson Clinton (aka Slick Willy) had THREE seperate oppertunities to take out BinLaden. Actual in the sights (kill) oppertunities but opted to pass.
President William Jefferson Clinton was to busy with his “personal” intern pizza, cigar, hummer business to execute not only the DUTIES OF HIS OFFICE but to also execute BinLaden! And remember this was all BEFORE 9-11.
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I’d love it, but only if Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com is right.
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