Robert Novak at Townhall.com - 'Losing bin Laden':
On Oct. 12, 2000, the day of the devastating terrorist attack on the USS Cole, President Clinton's highest-level national security team met to determine what to do. Counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wanted to hit Afghanistan, aiming at Osama bin Laden's complex and the terrorist leader himself. But Clarke was all alone. There was no support for a retaliatory strike that, if successful, might have prevented the 9/11 carnage.Much more by following the link.
This startling story is told for the first time in a book by Brussels-based investigative reporter Richard Miniter to be published this week. "Losing bin Laden" relates that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and CIA Director George Tenet all said no to the attack. I have contacted enough people attending the meeting to confirm what Miniter reports. Indeed, his account is based on direct, on-the-record quotes from participants.
Miniter, who was part of the Sunday Times of London investigation of Clinton vs. bin Laden, has written a bitter indictment of the American president (its subtitle: "How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror"). But by the time of the Cole disaster with only weeks left in his presidency, Clinton had focused on the terrorist threat. The problem of the Oct. 12 meeting was the caution common to all councils of war. Arguments by participants sound valid, but collectively they built a future catastrophe.
