Response to "If Only bin Laden Had a Stained Blue Dress…"
This week's column (September 13, 2006), coming on the week of the fifth anniversarry of the 9/11 attacks explains how they were all really Bill Clinton's fault. This comes the same week ABC broadcast the "docudrama" The Path to 9/11, or as Coulter described it:
…an ABC movie that relies on the 9/11 Commission Report, which whitewashed only 90 percent of Clinton's cowardice and incompetence in the face of terrorism, rather than 100 percent.
The objections to The Path to 9/11, did not come entirely from "Clinton fanatics" as Ann says, but also from conservatives including Bill Bennett, and even Harvey Keitel, the film's main actor. [1] Those objections were not about a "whitewashing" but about fictional scenes and outright fabrications in the movie, which consistently misstated the facts of the matter. These included scenes showing Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Adviser refusing an opportunity to assasinate Osama bin Laden, and showing Bush more concerned with the infamous "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in US" PDB that he actually was. Oddly all the fabricated scenes either make Clinton look worse than in reality, or make Bush look better. [2,3] These events are portrayed, even though they are contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report the movie was supposedly based on.
Perhaps that has something to do with its conservative writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh. Or possibly due to the fact that it was also partly based on a book co-written by John Miller, currently the Assistant Director of Public Affairs for the FBI, even though most of the ABC promotional material only mentions the 9/11 Commission's Report.
Coulter goes on to complain that Clinton did not act to stop terrorism, and begins with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center:
The first month Clinton was in office, Islamic terrorists with suspected links to al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein bombed the World Trade Center.
For the first time ever, a terrorist act against America was treated not as a matter of national security, but exclusively as a simple criminal offense. The individual bombers were tried in a criminal court. (The one plotter who got away fled to Iraq, that peaceful haven of kite-flying children until Bush invaded and turned it into a nation of dangerous lunatics.)
What Ann means by "the first time ever" and by "simple criminal offense" isn't clear. Terrorist incidents in this country are generally handled by the FBI. In 1980, a bomb was detonated at Statue of Liberty. [4] That incident was investigated by the FBI, but has never been solved. In 1983, a bomb detonated caused a quarter of a million dollars in damage (but fortunately killed no one) at the US Capitol building. That was also investigated by the FBI, and led to six arrests. [5]
Ann glosses over the fact that the "simple criminal" investigation of this bombing was largely successful. Ann is also mistaken when she says "the one plotter who got away fled to Iraq," as several of the terrorists initially fled overseas: mastermind Ramzi Yousef to Pakistan and Eyad Ismoil to Jordan. Abdul Rahman Yasin fled to Jordan, and later to Iraq. Yasin (oddly, born in Bloomington, Indiana) may have been in prison in Iraq since 1994. He was interviewed by CBS News in 2002, but his current whereabouts are unknown. The conspirators and co-conspirators are each serving prison sentences of 240 years. [6,7,8]
Although Clinton made the criminal justice system the entire U.S. counterterrorism strategy, there was not even an indictment filed after the bombing of either Khobar Towers (1996) or the USS Cole (2000). Indictments were not filed until after Bush/Ashcroft came into office.
Again, this is incorrect. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, bin Laden was indicted by a grand jury in 1998. The sealed idictment was handed down in June, and was publically revealed in November. [9]
After ignoring the capture and imprisonment of the perpetrators of World Trade Center bombing and the bin Laden indictment, Coulter continues her incorrect claims that Clinton was ineffective:
…Clinton turned down Sudan's offer to hand us bin Laden in 1996.
The problem with her claim — and she's made it several times in various media — is that it didn't happen. It's a claim that's commongly repeated in right-wing media outlets, but according to the 9/11 Commission:
President Clinton, in a February 2002 speech to the Long Island Association, said that the United States did not accept a Sudanese offer and take Bin Ladin because there was no indictment. President Clinton speech to the Long Island Association, Feb. 15, 2002 (videotape of speech). But the President told us that he had "misspoken" and was, wrongly, recounting a number of press stories he had read. After reviewing this matter in preparation for his Commission meeting, President Clinton told us that Sudan never offered to turn Bin Ladin over to the United States. President Clinton meeting (Apr. 8, 2004). Berger told us that he saw no chance that Sudan would have handed Bin Ladin over and also noted that in 1996, the U.S. government still did not know of any al Qaeda attacks on U.S. citizens.
About the claim that the Sudanese offered to turn bin Laden over to the U.S., the 9/11 Commision said: [9]
Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim.
Coulter never passes up a chance to bring up the Lewinsky scandal when discussing Clinton, no matter how unrelated to the topic at hand:
In August 1998, three days after Clinton admitted to the nation that he did in fact have "sex with that woman," he bombed Afghanistan and Sudan, doing about as much damage as another Clinton fusillade did to a blue Gap dress.
The day of Clinton's scheduled impeachment, Dec. 18, 1998, he bombed Iraq. This accomplished two things: (1) It delayed his impeachment for one day, and (2) it got a lot of Democrats on record about the monumental danger of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.
So don't tell me impeachment "distracted" Clinton from his aggressive pursuit of terrorists. He never would have bombed anyone if it weren't for the Clinton-haters.
Yet, again, the 9/11 Commission disagrees with Coulter:
Everyone involved in the decision [to bomb Sudan] had, of course, been aware of President Clinton's problems. He told them to ignore them. Berger recalled the President saying to him "that they were going to get crap either way, so they should do the right thing."51 All his aides testified to us that they based their advice solely on national security considerations. We have found no reason to question their statements. [10]
President Clinton told us that he had directed his national security team to focus exclusively on responding to the embassy bombings. President Clinton meeting (Apr. 8, 2004). See also William Cohen testimony, Mar. 23, 2004.When "wag the dog" allegations were again raised during the December 1998 Desert Fox campaign over Iraq, Defense Secretary Cohen, formerly a Republican senator, told members of Congress that he would have resigned if he believed the President was using the military for any purpose other than national security.
Sources:
- [1] Media Matters for America. "ABC's 9-11 miniseries under intense fire from journalists, conservatives." Retrieved September 19, 2006.
- [2] Media Matters for America. "Part two of ABC's 9-11 "docudrama" contained falsified scenes bolstering Bush." Retrieved September 19, 2006.
- [3] Wikipedia. "The Path to 9/11. Retrieved September 19, 2006.
- [4] "Protecting a national icon." The Week. May 14, 2004.
- [5] "Bomb Explodes in Capitol. Retreived September 19, 2006.
- [6] CNN. "Last World Trade Center bombing conspirator sentenced." April 3, 1998.
- [7] CNN. "Jury convicts 2 in Trade Center blast." November 12, 1997.
- [8] "The World Trade Center Bombing." Gale World of Criminal Justice. Retrieved September 19, 2006.
- [9] The 9/11 Commission Report. p. 110.
- [10] The 9/11 Commission Report. p. 118.