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JUDICIAL WATCH INTERVIEW Richard Miniter, Author, Losing Bin Laden Jane Chastain was the nation's first female sportscaster, on both the local and the national levels, and spent seventeen years covering sports. She is now a political commentator for Crawford Broadcasting, a chain of radio stations throughout America, a regular panelist on the cable television show CNN & Company, and a regular Host of the Judicial Watch Report. Ms. Chastain is also the author of I'd Speak Out on the Issues If I Only Knew What to Say. Jane Chastain, Host, Judicial Watch Report: We are now going to get some real insight into how our public officials failed us during the years leading up to 9-11. We are joined by one of America's best investigative reporters. He has written for virtually every major publication in the United States and some important books as well. His book, Losing Bin Laden, has just been out a couple of weeks. It is "must" reading and I am pleased now to have Richard Miniter as our guest. Richard, thanks so much for being with us today. Richard Miniter: Thanks, Jane. Chastain: There have been charges and counter-charges about the fact that Bill Clinton had Osama bin Laden in his gun sights. But the spin from Bill Clinton is that he really didn't have the evidence to tie him to terrorist attacks on Americans. True? Untrue? Miniter: I would say untrue, based on my interviews with senior Clinton Administration officials and senior State Department and Justice Department officials. Let me back up a little bit. December 29, 1992, was bin Laden's first attack on Americans. He tried to kill a hundred U.S. Marines stationed in two hotel towers in Yemen. That's when some CIA operatives first learned about it and when President-elect, Bill Clinton, was first briefed about bin Laden's evil designs on America. February 1993, less than thirty days after Bill Clinton was sworn in, the World Trade Center was bombed; seven people died. Bin Laden was behind that attack as well. October 3rd and 4th, 1993, bin Laden trained and armed Somali warlords to attack us in one of the most devastating military encounters of the Clinton years. The bodies of our troops were dragged through the streets. In 1994, in the Philippines, bin Laden operatives were stopped in the midst of a plot to destroy eleven U.S. airlines in flight over the Pacific and a plot to murder the Pope John Paul II. By the time the offer from the Sudanese came on March 3rd, 1996, bin Laden had already killed a number of Americans. By the end of the Clinton years, bin Laden had killed 59. But certainly by 1996 they had more than enough information not just to indict bin Laden, but also to convict him if they actually wanted to put him on trial. Unfortunately, presidential politics got in the way; 1996 was an election year and senior Clinton administration officials said to me repeatedly they just wanted to "buy time." They wanted to get the issue past the election and then maybe think about doing something about bin Laden. They were not serious. Meanwhile, Americans were dead. Chastain: Richard, you not only detail all of this in your important book, Losing Bin Laden, but you also give us the details of the very high-level meeting that occurred with Clinton Administration counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clark, and some other well-known figures, high-level members of the Clinton Administration. Miniter: That's right. It occurred after the attack on the USS COLE in October 2000. Seventeen sailors were killed, 44 were injured. The United States was faced with the possibility that for the first time since World War II, we were about to lose a warship. Usually this leads to a declaration of war. Attacking a U.S. ship is a classic way of bringing the United States into war. Any normal administration would either have declared war or had a massive retaliatory strike against bin Laden. And that didn't happen. But what did happen is Richard Clark asked the Department of Defense to draw up a target list and a massive retaliation plan to destroy every element of bin Laden's architecture in Afghanistan. And so, in the wood-paneled "situation room" in the basement of the White House, the cabinet assembled in the days following the attack. The President was not there. After Clark described his plan, the first person to speak was Janet Reno. She said, "Well, retaliation is against international law," so she would be against any retaliation plan. The CIA Director, George Tenet said he thought bin Laden was behind the attack, but still wanted a "full investigation." He knew it would take months and would push the problem off onto the next administration, on to President Bush. Then you have Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, who was totally against any kind of retaliation because, as she said, "Bombing Muslims would not be helpful at this time." What she meant by that is that is she thought it would disrupt the Middle East peace process. Chastain: The so-called Middle East peace process. Miniter: Exactly. She thought if she could negotiate a final peace between Israel and Palestine, she and President Clinton would be eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize. That is what was driving her -- the Clinton legacy. But most incredible was Defense Secretary Cohen. The 17 sailors who died were essentially working for him as Secretary of Defense. Chastain: He ought to know better. Miniter: You'd think he would have stood up for it, but he didn't. Instead he said he didn't consider the attack "sufficient" to justify retaliation. And so everyone in the room, with the exception of the Counter Terrorism Czar, Richard Clark, was opposed to taking any kind of retaliatory action against terrorists who declared war on America. Chastain: Richard, please answer one quick question for me in only a couple of words before you go: Why did George W. Bush keep George Tenet as head of the CIA? Miniter: His father asked him to. Chastain: Sad. Very sad. Alright, the details are in this very important book by Richard Miniter. It's called, Losing Bin Laden.
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