One of the enduring stories of 9/11 is that the Clinton administration, especially superheroic terrorism expert Richard Clarke, gave the Bush administration the full skinny on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda before the attacks. I’ve heard that reported dozens of times in the MSM since that day and, quite honestly, I believed it was true. Now, I didn’t believe that such information could have predicted the 9/11 attacks with enough detail to actually stop them, but I certainly believed that the Clinton folks had worked up a comprehensive report on Osama bin Laden, considering all the Americans he had a hand in killing. After all, folks like Madeline Albright and Bill Clinton have told us repeatedly just how concerned they were about Osama bin Laden throughout the 90s.
It appears I was completely wrong.
Not only did the Clinton administration not present the Bush folks with a report on al-Qaeda, it appears such a report didn’t even exist. That means that the previous administration, faced with events like the bombings of the USS Cole, the World Trade Center, and two embassies in Africa, couldn’t even be bothered to put the CIA on the case. They left the new President hanging in the wind and, when the worst happened, proceeded to maul him mercilessly for not doing the very same thing they had not done even though they had years to do it. There’s a bit from the report that deserves a quote, just so you see it at least once.
The CIA’s analysis of al-Qaida before Sept. 2001 was lacking. No comprehensive report focusing on bin Laden was written after 1993, and no comprehensive report laying out the threats of 2001 was assembled. “A number of important issues were covered insufficiently or not at all,” the report found.
No. Comprehensive. Report.
Unbelievable.
(via Ace)
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