Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Just to be clear, since Penske is incorrectly implying that the fault for this is Clinton's, the 9/11 Commission found that we didn't have evidence that bin Laden was responsible for the Cole bombing until after Clinton left office. The Cole was bombed on October 12, 2000. We developed indications that Al Qaeda was involved within weeks, but they were judged insufficient to justify war with Afghanistan:
- [T]he Yemenis provided strong evidence connecting the Cole attack to al Qaeda during the second half of November, identifying individual operatives whom the United States knew were part of al Qaeda. During December the United States was able to corroborate this evidence. But the United States did not have evidence about Bin Ladin’s personal involvement in the attacks until Nashiri and Khallad were captured in 2002 and 2003. (193)
See pp 193-98 of the Report. It's available for free on-line.
Richard Clarke developed a plan to go after the Taliban short of outright war, and presented it to his new bosses after Bush was inaugurated in January. As we all know, Condi Rice tabled it.
So the fact that we didn't do shit is a reflection of the fact that the Bush crowd had other priorities, and that Clinton was no longer in office.
Not within the purview of the book, really, but there you go.
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Res ipsa, we knew who did it, and we had enough on him to justify going after him. Clinton dropped the ball and Clarke is a partisan of the ideology of Clarke, highly enamoured of his own after the fact know it allism.
Ty, why can't you be fair and admit Clinton dropped the ball? It is this partisan intransigence in the face of what we know is the truth that is why Spanky won't classify you a moderate.
