CIA agents reveal Bill Clinton stopped them killing Osama Bin Laden and 'preventing 9/11' by signing a bill making it illegal to take deadly action - even when they had him cornered
- The CIA had a 'lethal finding' bill that had been signed by President Clinton that said the purpose of an attack against Osama bin Laden couldn't be to kill him
- Tribal contacts suggested the CIA bury explosives underneath crossroads so that when his convoy came through they could blow it up
- But the agency risked jail due to the bill signed by Clinton in the 90s
- Marty Martin, who was a CIA counterterrorism officer at the time, said if 'Clinton had taken action and killed Osama bin Laden, there wouldn't have been a 9/11'
- Clinton told a small group of business leaders in Melbourne on September 10, 2001: 'I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town'
- Ten hours later the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City
Former CIA agents have said they were prevented from killing Osama Bin Laden in the build-up to 9/11 because of a bill signed by President Bill Clinton.
New documentary The Longest War details how the agency could have assassinated the head of Al Qaeda before September 11 when they had him cornered.
The terrorist was constantly moving around to avoid detection, but at points he would surface and the U.S. would confirm his location so they could launch a strike.
Local tribal leaders in Afghanistan told them to bury explosives underneath crossroads that would blow up his convoy when it passed.
But their hands were tied because of the Memorandum of Notification enacted by President Clinton in August 1998 that meant deadly action was forbidden.
The agents and officials working in intelligence in the late 90s also say that Bin Laden wasn't considered much of a threat.
'The CIA had a so-called "lethal finding" [bill] that had been signed by President Clinton that said that we could engage in "lethal activity" against bin Laden, but the purpose of our attack against bin Laden couldn't be to kill him,' then-CIA station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, Bob Grenier explains in the documentary that aired Sunday on Showtime.
President Bill Clinton (left) said the CIA could engage in 'lethal activity' against Osama bin Laden (right), but the purpose of the attack couldn't be to kill him
Then-CIA station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, Bob Grenier, explained in the Longest War film that aired on Showtime Sunday: 'We were being asked to remove this threat to the United States essentially with one hand tied behind our backs'
A 9/11 Commission report states that it authorized the CIA to attack Bin Laden in other ways.
'We were being asked to remove this threat to the United States essentially with one hand tied behind our backs,' Grenier added in the documentary.
Grienier – who was the CIA station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan at the time of a particular mission in the 1990s – explained how 'bin Laden was constantly moving, and we were using Afghan tribal networks to report on his travels and his whereabouts'.
When they did finally narrow down where he would be, they had to decline the missile attack on December 20, 1998 in Kandahar.
'Our tribal contacts came to us and said, "Look, he's in this location now. When he leaves, he's going to have to go through this particular crossroads." And so what they proposed was to bury a huge cache of explosives underneath those crossroads so that when his convoy came through they could simply blow it up,' Grenier explained in the documentary. 'And we said absolutely not. We were risking jail if we didn't tell them that.'
The following day the language of the memorandum was upgraded so it was understood the CIA could kill bin Laden is there was no other option to capture him alive.
'And if President Clinton had taken action and killed Osama bin Laden, there wouldn't have been a 9/11,' Marty Martin said in The Longest War. 'And if there wouldn't have been a 9/11 there wouldn't have been an Afghanistan, and if there wouldn't have been an Afghanistan there wouldn't have been an Iraq'
However decisions were made not to carry out numerous attacks on bin Laden's camp in 1999 and 2000. The memorandum was also downgraded again in 1999 to 'capture not kill' language.
Marty Martin, who was a CIA counterterrorism officer at the time, said in the documentary that the threat from the al-Qaeda leader 'was real' but the US missed opportunities to prevent the thousands of deaths from 9/11.
'And if President Clinton had taken action and killed Osama bin Laden, there wouldn't have been a 9/11,' Martin continued. 'And if there wouldn't have been a 9/11 there wouldn't have been an Afghanistan, and if there wouldn't have been an Afghanistan there wouldn't have been an Iraq. What would the world be like?'
The Longest War is directed by Greg Barker (Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden).
He said in an interview about the documentary film that despite warnings, bin Laden wasn't regarded as a serious enough threat.
'It's hard to believe now, but back in the late '90s, most of the Washington national security establishment — including President Clinton, the State Department, the Department of Defense — simply did not view Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda as a serious threat,' Barker told Yahoo!
'The handful of US officials who saw the looming threat clearly — and there were some, mostly mid-level officers at the CIA's bin Laden unit and the counter-terrorism branch at the FBI — tried in vain to raise alarm bells at the highest levels, but were often ignored and even ridiculed.'
Clinton's term lasted 1993 to 2001, when President George W. Bush took office.
Just 10 hours before the September 11 attacks, Clinton admitted to an audience in Australia that he's had opportunities to kill bin Laden.
SHARE THIS ARTICLE
88 shares
'I'm just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden — he's a very smart guy, I've spent a lot of time thinking about him — and I nearly got him once,' Clinton told a small group of business leaders in Melbourne on September 10, 2001.
'I nearly got him. And I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him. And so I just didn't do it.'
The recording emerged in 2014 when Michael Kroger, the former head of the Liberal Party in Victoria, remembered he had a tape.
No comments:
Post a Comment