The Clinton administration never responded decisively, even when given the opportunity, as it was obliged to do, with its own “war against terrorism.” If we had a national interest in sending troops to Haiti and Rwanda, certainly the Clinton administration had an obligation in the name of our national security to deploy and use the military resources necessary to deal with al-Qaeda as its deadly presence became known and its declared war on America became public and costly. That it did not respond is a consequence for which the Clinton administration is, in my view, extremely culpable. By failing to answer the threat as it should have, the Clinton administration was guilty of gross negligence and dereliction of duty to the safety of our country, which the president was sworn to defend.
Compare this with the decisive reactions to fight terrorism under President Reagan. On October 8, 1985, a group of Palestinian terrorists seized the Italian luxury liner Achille Lauro off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. The terrorists were seeking the release of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel. In the course of their hijacking, they would kill an American, sixty-nine-year-old Leon Klinghoffer.
The direction from the White House down to the Pentagon and on to the operational units was swift and clear. Within a few hours, I received a phone call at home, quickly packed for an unknown period of time and destination, and was flying a C-141 from Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, to pick up members of the First Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta, as it was known then, or Delta Force.
We flew nonstop to Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily and set up operations for the potential interdiction and seizure of the ship. The rapidity and strength of executive decision-making found refuge in the heart of every airman and soldier involved. There was no question as to our intent or conviction.
The terrorists left the boat under safe haven provided by Egypt two days later and boarded an Egyptian airliner bound for the sanctity of Tunisia. On October 11, U. S. Navy F-14 jets intercepted the airliner and forced it to land at Sigonella. Members of the Delta Forced poured from a following C-141, surrounded the jet, and quickly took the terrorists into captivity. In all, three days from presidential directive to successful outcome.
In another instance, the La Belle Discotheque in West Berlin was bombed on April 5, 1986, killing one American soldier and wounding more than two hundred, of which at least sixty were fellow U.S. servicemen. Within hours, the U.S. pinpointed Libya as the perpetrator through intercepted telephone calls. Two days later, my crew and I got the call and began the long flight east. This time we were hauling the armaments, the missiles, and the rocket motors to be installed on U.S. fighters at bases in the United Kingdom. When we arrived, we were met by an already established twenty-four-hour base of operations. Again it was clear: Here was conviction and resolve. The plans were being laid out, and every airman knew the situation and embraced it.
On April 15, the U.S. launched air strikes at the heart of Libya. Eighteen U.S. Air Force F-111 aircraft launched from British attack sites in Tripoli, firing missiles at military barracks, headquarters, the Tripoli airport, and commando training bases. Fifteen U.S. Navy A-6 and A-7 attack jets hit military targets in Benghazi.
President Reagan addressed the nation. “Our evidence is direct, it is precise, and it is irrefutable. Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again. . . . He [Muammar Qaddafi] counted on America to be passive,” declared the president. “He counted wrong.”
Compare these successes with the legacy of the Clinton administration. The truck bomb that exploded beneath the World Trade Center in early 1993 killed six Americans and injured more than one thousand. Initially, the Clinton administration adopted the theory that it was a simple criminal act and handled the bombing as a law enforcement issue. President Clinton even warned Americans against “overreacting.” In an interview with MTV he described the attack as having been perpetrated by someone who “did something really stupid.” In no way did the administration see this terrorist attack as rivaling in importance its preferred issues of “it’s the economy, stupid,” socializing health care, and lifting the ban on homosexuals in the military.
Treating the bombing solely as a law enforcement issue created barriers preventing an effective resolution. Laws protecting grand jury secrecy neutralized the involvement of the intelligence agencies, in effect obstructing the identification and pursuit of a growing international terror network. Further complicating things, the administration’s law enforcement team was not yet in place, because of the ill-organized and scandal-ridden selection process of President Clinton’s cabinet.
Foreboding clues emerged throughout the World Trade Center investigation, pointing to a larger, more complex conspiracy. Testifying to the House International Relations Committee in April 1995, terrorism expert Steven Emerson stated that there was evidence “pointing to the involvement of Usama bin Laden, the ex-Afghan Saudi Mujahideen supporter now taking refuge in the Sudan.”
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who’d held three U.S. visas and was also on the State Department’s watch list for his involvement in the assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, was eventually convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment as the ringleader of the bombing. The same fate was handed down to five of his associates.
More important, an ancestral tree of terrorism was emerging. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a master bomb builder, was captured in Pakistan on February 7, 1995. He was implicated in the first World Trade Center bombing and accused of planting the bomb that exploded aboard a Filipino commercial airliner en route to Japan in 1995. He was arrested with files connecting him to al-Qaeda and financing through bin Laden’s brother-in-law. Most significant, he was suspected of developing plans to use commercial airliners as weapons, specifically to blow up the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, among other targets. Filipino intelligence sources had intercepted terrorist plans, which the terrorists had code-named Operation Bojinka, or “loud bang” in Serbo-Croatian. But this developing picture was not welcomed by the Clinton administration, which took a heavily lawyerly approach—as suited the backgrounds of most of the administration—toward these developments, rather than an approach more suitable to our national security.
The single event that would forever underscore Clinton’s foreign policy efforts occurred on October 3, 1993—the Black Hawk Down incident that pitted American forces against warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, the emerging power behind the guerrilla warfare being fought in and around Mogadishu. The Black Hawk Down military failure shaped and reinforced the president’s unfocused posturing involving military action abroad; his preferred means of operation was showing the flag while not incurring the risk or the cost of having to support actual combat. Clinton’s response four days after Mogadishu was to announce the withdrawal of American combat troops and most logistics units. He declared that the U.S. role in Somalia would end by March 31, 1994.
This was true, even when, in November 1996, bin Laden confessed in an interview with the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper to his role in the heavy losses suffered by U.S. troops in Somalia. “The only non-Somali group which fought the Americans are the Arab Mujahedeen who were in Afghanistan,” he said. “There were successful battles in which we inflicted heavy losses against the Americans. We used to hunt them in Mogadishu.”
On March 8, 1995, a seemingly minor news account provided additional clues. Two U.S. consulate workers were killed in Karachi, Pakistan. Their van, with diplomatic license plates, was sprayed with bullets from men armed with AK-47 assault rifles. Speculation pointed to retaliation for the arrest and extradition of Ramzi Yousef. Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto called it “part of a well-planned campaign of terrorism.” President Clinton called the attack a “cowardly act” and sent an FBI team to Pakistan to investigate. Again, the administration chose to treat the latest act of terrorism as a law enforcement issue.
... the fact that their was an attack on 911 shows this illegitimate regime's incompetence not to mention their involvement. Terrorism has increased in the world since they stole office and started this illegal war.
