Why didn't William Jefferson Clinton...?

Question

do more to prevent 9/11?

Answer 1

There they go again blaming President Bush for 911. It wasn't him at all. And as far as the Middle East hating President Bush. I guess so because they know he isn't going to take their mess. And it just isn't the president they hate. They hate you and me. Anything to do with America and democracy, they hate. So can I once more say lay off of our president. support him and pray for him. That is if you know how to pray.

Answer 2

A committee he formed issued a report in January, 2001, that warned of the kind of scenario we saw on 9/11. That's in addition to intelligence estimates left for the Bush administration by the Clinton administration makes me ask: what more should have been done?
The bombing of the WTC in 1993 took place a month after Clinton took office. Why didn't anyone ask if Bush 41 had done enough to prevent that attack?

Answer 3

Your asking a question of a Monday morning quarterback. It's easy to tell what should have been done, after the facts were revealed, however, before 9/11 the only thing that radical people did with planes was hijack them to Cuba or some other crazy place.
Ask yourself this question. For the events in your life that will happen a year from now, that you have no control over, and more importantly don't know what they are, are you going to do more to prevent a negative thing from happening in the future? If not, why not? Your asking the same thing of Clinton. And, I didn't vote for him....

Answer 4

Hindsight is 20/20. No one did enough.

I'm no fan of Clinton, but I would not give him all the blame. There's plenty to go around.

Answer 5

Why is he incessantly used as an excuse for Bush? Why not blame his father, the one who sold weapons to Osama? Be serious, please. Clinton screwed up, everybody knows that. But it means nothing if you fail to acknowledge everyone who screwed up.

Answer 6

He wasnt in office. George Bush was. The Bush family is so despised in the middle east that an attack was imminent the moment George won a fixed election. If he were to take an IQ test, it would come out negative.

Answer 7

The failure was with the intelligence community, as always

Answer 8

He wasn't exactly in office at the time.

Answer 9

Bush not only ALLOWED it to happen......the administration and their handlers PAID for it to happen!!

Answer 10

Between Bush’s disinterest and incompetence, and a Republican Congress determined to block everything Clinton tried to do to fight Bin-Laden, Al-Qaeda, and terrorism in general, we are probably fortunate that 9/11 was not worse.

Let’s look at the evidence:

CLINTON VS BUSH PRE-9/11 EFFORTS TO FIGHT TERRORISM

President Clinton led the fight against terrorism over strong opposition from Republicans in Congress and the pro-Republican Media.

Here's a partial - yet incredibly long - list of accomplishments against terrorism for which the Clinton Administration gets almost no credit or even recognition.

PRESIDENT CLINTON:

 -- sent legislation to Congress to TIGHTEN AIRPORT SECURITY. (Remember, this is before 911) The legislation was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the airlines.

 -- sent legislation to Congress to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF TERRORIST FUNDING. It was defeated by Republicans in the Senate because of opposition from banking interests.

 -- sent legislation to Congress to add tagents to explosives, to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF EXPLOSIVES USED BY TERRORISTS. It was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the NRA.

WHEN REPUBLICANS COULDN'T PREVENT EXECUTIVE ACTION, PRESIDENT CLINTON:

 -- Developed the nation's first anti-terrorism policy, and appointed first national coordinator.

 -- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up 12 U.S. jetliners simultaneously.

 -- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up UN Headquarters.

 -- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up FBI Headquarters.

 -- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

 -- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up Boston airport.

 -- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up Lincoln and Holland Tunnels in NY.

 -- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the George Washington Bridge.

 -- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the US Embassy in Albania.

 -- Tried to kill Osama bin Laden and disrupt Al Qaeda through preemptive strikes (efforts denounced by the G.O.P.).

 -- Brought perpetrators of first World Trade Center bombing and CIA killings to justice.

 -- Did not blame Bush I administration for first World Trade Center bombing even though it occurred 38 days after they had left office. Instead, worked hard, even obsessively -- and successfully -- to stop future terrorist attacks.

 -- Named the Hart-Rudman commission to report on nature of terrorist threats and major steps to be taken to combat terrorism.

 -- Tripled the budget of the FBI for counterterrorism and doubled overall funding for counterterrorism.

 -- Detected and destroyed cells of Al Qaeda in over 20 countries

 -- Created a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines including 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine.

 -- Robert Oakley, Reagan Counterterrorism Czar says of Clinton's efforts "Overall, I give them very high marks" and "The only major criticism I have is the obsession with Osama"
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HERE, IN STARK CONTRAST, IS PART OF THE BUSH-CHENEY ANTI-TERRORISM RECORD BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001:

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 Backed off Clinton administration's anti-terrorism efforts.

 Shelved the Hart-Rudman report.

 Appointed new anti-terrorism task force under Dick Cheney. Group did not even meet before 9/11.

 Called for cuts in anti-terrorism efforts by the Department of Defense.

 Gave no priority to anti-terrorism efforts by Justice Department.

 Ignored warnings from Sandy Berger, Louis Freeh, George Tennant, Paul Bremer, and Richard Clarke about the urgency of terrorist threats.

 Halted Predator drone tracking of Osama bin Laden.

 Did nothing in wake of August 6 C.I.A. report to president saying Al Qaeda attack by hijack of an airliner almost certain.

 Bush - knowing about the terrorists' plans to attack in America, warned that terrorists were in flight schools in the US - took a four week vacation.

 By failing to order any coordination of intelligence data, missed opportunity to stop the 9/11 plot as Clinton-Gore had stopped the millennium plots.

 Blamed President Clinton for 9/11

http://www.mikehersh.com/Clinton_vs_Terror_Republicans_vs_Clinton.shtml

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AN EXCUSE-SPOUTING BUSH IS BUSTED BY 9/11 REPORT

As early as May 2001, the FBI was receiving tips that Bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the U.S., possibly including the hijacking of planes. On May 29, White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that when these attacks [on Israeli or U.S. facilities] occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them.

At the end of June, the commission wrote, "the intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a calamitous level." In early July, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was told, "that preparations for multiple attacks [by Al Qaeda] were in late stages or already complete and that little additional warning could be expected." By month's end, "the system was blinking red" and could not "get any worse," then-CIA Director George Tenet told the 9/11 commission.

It was at this point, of course, that George W. Bush began the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. On the very first day of his visit to his Texas ranch, Aug. 6, Bush received the now-infamous two-page intelligence alert titled, Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States. Yet instead of returning to the capital to mobilize an energetic defensive posture, he spent an additional 27 days away as the government languished in summer mode, in deep denial.

"In sum," said the 9/11 commission report, "the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat..."
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/WarOnTerr [...]

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IF ONLY BUSH HAD DONE NOTHING — BUT HE ACTUALLY MADE THE SITUATION WORSE.

Soon after inauguration, Bush quietly ended the Cole investigation and withdrew the team of over 100 FBI and JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) agents that Clinton had sent to Yemen to investigate the Cole bombing.

Then, in March of 2001, when the task force sent the White House their final report, which implicated bin Laden and named al Qaeda operative Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as the architect of the bombing, Bush and Rice simply shelved the report and took no action against al Qaeda. Mohammed went on to be the chief architect of the 9/11 attacks.

Later, after Mohammed was captured in Pakistan, he told his American interrogators that it was specifically Bush's failure to follow through with the Cole investigation - and particularly his failure to come after Mohammed - that convinced him that al Qaeda could mount the 9/11 attacks and get away with them.

It will always be a moot question whether White House diligence and attention could have prevented the 9/11 attacks, but it is a given that failure to act against the Cole bombers and failure to heed the multiple warnings about future attacks simply opened our doors wide to attack and made bin Laden's task simple.



6 YEARS LATER – BUSH RESULTS OF ‘WAR ON TERROR:

1). Al-Qaeda larger, more powerful, and more popular than ever.

2). Taliban more powerful in Afghanistan than ever.

3). Afghanistan opium production at record levels providing massive financing for anti-America terrorist.

4). After inheriting from Clinton an America that was the most admired and respect nation in the world, and more popular, internationally that at any time since the immediate post-WWII period – and after gaining ever more pro-American sentiment after 9/11 –

Bush has managed to destroy America’s standing in the international community – and, hence, its ability to influence and affect world events.

5). Over the objections of virtually every country on earth (including half of America), pursued and illegal and immoral invasion of a country which had never even THREATENED the US, let alone take aggressive action against America.

6). Even though his own father and Colin Powell (then Sec of State) told the President that
his plan was doomed to failure, and every non-partisan Middle East expert in the world predicted that the most likely outcome from invading Iraq and removing Hussein from power would be a civil war and further destabilization of the already volatile region, Bush pursued his suicidal plan that could only harm America.

7). Bush has lost in Iraq.

8). Bush is losing the war on terror.

9). America’s own intelligence agencies say that Bush’s policies are CREATING more terrorists and HARMING the US in its war on terror.