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Old 09-08-2006, 10:42 PM   #26
Tyrone Slothrop
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Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 33,074
The Looming Tower

Quote:
Originally posted by soup sandwich
Everyone remembers the cruise missiles, but I was stunned to discover that we did nothing after the Cole attack. Maybe I was aware of this and just blocked it out because it's too awful to contemplate that we did nothing in response.
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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Last edited by Tyrone Slothrop; 09-08-2006 at 10:53 PM..
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