Text 22619, 180 rader
Skriven 2006-09-22 23:04:36 av Bob Sakowski (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av John Hull
Ärende: Re: Next Sunday
=======================
John Hull wrote:

> Last Sunday at the end of the FoxNews Sunday show, Chris Wallace
> announced that Bill Clinton would be the guest in an exclusive
> interview the following week.

Fox Transcript.

Wallace: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News
Sunday, I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I have to say I
was surprised, most of them wanted me to ask you this question.
Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and al-Qaeda out of
business when you were president? There's a new book out, I
suspect you may have already read, called The Looming Tower. And
it talks about the fact that when you pulled troops out of
Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said "I have seen the frailty and the
weakness and the cowardice of U.S. troops." Then there was the
bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the Cole.

Clinton: OK let's just --

Wallace: May I just finish the question sir? And after the attack,
the book says, that bin Laden separated his leaders, spread them
around because he expected an attack and there was no response. I
understand that hindsight is always 20/20 --

Clinton: No, let's talk about it.

Wallace: But the question is, why didn't you connect the dots and
put him out of business?

Clinton: Let's talk about it. I will answer all those things on
the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which
this arises. I'm being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just
had a right-wing conservative running their little pathway to
9/11, falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 commission report
with three things asserted against me directly contradictory to
the 9/11 commission report. And I think it's very interesting
that all the conservative Republicans who
now say I didn't do enough claim that I was too obsessed with bin
Laden.

All of President Bush's neo-cons that I was too obsessed with bin
Laden, they had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I
left office. All the right wingers who now say I didn't do
enough, said I did too much, the same people. They were all
trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day
after we were involved in Black Hawk Down and I refused to do it
and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United
Nations.

OK, now let's look at all the criticisms, Black Hawk Down,
Somalia, there is not a living soul in the
world who thought Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black
Hawk Down or was paying any attention to it, or even knew
al-Qaeda was a going concern in October 93.

Wallace: I understand.

Clinton: No, no, wait. Don't tell me that -- you asked me why
didn't I do more to bin Laden, there was not a living soul, all
the people who now criticize me wanted to leave the next day. You
brought this up, so you get an answer. But you -- secondly ...

Wallace: .. bin Laden says, but it showed the weakness of the
United States.

Clinton: Bin Laden may have said it -- but it would have shown the
weakness if we left right away. But he wasn't involved in that,
that's just a bunch of bull. That was about Muhammad Aidid, a
Muslim warlord, murdering 22 Pakistani Muslim troops. We were all
there on a humanitarian mission; we had no mission, none, to
establish a certain kind of Somali government or keep anybody
out. He was not a religious fanatic ...

Wallace: Mr. President ...

Clinton: ... there was no al-Qaeda ...

Wallace: With respect, if I may, instead of going through '93
and ...

Clinton: No, no -- you asked it. You brought it up.

Wallace: May I ask you (INAUDIBLE) question, and then you can
answer?

 Clinton: Yes.

Wallace: The 9/11 commission, which you talk about -- and this is
what they did say, not what ABC pretended they said ...

Clinton: What did they say?

Wallace: They said, about you and President Bush, and I quote,
"The U.S. government took the threat seriously, but not in the
sense of mustering anything like the kind of effort that would be
gathered to confront an enemy of the first, second or even third
rank."

Clinton: First of all, that's not true with us and bin Laden.

Wallace: Well, I'm telling ... (CROSS TALK)

Clinton: Let's see what Richard Clarke said. Do you think Richard
Clarke has a vigorous attitude about bin Laden?

Wallace: Yes, I do.

Clinton: You do, don't you?

Wallace: He has a variety of opinions and loyalties, but yes.
(CROSS TALK)

Clinton: He has a variety of opinions and loyalties now, but let's
look at the facts: he worked for Ronald Reagan, he was loyal with
him; he worked for George H.W. Bush, he was loyal to him; he
worked for me, and he was loyal to me; he worked for President
Bush, he was loyal to him. They downgraded him and the terrorist
operation.

Now, look what he said -- read his book and read his factual
assertions -- not opinions, assertions. He said we took vigorous
action after the African embassies, we probably nearly got bin
Laden ...

Wallace: But what ...

Clinton: Now, wait a minute -- wait, wait, wait. (CROSS TALK)

No, no -- I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to
kill him. The CIA was run by George Tenet that President (Bush)
gave the medal of freedom to, and he said he did a good job
setting up all these counter terrorism things. The country never
had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.

Now if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize
me for this: after the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into
Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and launch a full-scale attack
search for bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan
-- which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to
certify that bin Laden was responsible. While I was there, they
refused to certify. So that meant I would have had to send a few
hundred special forces in in helicopters, refuel at night. Even
the 9/11 commission didn't do that.

Now, the 9/11 commission was a political document, too. All I'm
asking is, anybody that wants to say I didn't do enough, you read
Richard Clarke's book ...

Wallace: Do you think you did enough, sir?

Clinton: No, because I didn't get him.

Wallace: Right.

Clinton: But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and
some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me
now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try,
they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed,
I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in
the country, Dick Clark, who got demoted.
[snip]

Game, set and match... Big Dog squashes Wallace like a bug.

What a pleasure to have someone who can speak intelligently in
coherent sentences appear on Fox Snooze.

Was that your question, John?
-- 
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to
stand by the president or any other public official save exactly
to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is
patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the
country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent
that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand
by the country." --- President Theodore Roosevelt
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