Clinton faults Bush for inaction on bin Laden
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-23 18:44
WASHINGTON - Former President Bill Clinton, angrily defending his
efforts to capture Osama bin Laden, accused the Bush administration of doing far
less to stop the al Qaeda leader before the September 11 attacks.
In a
heated interview to be aired on Sunday on "Fox News Sunday," the former
Democratic president defended the steps he took after al Qaeda's attack on the
USS Cole in 2000 and faulted "right-wingers" for their criticism of his efforts
to capture Osama bin Laden.
"But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all of
the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Clinton said when asked whether he
had failed to fully anticipate bin Laden's danger. "They had eight months to
try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed."
The September 11 attacks occurred almost eight months after President George
W. Bush succeeded Clinton in January 2001.
"I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him," Clinton
said. He added he had drawn up plans to go into Afghanistan to overthrow the
Taliban and launch an attack against bin Laden after the attack on the Cole in
the Yemeni port of Aden.
"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," Clinton said.
The former president complained at the time the CIA and FBI refused to
certify bin Laden was responsible for the USS Cole attack.
"While I was there, they refused to certify. So that meant I would have had
to send a few hundred special forces in helicopters, refuel at night," he said.
Earlier this month, Clinton dismissed as "indisputably wrong" a U.S.
television show that suggested her was too distracted by the Monica Lewinsky
scandal to confront the Islamic militant threat that culminated in the September
11 attacks.
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