Bill Clinton, September 10, 2001: You Know, I Could Have Killed Bin Ladin Years Ago, But I Chose Not To, Fearing Civilian Casualties

Within ten (10!) hours of his making this admission, Al Qaeda would demonstrate that it was not particularly bothered by civilian casualties, and in fact was rather keen on them.

The tape has only now been disclose by the Australian media -- Clinton was over there giving a paid ($150,000) speech to businessmen, naturally.

Why was this embargoed for so long?

On September 10, 2001, Clinton was speaking to a group of about 30 businessmen in Melbourne, including Michael Kroger, the former head of the Liberal Party in the Australian state of Victoria. The event was recorded with the former president’s permission, according to Kroger, but the audio never released -- until Wednesday night, when Kroger appeared on Sky News with host Paul Murray to unveil it. Kroger said he had forgotten about the recording until last week.

At the event in Melbourne, which took place not long after the end of Clinton’s term in office, the former president was asked about international terrorism.

"And I'm just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden -- he's very smart guy, I've spent a lot of time thinking about him -- and I nearly got him once," Clinton is heard saying. "I nearly got him. And I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him. And so I didn’t do it."

Remember that Clinton claimed that the "Path to 9/11" was substantially false and pressured the network to alter that docu-drama?

Here is Clinton claiming, to Chris Wallace, that he "tried" to get bin Ladin, unlike "all those right-wingers." He's angry throughout the interview, but at 5:17 or so he starts with the "I tried" crap.

He does not ever mention that on the eve of the 9/11 attacks, he bragged that he "could have" gotten bin Ladin, but specifically chose not to. (And he bragged about that, too.)

In case you weren't sure, Clinton is lying that other people wouldn't let him kill bin Ladin.

Crumpton, whom Logan calls "one of the most seasoned and accomplished CIA officers of his generation,"described his team’s sighting of bin Laden:

Crumpton: Our human sources took us to a village uh, far, not far from Kandahar
Logan: And what did you see there?

Crumpton: We saw a security detail, a convoy, and we saw bin Laden exit the vehicle.

Logan: Clearly.

Crumpton: Clearly. And we had -- the optics were spot on, beaming back to us, CIA headquarters. We immediately alerted the White House, and the Clinton administration’s response was, "Well, it will take several hours for the TLAMs, the cruise missiles launched from submarines, to reach that objective. So you need to tell us where bin Laden will be five or six hours from now." (Pause) The frustration was enormous.

Logan: So at that moment you wanted to kill him.

Crumpton: Yes.

Logan: But you couldn’t get permission.

Crumpton: Correct.

Logan then narrates that Crumpton "couldn't get permission to do anything, including allowing the CIA's Afghan agents on the ground to attack bin Laden's compound."

posted by Ace at 03:26 PM

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