Bill Clinton on terror

25 September 2006 |permalink | email article

The 42nd president, in a searing interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” did for Democrats what his party has so far proved ineffective in doing to counter Republican arguments about Osama bin Laden and winning the war on terror.

He returned fire with a vengeance, something Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have not managed with a focused and alternative message to the nation.

Clinton defended his administration’s counterterrorism record and accused “President Bush’s neocons” and other Republicans of ignoring Osama bin Laden until the attacks on 9/11.

Clinton agreed to discuss his climate change initiatives but became combative when Wallace asked why he hadn’t “put bin Laden out of business.”

He responded by noting he authorized the CIA to kill bin Laden, had a plan to attack Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and hunt those responsible for the attack on the USS Cole. But the CIA and FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible, and Uzbekistan refused to let the U.S. set up a base.

He noted neoconservatives in the Bush administration “has no meetings on bin Ladin for nine months,” believing the ex-president had been “too obsessed with bin Laden.”

“At least I tried . . . They ridiculed me for trying . . . So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country [Richard] Clarke, who got demoted.”

Clinton, dropping the mantle of bipartisanship, attacked Bush for focusing on Iraq instead of Afghanistan, and accused Republicans of “a serious disinformation campaign” to blame his administration for failing to get the al-Qaeda leader.

A classified 30-page National Intelligence Estimate, completed in April and first appearing over the weekend, undercuts the Bush strategy of invading Iraq and icing Saddam Hussein instead of focusing on Afghanistan and bin Laden.

The bleak new assessment states that Iraq is less a central front of actual combat and more a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists to export terror to other nations, directly contradicting Bush’s assertion to the contrary.

The report, a consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, also undermines Bush’s contention that Americans are safer as a result of his policies, insuring the issue will be central in the national debate before the mid-term elections next month.

Democrats, emboldened by Clinton’s outburst, now have a major opportunity to attack Republicans on which party is better able to fight the war on terror. Are they finally up to the challenge?

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