The 2012 election campaign has focused on the Executive Order (ExOrd) which was issued by President Obama to kill Osama bin Laden.
In writing my book “When the White House Calls”, I reviewed a number of articles, books, media interviews and other source data on Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants. The data compiled suggests that Osama bin Laden could have been captured before 1996.
The Economic Times article, “Barack Obama makes Osama bin Laden killing a campaign tool”, notes the 2012 election campaign as politicizing the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden had known Afghanistan well, having joined Abdullah Azzam after leaving school in 1979, to fight against the Soviets. A few years later in 1984 bin Laden was involved in raising money for arms and recruiting Muslims to fight in Afghanistan. Soon thereafter bin Laden established his own camp operations to continue to fight the Soviets. On August 20, 1988 Osama bin Laden officially launched his al-Qaeda (meaning: the base) network.
When Osama bin Laden returned to his native Saudi Arabia in 1990, he became upset when the U.S. was allowed to operate on Saudi soil to defend Kuwait, which had been invaded by Iraq at the time. The Saudi Royal family was openly criticized by Osama bin Laden, who eventually ejected him from Saudi soil. He ended up going to Sudan in 1991 where he established his base of operation for al-Qaeda.
In 1989 the National Islamic Front came to power in Sudan, with the intention of building an Islamic state. Radical Islamists from around the world were given a free reign and safe-haven. Osama bin Laden felt comfortable there with the Islamic extremists running the government. Bin Laden appeared to immerse himself into business and construction activities.
However while Osama bin Laden was headquartered in Sudan he gave orders and became involved peripherally in terrorist activities in the Horn of Africa, East Africa and elsewhere. The attacks on U.S. and UN soldiers in Somalia in 1993, the first World Trade Center attack in New York in 1993, and the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, all involved al-Qaeda operatives working with Osama bin Laden.
The rhetoric in Osama bin Laden’s speeches consistently made references to these events, which indicated his support of the acts, and most likely gave the orders for al-Qaeda operatives to carry them out. He operated low key while in Sudan, as the Sudanese government seemed unaware of his activities, other than being involved in construction and other business ventures there.
The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum was closed for short periods of time in the early 1990′s due to CIA intelligence information of possible terrorist attacks. The full withdrawal of the embassy personnel was on February 7, 1996, the result of faulty intelligence reports based on claims later revealed to have been fabricated. All the operations at that point were transferred to the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi; at which point any further reliable in-country intelligence ceased. Economic sanctions were placed on Sudan which then was considered a “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.
In a New York Times article on December 5, 1999, Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering made an effort to reopen the embassy in Khartoum. Pickering suggested “that staffing an embassy did not confer approval but did provide a listening post”. He was opposed in his efforts by the State Department’s Africa Bureau, then under the leadership of Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Susan Rice, who according to the article “believes that the Khartoum government is evil incarnate…and must be defeated”. Ambassador Pickering, and Ambassador Tim Carney who had been posted there, pressed for engagement of the Sudanese government in diplomatic dialogue.
Ambassador Carney was a proponent of continued engagement with Sudan, and was quoted in the New York Times article on September 28, 1997 saying, “With a permanent presence, we can nudge and push and argue…”, and “Sudan had indicated that it was ready to sever its relations with terrorists, but that its efforts have been discreet and not insistent. With a permanent American diplomatic presence in Sudan, we will press Khartoum to make good on its continual public statements that it opposes terrorism. There is no question that it was the wrong decision not to have kept a full Embassy presence in Sudan for continued U.S. bilateral relations”.
In 1997 CNN reporter Peter Bergen traveled to Afghanistan to meet and interview Osama bin Laden. In Bergen’s book the Holy War Inc. which was published in 2001, Osama bin Laden confirmed that al-Qaeda trained, supported and funded the Muslim warlord Aidid and his Somali clan. Quoting from Bergen’s book, on page 22 of the Prologue: “Bin Laden then surprised us by claiming that Arabs affiliated with his group were involved in killing American troops in Somalia in 1993, a claim he had earlier made to an Arabic newspaper. What was not known at the time was the involvement of bin Laden’s organization in training the Somalis who carried out the operation. Bin Laden told us: Resistance started against the American invasion, because Muslims did not believe the U.S. allegations that they came to save the Somalis. With Allah’s grace, Muslims in Somalia cooperated with some Arab holy warriors who were in Afghanistan. Together they killed large numbers of American occupation troops”, and “For bin Laden, Somalia was clearly an intoxicating victory. He exulted in the fact that the United States withdrew its troops from the country, pointing to the withdrawal as an example of the weakness, frailty and cowardice of the U.S. troops. In support of Aidid’s clan coalition, bin Laden admitted to CNN, that al-Qaeda was given protection in Somalia.”
Bergen further noted, “that by 1996 the U.S. State Department was calling bin Laden the most significant financial sponsor of Islamic extremist activities in the world today”, and accused him of running terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Sudan. In Bergen’s book on page 30, in an interview with ABC News after the U.S. embassy attacks, bin Laden aptly summarized his role in al-Qaeda. “It is our job to instigate. By the Grace of God we did that and certain people responded to this instigation.”
In Osama bin Laden’s words, in the interview with CNN reporter Peter Arnett in 1997, “Continually practicing a double standard, the U.S. sows terror and then calls whoever resists its injustices a terrorist. But it is weaker than it thinks; Arab mujahidin, fresh from victory in Afghanistan, routed U.S. troops in Somalia and will do so again elsewhere; the Russians were tougher soldiers than the Americans, and Muslim fighters defeated them.”
Prior to 1996 the CIA had full knowledge of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts in Sudan from the time of his arrival in 1991. Reportedly they knew he was connected with terrorist attacks around the world against U.S. interests, and could have taken him out on a number of occasions while there. According to reports President Clinton did not have the will to give the Executive Order (ExOrd) to carry out this mission.
We should have taken the opportunity to capture Osama bin Laden, instead of having him and two hundred al-Qaeda operatives expelled from Sudan and sent to Afghanistan in May 1996. There bin Laden re-organized again and became close friends with the Taliban, raising money and arms; also became a close associate of Mullah Mohammed Omar the Taliban leader, who through a number of conquests became the unofficial Head of State in Afghanistan from 1996-2001.
Osama bin Laden (Photo: World News IBNLive)President Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir wanted the economic sanctions on Sudan lifted, for which he reportedly offered to arrest and extradite Osama bin Laden to the United States. President Clinton reportedly did not respond to this offer or subsequent correspondence from a religious leader and President al-Bashir. The Sudanese government had made the same offer to Saudi Arabia which rejected the idea for fear that Osama bin Laden might try to overthrow the Royal family.
Sudan further agreed to keep Osama bin Laden there if necessary to monitor his activities. But was pressured instead by the Clinton Administration to expel Osama bin Laden; with him went the most dangerous terrorists in the world. The group included Ayman Zawahiri the chief planner for the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim an electronics expert; and Wadih el-Hage, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel who were all involved in the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies.
According to Mansoor Ijaz, a commentator, writer, and unofficial negotiator between the U.S. and Sudanese governments, President Clinton should have adopted a U.S. policy of constructive engagement with Sudan, in return for the capture Osama bin Laden. “As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counterterrorism policies fueled the rise of bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster”. Ijaz further stated, “[In] October 1996, I told Berger (Sandy Berger was the U.S. National Security Advisor) and his specialist for East Africa Susan Rice, about the data (important intelligence data compiled by the Sudanese) available. They said they’d get back to me. They never did. Neither did they respond when Bashir (President of Sudan) made the offer directly”. Ijaz proffered, “Clinton’s failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger’s assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S. represents one of the most serious policy failures in American history”.
President Clinton had rebuffed the February 1996 and August 1996 data and letters from a top Sudanese religious leader. Subsequently in 1997 an invitation was made by President al-Bashir for the FBI to come to Sudan, and then a further attempt was made in February 1998 by Al-Mahdi, the Sudanese intelligence chief, inviting the FBI to come to Sudan and review all their intelligence data. Bashir had further offered detailed intelligence data on the Global Networks of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, Iran’s Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Hamas group. As it turned out, from these organizations came the two hijackers who piloted the commercial airliners into the World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001.
According to a New York Times article by Tim Weiner and James Risen on September 21, 1998, they stated that in February 1997 Sudanese President Oman al-Bashir sent President Clinton a personal letter. It offered among other things “to allow the U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and counterterrorism personnel to enter Sudan and to go anywhere and see anything to help stamp out terrorism.” They further noted, the United States never replied to that letter; the isolators derided it as a meaningless charm offensive by Sudan. A senior Sudanese official made a similar offer directly to the FBI to send a counterterrorism team to Sudan, and they will help in any way we can. The FBI wrote back four months later declining the opportunity.
Kenya had its first real taste of terrorism when the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi was bombed in 1981 by a radical Palestinian group. Kenya had long been suspected of having an al-Qaeda presence, beginning with Osama bin Laden’s confidant Wadi el-Hage who established a cell in Nairobi in 1994. The United States had adequate knowledge and warning from the prior embassy bombings in Beirut in April 1983, which involved the Islamic Jihad, among the terrorist groups given a safe-haven in Sudan, trained with al-Qaeda, and reportedly involved in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. We were no better prepared.
Following the devastating embassy bombings on August 7, 1998 which killed 224 people, President Clinton retaliated on August 20, 1998. He issued the ExOrd, known as “Operation Infinite Reach”, a Tomahawk cruise missile attack on the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum. The Clinton Administration alleged that the plant had ties to al-Qaeda and was financed by Osama bin Laden. In addition it was manufacturing the VX nerve agent, although the plant owner claimed otherwise. There were differing opinions at the State Department as to the accuracy of the evidence that the factory was making deadly chemicals, or was affiliated with al-Qaeda. Reportedly they hit a commercial pharmaceutical plant.
On the same day President Clinton ordered missile attacks on four al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan near Khost and Jalalabad, some 60 miles from Kabul. Reportedly Osama bin Laden had left a strategy meeting at one of the camps only hours before the missile attacks, which killed between 20-30 insurgents. In retaliation an Islamist group bombed the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town, South Africa on August 25, 1998, killing two people and injuring dozens.
On the October 12, 2000 suicide bomb attack of the USS Cole at the Port of Aden in Yemen, reportedly Sudanese helped with the funding, logistical support, weapons, passports, and explosives for the terrorists. Hezbollah bomb experts in Sudan prepared the explosives for this mission. An Osama bin Laden business provided cover for purchases of the necessary items which the Sudanese then shipped in diplomatic pouches, which were not searched, and delivered them to the waiting terrorists in Yemen. With the U.S. not having an active in-country presence in Sudan we had to depend on intelligence from third parties, reports from State Department country-watchers, and CIA operatives stationed in nearby countries. Obviously our information gathering sources did not stop the bombing of the USS Cole, the guided missile destroyer.
President Clinton reportedly lost focus resulting from his personal legal problems, and spent considerable time doing damage control through the crucial period between 1993 and 2001. Osama bin Laden saw Clinton’s weak resolve, taking advantage of it to the detriment of the United States. Bin Laden’s jihad had begun and the Clinton Administration missed these danger signals. Most damaging to our security were reports that we had at least six opportunities between 1993 and 1996 to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. We had sound intelligence from a number of advisors regarding Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts in Sudan, pin-pointed by the CIA and other informants.
On April 30, 2012 in the Huffington Post article “Obama’s Bin Laden Ad:…”, Jon Ward said that Eric Edelman, a top Pentagon official during the presidency of George W. Bush, “added a jab at Clinton for not catching or killing bin Laden during his presidency, despite the opportunity”, with Edelman stating “Interesting choice of messenger since Clinton declined to ‘make the tough choice’ when he had the chance”.
In the spring 2000 issue of Survival “America and the New Terrorism” (volume 42 no.1) by Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin, they quoted Osama bin Laden’s “fatwa” of February 1998:
“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies-civilian and military- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together, and fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God. We – with God’s help – call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s US troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.”
“Those who hesitate to carry out the demands of the fatwa are deemed apostates and will themselves be punished. Unless ye go forth, God will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place, but Him ye would not harm in the least. For God hath power over all things.”
Osama bin Laden’s fatwa was given only seven months before the U.S. embassy bombings on August 7, 1998 in Kenya and Tanzania.
With the fatwa warnings by Osama bin Laden, we should have increased our security measures everywhere. Yet we were unprepared to avoid the disastrous destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, which resulted in the loss of over 3000 lives, in addition to the loss of life in the other attacks the same day. Reportedly the FBI, CIA and other U.S. agencies had ample evidence that al-Qaeda had training operations inside the U.S. and operatives were moving freely in-and-out of the country.
The al-Qaeda movement worldwide could have been eclipsed, even up to the end of 2001, when we had the chance to capture Osama bin Laden while he was in the Tora Bora caves in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Once we let him out of our sight, it became impossible to capture him.
According to investigative reporter Paul Williams, who pointed out in his book, activities inside the U.S. by al-Qaeda are taking place right under our nose, on our doorstep. The new paradigm may include nuclear devices, to be detonated in several of our major cities. Al-Qaeda in Pakistan may gain access to nuclear devices. Some operatives are training members within the U.S. in radical mosques and Islamic paramilitary compounds in rural areas, for a jihad against the United States. In a NewsMax interview with FBI Director Robert Mueller he agreed, “That it is al-Qaeda’s goal to detonate a nuclear device in the U.S. that would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.”
Osama bin Laden had been the main spokesman for al-Qaeda. In the early 1990′s Ayman al-Zawahri joined bin Laden in Sudan as his chief deputy, and became the spokesman for al-Qaeda. More recently there was a new face on the scene, Abu Yahya al-Libi, who grew up in Libya, and trained in Afghanistan and Mauritania in the early 1990′s. He preaches the narrowest interpretation of Islam. He has appeared on several video sermons spewing hate against the western countries, and encouraging attacks, as he preaches to Muslims around the world. He is considered to be the heir apparent to Osama bin Laden.
There was considerable information available in the early 1990′s regarding Osama bin Laden’s terrorist activities and planned attacks against the United States. The killing of Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011, although necessary, will not change the radical Islamic jihadists’ quest of establishing a worldwide caliphate under Sharia. However had we acted timely, Osama bin Laden, and his top lieutenants, could have been captured twenty years ago, and countless innocent lives would have been saved along the way.