cannabisnews.com: U.S. Had Capability But Lacked Will 










  U.S. Had Capability But Lacked Will 

Posted by FoM on September 16, 2001 at 09:08:52 PT
By Mark Bowden, Knight Ridder Newspapers 
Source: Ledger-Enquirer  

The United States for years has had both the knowledge and capability necessary to kill exiled Saudi militant leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, but repeatedly declined to act, angry U.S. intelligence officials and military special operations soldiers said last week.Bin Laden's organization is the chief suspect in the attacks that leveled the World Trade Center towers, destroyed part of the Pentagon and crashed a hijacked plane in western Pennsylvania. According to intelligence officials, bin Laden is once again in hiding, having moved his training bases in the days before the attacks. 
President Bush has vowed to pursue him and his far-flung network of terrorists if they are definitely linked to last week's attacks.To some, this resolution comes too late."We have known his whereabouts with varying degrees of precision, everything from a few miles to a few feet, intermittently for the last few years," said one high-ranking intelligence official who asked not to be named. "Ever since Desert One (the failed hostage rescue mission to Tehran in 1979), this country has spent countless millions, and some fine young men have died in training, just to make sure we had a force capable of carrying out such missions. We did not act because both the Clinton administration and even the current administration never had the will to push it through."American special forces troops and CIA operatives actually moved into Afghanistan on reconnaissance missions on several occasions, but were prohibited from moving against bin Laden.Intelligence officials say authorization fell victim to White House concerns about reactions to such a raid from Arab nations, and a general reluctance to place American commandos in harm's way.Bush administration officials did not immediately respond to the charge, but a top Clinton official dismissed it."It is categorically untrue," said Sandy Berger, Clinton's national security adviser during his second term. "We had contingency planning with various options concerning bin Laden, including all the ones you might imagine. We did have an aggressive surveillance enterprise continually, but at no point was there actionable intelligence, which would mean knowledge not only of where he might have been but where he was going to be."Berger said that the Clinton administration "would have loved to go after bin Laden," but that "there was never a point where (Defense Secretary William) Cohen, (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) Henry Shelton or any of the national security advisers feel that we had enough information to act."Not Clinton's Fault The key word seems to be "actionable." According to the special services officer, "you can keep setting the bar higher and higher, so that nothing ever gets done." By insisting on ever more specific targeting information, critics of the policy claim, cautious White House and Pentagon officials avoided authorizing a mission that might result in failure and its inevitable consequences - casualties and political criticism."The problem in the past hasn't been just at the top," said another former special forces officer. "People will get around to blaming Bill Clinton for refusing to pull the trigger, but in my experience he didn't necessarily shy away from making a decision. The problem was at the mid-levels of the military, where there has been a culture of risk-aversion. No one wanted to take a chance. Nobody wants to be the guy who authorizes a failed mission. Anybody who thinks that given the right level of resolve Osama bin Laden would still be with us today is just naive."The army's top-secret Delta Force unit drew up plans and trained through the late 1990s to carry out raids in Afghanistan, a particularly difficult place to attack. The nearest staging area for an assault was 1,000 miles away, and the terrain was some of the most rugged in the world."We were ready to move," said a former Army special forces officer who helped draw up plans in 1998 against bin Laden. "We failed to receive an execute order from the president. The only way you can do something like this is to put people on the ground, and we were not allowed to do it because of this stubborn policy of risk avoidance. So out of concern for 60 Delta Force operators and SEALs who are ready and eager to perform the mission, we lose the thousands of people in the World Trade Center. It is a disgrace."After bin Laden's group was linked to the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Clinton signed a policy directive authorizing the CIA to draw up a plan for going after bin Laden. Using human intelligence and high-tech spying, the movements of the Islamic fundamentalist group came under close surveillance. U.S. military and intelligence officers drew up detailed profiles of bin Laden's daily routines, where he slept, what kind of motorcade he used, and special operations units at Fort Bragg, N.C., drew up detailed plans to move against him."We've been prepared to do this kind of thing for years," said Wayne Downing, a retired Army general who is a former commander of U.S. special operations, and a former member of the National Commission on Terrorism. "But they have always been rejected as too aggressive and too risky."New Demands The United States did launch a major cruise missile attack on bin Laden in 1998 that reportedly killed as many as 30 members of his organization, but failed to hit him or cripple it. The missiles were launched in an effort to hit a meeting of high-level leaders of bin Laden's al Queda organization, possibly including bin Laden, but struck after the meeting had broken up.After Tuesday's terrorist attacks against the United States, the Bush administration now faces demands for aggressive action. Congress has authorized $40 billion to the effort, and Bush has requested permission to call up 50,000 military reservists. Everywhere talk is of war.But what kind of war?A war against terrorism would take place on two major fronts. The first would involve going after the terrorists themselves. This involves intensive intelligence efforts to map the members of the suspected group worldwide, and locate them. Special forces troops, like the Army's Delta Force and the Navy's SEALS, would then conduct rapid, small-scale assaults, either arresting or killing their targets.The second front would involve placing intense diplomatic and, if necessary, military pressure on states that support terrorism. Likely targets for such efforts are Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Iran.Two recent examples of small-scale military action against a foreign enemy, not a state, took place in the early 1990s in Somalia and Colombia. In Somalia, U.S. special forces targeted clan leader Mohamed Farah Aidid, and in Colombia, they assisted that nation in going after the Medellin cocaine cartel boss Pablo Escobar. Both men were heads of large organizations. They stood, much as Osama Bin Laden does, at the top of a small mountain of supporters. Getting to them meant trying to take down the mountain.In Colombia the process took about five years, beginning in 1989 with the introduction of U.S. special forces units, who worked with the Colombian National Police, the CIA and the Drug Enforcement Administration to map Escobar's far-flung, multi-billion-dollar organization. In the end, once the members of Escobar's organization were identified and located, a special unit of the Colombian police began rounding them up, arresting or killing them, and a vigilante squad calling itself Los PEPES ("People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar") assisted with a sustained murder campaign. The bloody, illegal tactics worked. Escobar was gradually stripped of his bankers, lawyers, gunmen, bombers, political supporters, and government collaborators. On Dec. 2, 1993, he was gunned down on a rooftop in Medellin.Little attention was paid in the United States and rest of the world to the ruthlessness of the tactics employed against Escobar, and no one involved has ever been prosecuted for the murders committed by Los PEPES. Members of the U.S. special operations community see the effort as a textbook example of the difference between a strict law enforcement operation and war. Law enforcement is about bringing criminals to justice, and its agents are bound, in theory, to limit their pursuit to legal tactics. War is about defeating an enemy. It involves taking greater risks, and operating outside the rules of civil society. The only goal in war is to win."We've entered a new phase, and it's about time," said a former member of the U.S. Army's top secret counter-terrorism unit Delta Force, who was involved in hunt for Escobar. "For the last 10 years or more we all felt as though our hands were tied. Now it's finally down to going after the bad guys. We're moving from 'counter-terrorism' to 'anti-terrorism.' Counter-terrorism is about self-defense, basically responding after the fact. Anti-terrorism is about identifying threats and taking them out before they can they can act."The Author: Mark Bowden, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, is author of the books "Blackhawk Down," about U.S. fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia, and "Killing Pablo," about the hunt for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Bowden has visited Columbus several times, for research and to sign books.Complete Title: U.S. Had Capability but Lacked Will To Take Out bin Laden, Critics SaySource: Ledger-Enquirer (GA)Author: Mark Bowden, Knight Ridder NewspapersPublished: Sunday, September 16, 2001 Copyright: 2001 Ledger-EnquirerWebsite: http://www.l-e-o.com/Contact: Letters LedgerEnquirer.comRelated Articles & Web Site:Killing Pablo - Detailed Series http://freedomtoexhale.com/kp.htmWar on Whom? http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10913.shtmlThe Roots of Hatred http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10901.shtmlTerrorists Get Cash From Drug Tradehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10912.shtmlDuring Cold War, Islamic Radicals Were Allies http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10903.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Bin Ladenhttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=Bin+Laden 

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Comment #10 posted by Lehder on September 18, 2001 at 04:27:59 PT
letter from afghanistan
http://www.agoracom.com/agora/nonmemforum/msgreview.asp?id=136088&refid=0&orig=136088i've also read that afghan women are denied medical care bcause 1) women are denied education, cannot become doctors and 2) male doctors are prohibited from looking at women's bodies.---------none of these atrocities mean that marijuana is an addictive narcotic.
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Comment #9 posted by dddd on September 17, 2001 at 02:12:58 PT
You sure you're not really a Congressman?Suet
"Im feeling less and less impressed with our country's intellegence gathering capability."Does this mean there was a time when you were impressed?,,I havefound our intelligence capabilities to be somewhat impressive in thepast,,,but the information was mostly gathered,and used for purposesthat were not so much in the interests of the country,rather in theinterests of political dominance,or for purposes involved with coveringup previous acts of evil,and botched governmental conspiracies.I must agree that there is a definate lack of intelligence in our government.unfortunatly,it's the,"barely made it through high school" type of intelligence,,,and while I dont deny,that there are quite likely many outstanding andimpressive accomplishments in the kind of intelligence you spoke of,Ithink most of it has been aimed towards messing around in places thatit didnt belong,,,or focused on two-bit drug cartels,instead of on thebig fish world of corporate crime.....Beany & Cecil,,and Baby Huey would agree,,and it's quite likely thatyour chad will remain intact in the next congressional election.dddd
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Comment #8 posted by CongressmanSuet on September 17, 2001 at 00:22:59 PT
 My question...
 Okay, he went into hiding and moved recently. First thing to think about, hum, he knew it was coming,probably. But before I can come to a conclusion I need to know how often bin laden went into hiding, etc in the last few years. How often did he move his headquarters? I cant seem to find he answers to these questions in the media. I mean, we had this guy in our sights[he is on the 10 most wanted list] and didnt act because we didnt want to look like Jimmy Carter after the failed hostage attempt in 79'? Im feeling less and less impressed with our country's intellegence gathering capability.
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Comment #7 posted by kaptinemo on September 16, 2001 at 14:25:50 PT:
Friends, did you catch this?
"According to intelligence officials, bin Laden is once again in hiding, having moved his training bases in the days before the attacks."Now, someone please tell me; if the intel boys knew 'days before the attacks' that bin Laden was moving his people, wouldn't that have rang some alarm bells? It would in my cabeza, an' I'm just an old country boy at heart, without the benefit of think-tanks and trillion dollar budgets to help me.There's being 'caught with your pants down'...and then there's outright lacakadaisical indifference. Or perhaps something far, far worse: criminal negligence.We are constantly being told that this is America's 'Second Pearl Harbor'; the wonks and newscasters who make these statements are telling are perhaps telling us something else, as well.Telling us that, just like the First Pearl Harbor, the higher-ups knew it was coming, but for reasons of their own let it happen.This smells worse by the hour.  
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Comment #6 posted by Robbie on September 16, 2001 at 13:46:10 PT
comments
Right on, ff! That is where mosquitoes are borne.Dr. Zombie: Oh, the drug war *is* more important. The antis have declared a Jihad on "druuugs"Terrorists? "Well, they may kill and they may not kill. We can't be sure about that."But drugs?!?! "The users should be shot! They are the moral decay! Trample the Constitution! How dare they defile themselves against my wishes?!"The moral purists are always against freedom and democracy. Those ideals are only for the saved. Paging Hitler anyone?
Don't watch television...you're being lied to
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Comment #5 posted by xxdr_zombiexx on September 16, 2001 at 13:35:55 PT
Tapping the Crisis for expanded legal powers
It’s easier to get a wiretap against a drug dealer or someone who’s involved in illegal gambling than it is against terrorists,” {Attorney general John} Ashcroft said earlier on Fox News Sunday. **Thats from the article linked below. Its an MSNBC story deatiling a push for expanded wiretap, suvellience and other such "necessities" for fighting terrorism.Look at that statement. It's immaculate. It's confirmation of what we all have been saying about the erosion of the priorities that come with the war on druuugs. We can clearly see where "druuug dealers" rank in terms of sheer menace to society. what's this say about two hippies with a .22 and 34 acres of nice land?read the mnsbc article: it's good to keep track of the quest for a carte blanche of expanded legal powers....
Quest for Powers
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Comment #4 posted by freedom fighter on September 16, 2001 at 13:10:23 PT
The swamp and the angry mosquitoes
"The United States for years has had both the knowledge and capability necessary to kill exiled Saudi militant leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, but repeatedly declined to act, angry U.S. intelligence officials and military special operations soldiers said last week."If that was true, does it mean to say that they("idijitelligence officials") actually knew that the event in New York City would happen? Why not?My friend said, "Terrorists are like mosqutoes. We have to find the swamp and wipe it out." Well, what if then the swamp is in United States of America?ff
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Comment #2 posted by Robbie on September 16, 2001 at 11:44:25 PT

Words of wisdom
Instant KarmaJohn Lennon Instant Karma's gonna get youGonna knock you right on the headYou better get yourself togetherPretty soon you're gonna be deadWhat in the world you thinking ofLaughing in the face of loveWhat on earth you tryin' to doIt's up to you, yeah you Instant Karma's gonna get youGonna look you right in the faceBetter get yourself together darlin'Join the human raceHow in the world you gonna seeLaughin' at fools like meWho in the hell d'you think you areA super starWell, right you are Well we all shine onLike the moon and the stars and the sunWell we all shine onEv'ryone come on Instant Karma's gonna get youGonna knock you off your feetBetter recognize your brothersEv'ryone you meetWhy in the world are we hereSurely not to live in pain and fearWhy on earth are you thereWhen you're ev'rywhereCome and get your share Well we all shine onLike the moon and the stars and the sunYeah we all shine onCome on and on and on on onYeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah Well we all shine onLike the moon and the stars and the sunYeah we all shine onOn and on and on on and on Well we all shine onLike the moon and the stars and the sunWell we all shine onLike the moon and the stars and the sunWell we all shine onLike the moon and the stars and the sunYeah we all shine onLike the moon and the stars and the sun 
Hear Asa getting his Asa wooped
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Comment #1 posted by xxdr_zombiexx on September 16, 2001 at 11:16:31 PT:

Related story: Assassination Squads?
I just read this on the FOX news site (link at bottom, of course)A Republican Senator from Alabama is asking the President's committee to reverse a 25 year-old ban on Assassinating foreign person's. **Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said there's little difference between targeting an enemy in a bombing raid and trying to kill him with a hit squad. The war on terrorism should include a freer hand to assassinate foreign enemies and hire more unsavory covert operatives, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Saturday. **They didn't need all this wrangling to assassinate 2 cannabis activists in Michigan 8 days before we were attacked.Perhaps we should cexecize Forfeiture Laws against the perpetrators: take their land and their country; take their money. freeze the assetts of harboring nation, and use them to buy more weapons. Mount a giant smear campaign to slander and defame them throughout the world. Make them all line up to pee once a week and at random. Keep them from holding a legal job.They'll do all this for touching the Weed, might as well treat people who actually do something wrong this way too.
Assassination Squads requested
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