Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away

In the fall of 2000, the US military literally had Bin Laden in its crosshairs.

The tape proves the Clinton administration was aggressively tracking al-Qaida a year before 9/11. But that also raises one enormous question: If the U.S. government had bin Laden and the camps in its sights in real time, why was no action taken against them?

“We were not prepared to take the military action necessary,” said retired Gen. Wayne Downing, who ran counter-terror efforts for the current Bush administration and is now an NBC analyst.


“We should have had strike forces prepared to go in and react to this intelligence, certainly cruise missiles — either air- or sea-launched — very, very accurate, could have gone in and hit those targets,” Downing added.

For I'm sure very European reasons, Clinton didn't want to kill Bin Laden. He wanted to capture and try him.

That failure does not speak well for Kerry's plan to return the war on terror to the realm of law enforcement.