Clinton, Bush get 9/11 blame

2004-03-23 18:16

Washington - The Clinton and Bush administrations' failure to pursue military action against al-Qaeda operatives allowed the September 11 terrorists to elude capture despite warning signs years before the attacks, a federal panel said on Tuesday.

The Clinton administration had early indications of terrorist links to Osama bin Laden and future September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as early as 1995, but let years pass as it pursued criminal indictments and diplomatic solutions to subduing them abroad, it found.

Bush officials, meanwhile, failed to act immediately on increasing intelligence chatter and urgent warnings in early 2001 by its counter terrorism adviser, Richard A Clarke, to take out al-Qaeda targets, according to preliminary findings by the commission reviewing the attacks.

"We found that the CIA and the FBI tended to be careful in discussing the attribution for terrorist attacks," the bipartisan report said. "The time lag between terrorist act and any definitive attribution grew to months, then years, as the evidence was compiled."

Former Rep Lee Hamilton, in an interview with CBS television, said, however, the commission will not make any final judgments about the Clarke allegations or other assertions until it has reviewed all the evidence.

The preliminary report did say, though, that the US government had determined bin Laden was a key terrorist financier as early as 1995, but that efforts to expel him from Sudan stalled after Clinton officials determined he couldn't be brought to the United States without an indictment. A year later, bin Laden left Sudan and set up his base in Afghanistan without resistance.

In spring 1998, the commission found, the Saudi government successfully thwarted a bin Laden-backed effort to launch attacks on US forces in that country. But even after the August 1998 embassy bombings in Africa, the administration declined covert military action in favour of Saudi assistance in persuading the Taliban to expel bin Laden. The Taliban refused, it said.

"From the spring of 1997 to September 2001, the US government tried to persuade the Taliban to expel bin Laden to a country where he could face justice," the report said. "The efforts employed inducements, warnings and sanctions. All these efforts failed."

The report was part of the commission's two-day hearing focusing on the two administration's failed responses to the threat from al-Qaeda.

Scheduled to testify on Tuesday were Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld, as well as their counterparts in the Clinton administration, William Cohen and Madeleine Albright. They were appearing as part of the panel's review of failures in diplomatic and military strategy.

- AP