U.S. OK’d plan to topple Taliban a day before 9-11
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4585010/WASHINGTON - One day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, senior Bush administration officials agreed that the United States would try to overthrow the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan if a final diplomatic push to expel Osama bin Laden from the country failed, a federal panel reported Tuesday.
The administration’s plans were reported in May 2002 by MSNBC.com and NBC News, but the details and precise timing were revealed for the first time in the preliminary report, released Tuesday by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
The report alleges that the Clinton and Bush administrations moved slowly against the al-Qaida terror network in the years before the attacks, choosing to use diplomatic rather than military options, which allowed bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders to elude capture.
That conclusion was challenged in testimony by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright, Powell’s predecessor under former President Bill Clinton, both of whom said their respective administrations did everything possible to combat the shadowy al-Qaida.