Bush slow on bin Laden drones before 9/11
Posted 6/25/2003 7:37 AM
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-06-25-drones-osama_x.htmWASHINGTON (AP) — Prowling the skies over Afghanistan in the months before President Bush took office, unmanned and unarmed Predator drones proved to be one of America's major successes in its frustrating hunt for Osama bin Laden.
But the promising aircraft remained grounded under the new administration until after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, say current and former U.S. officials who describe a paralyzing internal debate over finances, arming the drones with deadly missiles and concern over who would take the blame if something went wrong.
Unresolved issues at that Sept. 4 meeting included whether the CIA or Pentagon should operate newly armed Predators and whether its new missiles were sufficiently lethal to kill bin Laden, a designated terrorist already blamed for deadly attacks against two U.S. embassies in Africa and the USS Cole and the subject of at least three secret orders by President Clinton to have him captured or killed.
The disappearance during 2001 of Predators from Afghanistan — partly because of unfavorable seasonal weather patterns and fears that potential targets on the ground were learning to spot them — is discussed in classified sections of Congress' report on pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures and is expected to be examined by an independent commission appointed by the president and Congress, officials said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/25/attack/main560293.shtmlWASHINGTON, June 25, 2003
(CBS/AP) The Bush administration was advised in early 2001 by a holdover from the Clinton White House to use unmanned aircraft to target Osama bin Laden, but worries over missile technology and territorial wrangling between the CIA and Pentagon delayed the deployment until after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said that within days of Mr. Bush taking office in January 2001, his top terrorism expert on the National Security Council, Richard Clarke, urged National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to resume the drone flights to track down bin Laden, citing the successes of late 2000.
At a White House meeting of Mr. Bush's national security principals on Sept. 4, 2001, senior officials discussed several ideas, including use of the drones, as they finalized a plan to accelerate efforts to go after al Qaeda amid signs of a growing threat of a domestic attack.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,769399,00.htmlMonday August 5, 2002
The Bush administration sat on a Clinton-era plan to attack al-Qaida in Afghanistan for eight months because of political hostility to the outgoing president and competing priorities, it was reported yesterday.
The plan, under which special forces troops would have been sent after Osama bin Laden, was drawn up in the last days of the Clinton administration but a decision was left to the incoming Bush team.
Mr Clarke, who stayed on in his job as White House counter-terrorism tsar, repeated his briefing for vice president Dick Cheney in February. However, the proposals got lost in the clumsy transition process, turf wars between departments and the separate agendas of senior members of the Bush administration.
It was, the Time article argues, "a systematic collapse in the ability of Washington's national security apparatus to handle the terrorist threat".
But the Time report quotes Bush officials as well as Clinton aides as confirming the seriousness of the Clarke plan. The sources said it was treated the same way as all policies inherited from the Clinton era, and subjected to a lengthy "policy review process".
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