Help: Clear up the Bill Clinton was offered Osama story

[Blue_Chill]

I am pretty sure I read that story was total crap but I can't find anything when I search for it other then right wing hate sites for some reason. Anyway it's the one where Sudan offered Clinton Osama but he turned them down, I'm sure you've all heard some RWer or another ranting on about it. If you could give me a link but a explanation is helpful as well.

[blm]

1. It will be in the transcripts of today's hearings.

It was also said on Charlie Rose last night.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. He was offered Bin Laden

Saudi Arabia would not take him...we had INSUFFICIENT evidence to try him and at the time we were still following international law and taking people to trial...not making it up as we go.

I am still far more interested in why Bush 41 was business partners with his family until a couple weeks after 9/11 and why this has not been the subject of the commission.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Mansour Ijaz

So a Google search on that name. It will lead you to both the pro- and anti- arguments.

Basically, Ijaz made the offer, but Clinton's CIA and Defense Department didn't believe him, since Ijaz is known to be a big-time crook.

Ijaz was talking out of bodily holes where speech was thought to be impossible. Chris Ruddy ran with the story; it took about three days to refute it, but the NewsMax readership believes everything derogatory that they hear about Clinton.

--bkl

[lazarus]

5. Let's not forget

That Ijaz works for Fox News now.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. You're sh*tting me!

You're not sh*tting me ...

Who are they going to hire next, "Little Nicky" Scarfo?

Maybe Jayson Blair.

--bkl

[wyldwolf]

4. From "Don't Blame Clinton" by Joe Conason

Perhaps the most sensational charge against Clinton to emerge in the months since Sept. 11 is the dubious claim that he somehow let an offer from Sudan to turn over bin Laden slip through his fingers. Sullivan blatantly misrepresents a definitive article that appeared in the Washington Post on Oct. 3, 2001, on this topic. "The Sudanese government offered to hand over bin Laden to the United States," Sullivan writes. "Astonishingly, the Clinton administration turned the offer down." But that phony accusation is exploded by the very first sentence of the Post article, which says only that Sudan offered to "arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody."

Specifically, the Post reported that during secret negotiations in 1996 between American officials and Sudan defense minister Elfatih Erwa, "The government was prepared to place in custody and hand him over, though to whom was ambiguous. In one formulation, Erwa said Sudan would consider any legitimate proffer of criminal charges against the accused terrorist. Saudi Arabia, he said, was the most logical destination." The Post then detailed efforts by the White House and the State Department to induce the Saudis to accept custody of bin Laden, which the authorities in Riyadh adamantly refused.

Nowhere does the Post's carefully worded story state that Sudan agreed to "hand bin Laden over to the United States" -- because that never happened, except perhaps in Sullivan's imagination.

http://www.44thad.org/opinion/DontBlameClinton.htm

What is a "legitimate proffer of criminal charges?" In other words, Sudan would turn him over to anyone with legal grounds to take him. At the time, the US had no legal grounds.

[Ediacara]

8. legitimate proffer of criminal charges

I am not sure what Sudan's meaning of that phrase is, but the Taliban between 1997 and 2001 claimed that they would absolutely arrest and try bin Laden IN Afghanistan IF the United States showed them evidence that bin Laden was a criminal. Any and all evidence that was given to the Taliban was seen by the Taliban is completely false because they never had any intention of ACTUALLY arresting and trying bin Laden.

I am sure that the Sudanese government would have been equally unconvinced by evidence, and like the Taliban, would have had no real intention of ACTUALLY handing bin Laden over to the Saudis or anyone else.

[sampsonblk]

6. Good links

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x7778

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/2020/predator030624.html

[desi]

7. Here ya go. I bookmarked this thread.

I needed the same information and knew that we would need it again. TruthIsAll did an excellent job here and a few others also contributed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=976670

[Laf.La.Dem.]

9. Thank you

This thread is being sent to my Right Wing brother - this MAY help open his eyes - Thanks:hi:

[desi]

10. Here's another more closely related thread I had bookmarked

Yer all welcome. I knew this would come in handy. The tough job (impossible) is convincing the right wing ostriches.

w4rma put a lot of work on this one. Check out his post. A few Freeptards were in on this food fight.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=864862