It looks like another Rove stunt to shift blame away from the obviously incompetent Bush administration and onto Clinton.
Although the Bush administration keeps documents from the Reagan and Bush I regimes classified and under wrap and key, it has declassified and released a 1998 document regarding U.S. Taliban negotiations on Bin Laden about which CNN reports as follows:
U.S., Taliban bargained over bin Laden, documents show
Declassified State Department papers detail 1998 meetings
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- During secret meetings with U.S. officials in 1998, top Taliban officials discussed assassinating or expelling Osama bin Laden in response to al Qaeda's deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, according to State Department documents.
. . . .
A State Department cable sent on October 19, 1998, said the best course of action in getting bin Laden handed over would be through Saudi Arabia, which "maintains significant prestige in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
. . . .
"The U.S. should appeal to the natural trading mentality of many Afghans -- and perhaps some Taliban -- by setting out what the Taliban stand to gain by expelling bin Laden as well as what they stand to lose," the cable said.
. . . .
By the end of the November 28 meeting, pressed on why the Taliban refused to turn over bin Laden, Ahmed said that the Afghan people "would not understand why the Taliban had expelled a man who was regarded as a 'great mujahid,' or Islamic fighter, during the war against the Soviets. They would reject the Taliban if the Taliban took this action."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/19/taliban.documents/index.html
The article is poorly organized and poorly written. It uses innuendo to criticize the Clinton administration's handling of the Bin Laden presence in Afghanistan.
Designed to make Clinton look foolish and ineffective, the article shows or attempts to show that Clinton tried both stick (bombing) and carrot (negotiation) to get Afghanistan to turn over Bin Laden, but could not persuade Afghanistan to so much as plainly admit that Bin Laden was guilty of bombings, etc. The Taliban feared they would be out of power if they handed over Bin Laden.
Unless it is part of a large number of documents released on various subjects, the release of this document is obviously intended to embarrass Clinton. In spite of that intent, the article highlights Clinton's aggressive approach to chasing down and trying to destroy Bin Laden and the kinds of choices the Taliban forced him to make: declare war, entrust them with weapons we should not give them or put up with the Taliban's protection of Bin Laden. Had Congress been more supportive of Clinton, we must ask, had they not mesmerized the nation with the whole Monica nonsense, Clinton might have gotten rid of Bin Laden right then and there. The article shows he certainly did what he could to try to get rid of Bin Laden considering the lack of support he could expect from the vindictive, hateful Republicans in Congress. Clinton had the focus and will, but the necessary support from Republicans was not there.
What is so typically Rove about this is that Bush is hiding huge numbers of documents that date from the 1980s, which should, by law, have already been declassified, released and which cannot be obtained by scholars, historians, affected parties or the media. If Bush could release this document from the more recent Clinton era, certainly we should demand very loudly that it declassify and release documents from the 1980s and early 1990s on Iran, Nicaragua, etc. immediately. Again, Rove is using his power to leak information to manipulate public opinion. Let's demand full declassification and disclosure of documents from the Reagan and Bush I administrations.