Saturday on Heartland with John Kasich, the issue of the Clinton Administrations attempts to "get Bin Laden" were once again brought out and flogged. Kasich asked former CIA Operative Gary Berntsen if Clinton had "tried hard enough" to capture or kill the terrorist leader?
In response Mr. Berntsen claimed that "they had approached this as a
law enforcement problem" and that "there was one oppurtunity in 2000, where we were up in the mountains of Afghanistan - chasing bin Laden - where they
refused to pull the trigger"
The claim is identitical to the one made by the ABC/Disney docudrama "Path to 9-11" which asserted that U.S. forces had bin Laden "in their sights", but Clinton Administration Officials
simply refused to do what needed to be done to get him.
Former NSA Counter-terrorism Chief Richard Clarke in response to the allegations made by the film has
already stated:
1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden. 2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Ladin camp and did not see UBL.
3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.
Thinkprogress also noted:
According to the 9/11 Commission Report (pg. 199), then-CIA Director George Tenet had the authority from President Clinton to kill Bin Laden. Roger Cressy, former NSC director for counterterrorism, has written, "Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda."
So just what the heck is Berntsen, who is a decorated CIA veteran office with over 20 years experience - and was there in person at Tora Bora when Bin Laden escaped - talking about?
Apparently according to
Frontline it's this:
Can you talk about the <2000> attempted capture of an Al Qaeda aide? Well, I'm, of course, at home in the morning, 7:00, ... and I receive a phone call. It's the deputy in the bin Laden shop, and he's panicked, and said, "Gary, how's your Persian?" I said: "Well, actually, my Persian's pretty good at the moment. I'm in language review." ...He says: "Can you come in? We're having a crisis." So of course I drive in, go to the office, and he said: "Look, we have a team. We've been training these guys for the last two months to ... undertake some highly dangerous missions in Afghanistan. Would you be willing to go, because we only have one Persian speaker on the team?" I said, "Well, when are you leaving?," and he said, "Well, in a couple of hours." I said, "Well, how long is this mission going to be?" They said, "Several months." So I said: "OK, I'm in, let me pass the bad news to my spouse." Then, of course, I went on the mission. Went home, grabbed a couple of thousand dollars, went and bought several thousand dollars' worth of camping gear, good equipment -- told the young sales boy that I was moving to Alaska -- and then, of course, showed up several hours later.
We are flown into the Panjshir Valley ... on a North Alliance helicopter, which looks like it's held together with bubblegum and bailing wire. I had been a crash firefighter in the Air Force; I knew an aviation accident when I saw one getting ready to happen. It was unbelievable. The aircraft tires had big bubbles the size of 50-cent pieces. There were holes from ground fire throughout the bird. There was an internal fuel tank which shouldn't have been in the middle of the body of the aircraft; it was leaking. We had to open the windows because we would have been asphyxiated. Then we flew in on that. It was quite an exciting flight. ...
That was your first time in Afghanistan?
That was my first time in Afghanistan, and it was fabulous. I was thrilled to be there. ... Unfortunately, there were some reports that came out of left field ... that said, "Bin Laden is aware that there are Americans in the country." He had put a bounty on the life of any CIA officer that could be captured in Afghanistan and brought to him for $3 million. Our headquarters panicked, and they said, "You have to come out." ...
Tell me what the mission was.
Well, we were in there to collect intelligence and, working with the Northern Alliance, to identify one of those key lieutenants near bin Laden ... and to snatch him, to kidnap him.
Did you know who you were after?
We had two or three choices. ... We knew several of the ones that we were looking at.
... Now we come back after being withdrawn. First they tell us, "You have to leave." ... We said, "We can't, because it's cloudy." Well, we were lying. It wasn't cloudy; it was blue sky, but we were trying to do anything possible to extend our mission on the ground. Finally, intervention on the seventh floor : "No, you have to come out, or we'll discipline you, because we know you're not telling us the truth. We're looking at weather maps." This is what we were told. So we had to fly, and the Afghans were horrified. They were horrified that we would tell them that we wanted to come ... and then the slightest threat we would abandon them. It was disgraceful.
Who was it?
It was the CIA's leadership. I would put that on Tenet and Pavitt, put that right on them. It was heartbreaking. When I came back, of those six men, two of those men would resign -- ... good men -- because they were just disgusted. They said, "We'll go do something else with our lives."
So first of all, they weren't there to capture or kill Bin Laden himself, there were after a few of his deputies -- second the recall order didn't come from Bill Clinton, it didn't come from anyone in the White House, it came from George Tenet.
Mr-Slam-Dunk-Mobile-Labs-Medal-o-Freedom himself.
As he will be shown saying to Chris Wallace today on
Fox News Sunday, Bill Clinton, following the bombing of the U.S. Cole had invasion plans for Afghanistan drawn up and ready to go, but the CIA -- Tenet --
refused to certify that bin Laden had been responsible, so those plans remained on hold.
Berntsen was definately a "hard charger" one who was involved in the hunt for bin Laden fairly early, long before he became a topic of common dicussion among government officials.
Do you remember the first time you heard the words "Al Qaeda"?
I think that it was in the early '90s, and it was because Mike Scheuer had formed that group within CIA, the bin Laden Group and was talking about the Sunni terrorism and this individual, bin Laden, this financier. It was Scheuer who first brought that up, ... and he convinced me early on that this was a growing problem. Later, when the bombs in East Africa go off , I'm sent to lead the team because we think this is possibly Hezbollah. Hezbollah had done the attacks on the embassy in Beirut, had done the Marine barracks ; they had done the Israeli Embassy in ... Argentina in '92 and '94. They had been involved in Khobar Towers in '96. So it looked like yet another attack done by Hezbollah. Of course, I get out there on the ground, and it's not; bin Laden has gone big.
... Where are you when you hear about Dar es Salaam, ?
Well, of course, I'm sleeping; it's 4:20 in the morning in my townhouse in Virginia. The phone rings. I have a telephone that is encrypted in my house. I got up, turned the key and go secure, and now I'm told by the watch center that bombs have just gone off in East Africa, and that Jeff O'Connell, chief of CTC, would like me to come in immediately. I throw my clothes on, fly out the door, and go in. Then I'm with this small group -- O'Connell, Paul Pillar, myself and a couple of others. ... O'Connell was a very decisive guy, and said, "Gary, you're going to Dar es Salaam," and he gave out the air assignments. Then we proceeded. ...
And the meaning of it being an Al Qaeda attack?
Something else big now we have to worry about. Bin Laden's gone big. Scheuer's unit was about to be closed; there was discussion about folding it into something else, and there was a
lot of politics around that. Of course Scheuer got new legs after that bomb went off.
But why would Berntsen give the impression on Heartland that someone in the White House was the one pulling the plug? Maybe because, well, he's kinda of a dick. Aka - a Neo-con.
So when does it cross your field of vision that there's a real interest in the agency and in the American government ... to go kill Osama bin Laden or capture him if we can?
That's years later before we feel that they're serious. Those embassies are blown up, and the response is cruise missiles. It was a pathetic response. Bin Laden was on the ground there. We had realized it was him. We should have just sent troops in and taken him at that point. It an act of war doing what he did, but the administration wanted none of it. ...
... Why, do you think?
They didn't want to have to pay the price of conflict. Now, individually, in my unit, I'm aggressive; I'm always going after these guys. I continue as aggressively as I can in every operation, every day that I'm there, ... and frequently force people's hands so they have to do the operations in the way I design them.
Why?
It's easier to get forgiveness than permission. When pursuing terrorists, I would do as much as I could, and at the last moment, you'd execute the capture and say, "Here we are; we have these guys."
You mean you were actually capturing them?
We would use some of our sources and influence other governments to do that, yes. ... I'm sort of the guy in CIA -- I was like the sixth or seventh man on the basketball team: Any time they needed a tough foul delivered or something done, I get sent in, and I always got the best playing time.
I was very, very lucky, because I'm the guy who gets to go to East Africa for the bombings. I get sent in to Afghanistan 15 months before, at the last minute. I get to go on the 11th of September and replace Gary Schroen on the battlefield there. ... Whenever they needed something, I was always ready to put my hand up and go. ...
Berntsen is a field guy, hanging his ass way out there in the wilds of Afghanistan -- what does he know about conversations at the White House? Did he know that Clinton had authorized bin Laden
to be killed. Did he know that he had requested Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to implement exact the plan that Gary suggested -
bring in Special Forces and blow bin Laden away - but that it was the Pentagon Boys, the big bad macho military guys, who refused because of logistical issues?
Clarke speaking with Mike Sheehan, the top State Dept Counter-terrorism official in about the lack of response to the Cole bombing in 2000:
"What's it gonna take, Dick?" Sheehan demanded, "Who the shit do they think attacked the Cole, fuckin' Martians? The Pentagon brass won't let Delta go get bin Laden. Hell, they won't even let the Air Force carpet bomb the place. Does al Qeada have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?"
When it comes to Tora Bora, when the finally did let Delta and the Air Force lose - yet Bin Laden
still got away, Berntsen feels that the reins were pull back not by Tenet, but by CENTCOM (Central Command) --- that's Rumsfeld and
the Pentagon Brass.
(But couldn't the president (Bush) have ordered the troops in?)
... Of course. During the 2004 campaign, when you had the Kerry/Bush discussion on this, and John Kerry says, "The president contracted this all out to the Afghans to do this," well, that's not exactly true. ... It was mostly us. We had our teams out there calling in air strikes. We did use Afghans as blocking forces, and Delta Force would go in. ... The Afghans didn't want to fight. ... We had to pay them, had to yell at them, had to threaten them, had to do all sorts of things to get them to get into combat.
There was truly a fog over what occurred, and it doesn't surprise me, because there is often lots of bureaucracy between that man in the field, whether he's a CIA officer or a military commander, and the commander in chief back there. ... And the president, of course, relied on the people around him. I don't think the president was served well. ... I know the president would have done anything possible to kill bin Laden at that point, but I'm certain my requests never got to him.
You blaming Tenet?
... It was CENTCOM's decision. ... I think Tenet stepped up on that.
So with Rumsfeld?
There's a book written by (CENTCOM deputy commander) Mike DeLong called (Inside) CENTCOM: (The Unvarnished Truth About the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq). In that book, DeLong talks about a conversation that he has with Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld calls CENTCOM and says, "Send in troops," and CENTCOM's response is: "The altitude's too high. It's too cold." It's this, it's that -- makes up a lot of reasons. And Rumsfeld says, ... "I ski at 14,000 feet, and I'm 70," and the response is, "You don't have to carry a pack." And he says, "OK, do what you think is right."So the secretary of defense wanted them in there, but he left the final decision to the commanders on the ground, and they didn't want to do it, based on the reading of Mike DeLong's book.
Nice to see that he reads books, maybe he should try reading Clarke's.
And by the way, Fred Barnes says the President told him this month that “
bin Laden doesn’t fit with the administration’s strategy for combating terrorism.
Fancy that?
Vyan
Crossposted on
Truth 2 Power
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