Terrorism: Clinton vs. Bush

[Zomby Woof]

Clinton vs. Terror, Republicans vs. Clinton

President Clinton led the fight against terrorism over strong opposition from Republicans in Congress and the pro-Republican Media. Here's a partial - yet incredibly long - list of accomplishments against terrorism for which the Clinton Administration gets almost no credit or even recognition. President Clinton:

-- sent legislation to Congress to TIGHTEN AIRPORT SECURITY. (Remember, this is before 911) The legislation was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the airlines.

-- sent legislation to Congress to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF TERRORIST FUNDING. It was defeated by Republicans in the Senate because of opposition from banking interests.

-- sent legislation to Congress to add tagents to explosives, to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF EXPLOSIVES USED BY TERRORISTS. It was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the NRA.

When Republicans couldn't prevent executive action, President Clinton:

-- Developed the nation's first anti-terrorism policy, and appointed first national coordinator.

-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up 12 U.S. jetliners simultaneously.

-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up UN Headquarters.

-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up FBI Headquarters.

-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

--Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up Boston airport.

-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up Lincoln and Holland Tunnels in NY.

-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the George Washington Bridge.

-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the US Embassy in Albania.

-- Tried to kill Osama bin Laden and disrupt Al Qaeda through preemptive strikes (efforts denounced by the G.O.P.).

-- Brought perpetrators of first World Trade Center bombing and CIA killings to justice.

-- Did not blame Bush I administration for first World Trade Center bombing even though it occurred 38 days after they had left office. Instead, worked hard, even obsessively -- and successfully -- to stop future terrorist attacks.

-- Named the Hart-Rudman commission to report on nature of terrorist threats and major steps to be taken to combat terrorism.

-- Tripled the budget of the FBI for counterterrorism and doubled overall funding for counterterrorism.

-- Detected and destroyed cells of Al Qaeda in over 20 countries

-- Created a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines including 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine.

-- Robert Oakley, Reagan Counterterrorism Czar says of Clinton's efforts "Overall, I give them very high marks" and "The only major criticism I have is the obsession with Osama"

-- Paul Bremer, Bush's Administrator of Iraq disagrees slightly with Robert Oakley saying he believed the Clinton Administration had "correctly focused on bin Laden. "

-- Barton Gellman of the Washington Post put it best, "By any measure available, Clinton left office having given greater priority to terrorism than any president before him" and was the "first administration to undertake a systematic anti-terrorist effort."

Here, in stark contrast, is part of the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism record before September 11, 2001:

-- Backed off Clinton administration's anti-terrorism efforts.

-- Shelved the Hart-Rudman report.

-- Appointed new anti-terrorism task force under Dick Cheney. Group did not even meet before 9/11.

-- Called for cuts in anti-terrorism efforts by the Department of Defense.

-- Gave no priority to anti-terrorism efforts by Justice Department.

-- Ignored warnings from Sandy Berger, Louis Freeh, George Tennant, Paul Bremer, and Richard Clarke about the urgency of terrorist threats.

-- Halted Predator drone tracking of Osama bin Laden.

-- Did nothing in wake of August 6 C.I.A. report to president saying Al Qaeda attack by hijack of an airliner almost certain.

-- Bush - knowing about the terrorists' plans to attack in America, warned that terrorists were in flight schools in the US - took a four week vacation.

-- By failing to order any coordination of intelligence data, missed opportunity to stop the 9/11 plot as Clinton-Gore had stopped the millennium plots.

-- Blamed President Clinton for 9/11.

[LSK]

1. K&R

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2101434

[WePurrsevere]

2. Very good and timely information. Thank You!

:kick: n R'd

[RC]

3. Book marked

Thanks.

[Roland99]

4. Add citations for everything and this would be IDEAL for DU Research!

K&R!

[magellan]

5. Why does no one mention

Included in Clinton's '96 proposal for new anti-terrorism legislation was a request for expanded wiretap authority, which the Repugs scuttled for fear of further eroding liberties and becoming a police state.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9604/15/anti.terrorism/index.html

[Karenina]

6. Here's a tiny bit...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2092846

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. On US antiterrorism, January 31 2001 CHANGED EVERYTHING--the best link

I found in the MSM on the Clinton-Bush transition is a 2002 Newsweek article. Here's a snippet with a couple more items for your list, from http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorismfoi/whatwentwrong.html :
"WHAT WENT WRONG. The inside story of the missed signals and intelligence failures that raise a chilling question: did September 11 have to happen? By Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff; Newsweek May 27 2002

Back in July 2001, Bill Kurtz and his team hit pay dirt, and no one seemed to care. A hard-driven supervisor in the FBI�s Phoenix office, Kurtz was overseeing an investigation of suspected Islamic terrorists last July when a member of his team, a sharp, 41-year-old counterterrorism agent named Kenneth Williams, noticed something odd: a large number of suspects were signing up to take courses in how to fly airplanes....

But little of that seemed to make a difference back in Washington, where the Kurtz team suffered a fate even worse than Cassandra�s: not only were they not believed, they were ignored altogether.... under Attorney General John Ashcroft, the department was being prodded back into its old law-and-order mind-set: violent crime, drugs, child porn. Counterterrorism, which had become a priority of the Clintonites ... seemed to be getting less attention. When FBI officials sought to add hundreds more counterintelligence agents, they got shot down even as Ashcroft began, quietly, to take a privately chartered jet for his own security reasons.

The attorney general was hardly alone in seeming to de-emphasize terror in the young Bush administration. Over at the Pentagon, new Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld elected not to relaunch a Predator drone that had been tracking bin Laden, among other actions. In self-absorbed Washington, the Phoenix memo, which never resulted in arrests, landed in two units at FBI headquarters but didn�t make it to senior levels. Nor did the memo get transmitted to the CIA, which has long had a difficult relationship with the FBI„and whose director, George Tenet, one of the few Clinton holdovers, was issuing so many warnings that bin Laden was 'the most immediate' threat to Americans he was hardly heeded any longer...."

For more links, see another GD thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2098263

[magellan]

11. Thanks, but it should be mentioned more!

Every time the Repugs try to blame Clinton for 9-11 they should be reminded of how they undermined his anti-terrorism proposal in '96 -- and of their hypocrisy. They rejected Clinton's request for expanded wiretapping authority for the same reasons that "liberals" oppose it now!!

[Infomaniac]

7. That about sums it up. Nominated.

Proud to give this its 5th nomination.

[nicknameless]

8. And after 9-11, * let bin Laden get away at Tora Bora. (n/t)

[gully]

10. Do you have a link?

I've seen this b4, can't recall where?

Thanks