Saturday, July 24, 2004

The 9-11 committee report is quite clear on some issues which were once very controversial.  It is very clear that Clinton authorised the CIA to kill Bin Laden.  

Page 130-2


Early drafts of this highly sensitive document emphasized that it authorized
only a capture operation.The tribals were to be paid only if they captured Bin
Ladin, not if they killed him. Officials throughout the government approved
this draft. But on December 21, the day after principals decided not to launch
the cruise missile strike against Kandahar, the CIA’s leaders urged strengthening
the language to allow the tribals to be paid whether Bin Ladin was captured
or killed. Berger and Tenet then worked together to take this line of
thought even further.122

They finally agreed, as Berger reported to President Clinton, that an
extraordinary step was necessary. The new memorandum would allow the
killing of Bin Ladin if the CIA and the tribals judged that capture was not feasible
(a judgment it already seemed clear they had reached). The Justice
Department lawyer who worked on the draft told us that what was envisioned
was a group of tribals assaulting a location, leading to a shoot-out. Bin Ladin
and others would be captured if possible, but probably would be killed.The
administration’s position was that under the law of armed conflict, killing a
person who posed an imminent threat to the United States would be an act
of self-defense, not an assassination.On Christmas Eve 1998, Berger sent a final
draft to President Clinton, with an explanatory memo. The President
approved the document.123
Because the White House considered this operation highly sensitive, only a
tiny number of people knew about this Memorandum of Notification. Berger
arranged for the NSC’s legal adviser to inform Albright, Cohen, Shelton, and
Reno.None was allowed to keep a copy. Congressional leaders were briefed, as
required by law. Attorney General Reno had sent a letter to the President
expressing her concern: she warned of possible retaliation, including the targeting
of U.S. officials. She did not pose any legal objection.A copy of the final
document, along with the carefully crafted instructions that were to be sent to
the tribals,was given to Tenet.124
A message from Tenet to CIA field agents directed them to communicate
to the tribals the instructions authorized by the President: the United States
preferred that Bin Ladin and his lieutenants be captured,but if a successful capture
operation was not feasible, the tribals were permitted to kill them.The
instructions added that the tribals must avoid killing others unnecessarily and
must not kill or abuse Bin Ladin or his lieutenants if they surrendered. Finally,
the tribals would not be paid if this set of requirements was not met.125
The field officer passed these instructions to the tribals word for word. But
he prefaced the directions with a message:“From the American President down
to the average man in the street,we want him [Bin Ladin] stopped.” If the tribals
captured Bin Ladin, the officer assured them that he would receive a fair
trial under U.S. law and be treated humanely. The CIA officer reported that
the tribals said they “fully understand the contents, implications and the spirit
of the message” and that that their response was,“We will try our best to capture
Bin Ladin alive and will have no intention of killing or harming him on
purpose.”The tribals explained that they wanted to prove that their standards
of behavior were more civilized than those of Bin Ladin and his band of terrorists.
In an additional note addressed to Schroen, the tribals noted that if they
were to adopt Bin Ladin’s ethics,“we would have finished the job long before,”
132 THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT
but they had been limited by their abilities and “by our beliefs and laws we
have to respect.”126
Schroen and “Mike”were impressed by the tribals’ reaction. Schroen cabled
that the tribals were not in it for the money but as an investment in the future
of Afghanistan. “Mike” agreed that the tribals’ reluctance to kill was not a
“showstopper.” “From our view,” he wrote, “that seems in character and fair
enough.”127
Policymakers in the Clinton administration, including the President and his
national security advisor, told us that the President’s intent regarding covert
action against Bin Ladin was clear: he wanted him dead.  This intent was never
well communicated or understood within the CIA.Tenet told the Commission
that except in one specific case (discussed later), the CIA was authorized
to kill Bin Ladin only in the context of a capture operation.


 
The committee is very polite, however, it is hard for me to imagine how they managed to avoid using the word "perjury" when discussing Tenet's testimony and I won't even mention Ashcroft who claimed that a strike team would have needed a legal contingent to know what they were and were't authorised to do. 
 
Recall from the hearings (Ashcroft testifying) that committee members considered the matter resolved only when they received documents among the 9,000 some odd pages released by the national archives (with approval from a representative of Clinton) but not transmitted by the committee by the Bush administration because they were "redundant".
 
Update:  I've arrived at page 142 and what appears to be the case where Tenet agrees that Clinton authorised a deliberate attempt to kill Bin Laden "  The President reportedly also authorized a covert
action under carefully limited circumstances which, if successful, would have
resulted in Bin Ladin’s death."    That is very clear except for "reportedly."
 
 

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