Krempasky at RedState has clips of the scene from ABC’s Path to 9/11 that Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, and the democrat Congressional leadership rreeally don’t want you to see.

link

Alternative link

“Are there any men left in Washington, or are they all cowards?” snarls the disappointed Afghani guide, when the attack on Bin Laden is aborted.

There’s a lot of traffic today, but I recommend that you keep trying or come back later.

Hat tip to LGF.

There have been loud denunciations of the forthcoming ABC docudrama for falsifying history from a variety of officials of the Clinton Administration, including, in particular, former Clinton Administration National Security Advisor and convicted National Archives records purloiner/destroyer Sandy Berger. A Republican in San Francisco compares Berger’s current statements to the 9/11 Commission Report.

Berger says:

In no instance did President Clinton or I ever fail to support a request from the CIA or US military to authorize an operation against bin Laden or al Qaeda.

The 9/11 Commission says (Chapter 4 – footnote numbers are left below to assist locating quotation):

On May 20, (CIA) Director Tenet discussed the high risk of the operation with Berger and his deputies, warning that people might be killed, including Bin Ladin. Success was to be defined as the exfiltration of Bin Ladin out of Afghanistan.28 A meeting of principals was scheduled for May 29 to decide whether the operation should go ahead.

The principals did not meet. On May 29, “Jeff” (chief of the Counterterrorist Center) informed “Mike” (chief of the Bin Ladin station) that he had just met with Tenet, Pavitt, and the chief of the Directorate’s Near Eastern Division. The decision was made not to go ahead with the operation. “Mike” cabled the field that he had been directed to “stand down on the operation for the time being.” He had been told, he wrote, that cabinet-level officials thought the risk of civilian casualties-“collateral damage”-was too high. They were concerned about the tribals’ safety, and had worried that “the purpose and nature of the operation would be subject to unavoidable misinterpretation and misrepresentation-and probably recriminations-in the event that Bin Ladin, despite our best intentions and efforts, did not survive.”29

Impressions vary as to who actually decided not to proceed with the operation. Clarke told us that the CSG (Richard Clarke’s interagency Counterterrorism Security Group) saw the plan as flawed. He was said to have described it to a colleague on the NSC (National Security Council ) staff as “half-assed” and predicted that the principals would not approve it. “Jeff ” thought the decision had been made at the cabinet level. Pavitt thought that it was Berger’s doing, though perhaps on Tenet’s advice. Tenet told us that given the recommendation of his chief operations officers, he alone had decided to “turn off” the operation. He had simply informed Berger, who had not pushed back. Berger’s recollection was similar. He said the plan was never presented to the White House for a decision.30

Hat tip to LGF.

The Clintonistas, including Bill himself, can dish it out, but they certainly can’t take it. Howls of outrage are continuing, and increasing hourly, from an ever-growing assortment of Clinton Administration officials, including the former friend of Monica’s himself.

The Washington Post reports virulent attacks on the ABC program from half the Clinton Administration.

Top officials of the Clinton administration have launched a preemptive strike against an ABC-TV “docudrama,” slated to air Sunday and Monday, that they say includes made-up scenes depicting them as undermining attempts to kill Osama bin Laden.

Former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright called one scene involving her “false and defamatory.” Former national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger said the film “flagrantly misrepresents my personal actions.” And former White House aide Bruce R. Lindsey, who now heads the William J. Clinton Foundation, said: “It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known.”..

The fierceness of the debate reflects a recognition that a $40 million miniseries — whose cast includes Harvey Keitel, Patricia Heaton and Penny Johnson Jerald — can damage Clinton’s legacy in the anti-terrorism fight on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among the scenes that the Clinton team said are fictional:

Berger is seen as refusing authorization for a proposed raid to capture bin Laden in spring 1998 to CIA operatives in Afghanistan who have the terrorist leader in their sights. A CIA operative sends a message: “We’re ready to load the package. Repeat, do we have clearance to load the package?” Berger responds: “I don’t have that authority.”

Berger said that neither he nor Clinton ever rejected a CIA or military request to conduct an operation against bin Laden. The Sept. 11 commission said no CIA operatives were poised to attack; that Afghanistan’s rebel Northern Alliance was not involved, as the film says; and that then-CIA Director George J. Tenet decided the plan would not work.

Tenet is depicted as challenging Albright for having alerted Pakistan in advance of the August 1998 missile strike that unsuccessfully targeted bin Laden.
“Madame Secretary,” Tenet is seen saying, “the Pakistani security service, the ISI, has close ties with the Taliban.” Albright is seen shouting: “We had to inform the Pakistanis. There are regional factors involved.” Tenet then complains that “we’ve enhanced bin Laden’s stature.”

Albright said she never warned Pakistan. The Sept. 11 commission found that a senior U.S. military official warned Pakistan that missiles crossing its airspace would not be from its archenemy, India.

“The Path to 9/11” uses news footage to suggest that Clinton was distracted by the Republican drive to impeach him. Veteran White House counterterrorism official Richard A. Clarke, who also disputes the film’s accuracy, is portrayed as telling FBI agent John P. O’Neill: “Republicans went all out for impeachment. I just don’t see the president in this climate willing to take chances.”

O’Neill responds: “So it’s okay if somebody kills bin Laden, so long as he didn’t give the order. . . . It’s pathetic.” The Sept. 11 commission found no evidence that the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal played a role in the August 1998 missile strike, but added that the “intense partisanship of the period” was one factor that “likely had a cumulative effect on future decisions about the use of force against bin Laden.”

The New York Post even quotes the great man himself demanding that the network change the program:

BUBBA GOES BALLISTIC ON ABC ABOUT ITS DAMNING 9/11 MOVIE INSISTS NET PULL DRAMA

September 7, 2006 — WASHINGTON – A furious Bill Clinton is warning ABC that its mini-series “The Path to 9/11” grossly misrepresents his pursuit of Osama bin Laden – and he is demanding the network “pull the drama” if changes aren’t made…

The movie is set to air on Sunday and Monday nights. Monday is the fifth anniversary of the attacks.

Of course, if the Clinton Administration didn’t do any of these things, why is it that Sandy Berger was arrested, and convicted, for removing and destroying top secret documents from the National Archives?

UPDATE

Senate Democrats threaten Disney with litigation and legislative reprisal.

And the Network censors the program under pressure.

After much discussion, ABC executives and the producers toned down, but did not eliminate entirely, a scene that involved Clinton’s national security advisor, Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, declining to give the order to kill Bin Laden, according to a person involved with the film who declined to be identified because of the sensitivities involved.

“That sequence has been the focus of attention,” the source said, adding: “These are very slight alterations.”

In addition, the network decided that the credits would say the film is based “in part” on the 9/11 commission report, rather than simply “based on” the bestselling report, as the producers originally intended.

ABC, meanwhile, is tip-toeing away from the film’s version of events. In a statement, the network said the miniseries “is a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews.”

Cable networks have broadcast more than one Michael Moore film (which really travestied the truth) without the Congressional Republican leadership twisting any arms, as I recall.

Bill Roggio‘s coverage points to some very alarming details, not mentioned by the mainstream media.

The “truce” is in fact a surrender. According to an anonymous intelligence source, the terms of the truce includes:

– The Pakistani Army is abandoning its garrisons in North and South Waziristan.
– The Pakistani Military will not operate in North Waziristan, nor will it monitor actions the region.
– Pakistan will turn over weapons and other equipment seized during Pakistani Army operations.
– The Taliban and al-Qaeda have set up a Mujahideen Shura (or council) to administer the agency.
– The truce refers to the region as “The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.”
– An unknown quantity of money was transferred from Pakistani government coffers to the Taliban. The Pakistani government has essentially paid a tribute or ransom to end the fighting.
– “Foreigners” (a euphemism for al-Qaeda and other foreign jihadis) are allowed to remain in the region.
– Over 130 mid-level al-Qaeda commanders and foot soldiers were released from Pakistani custody.
– The Taliban is required to refrain from violence in Pakistan only; the agreement does not stipulate refraining from violence in Afghanistan.

The truce meeting was essentially an event designed to humiliate the Pakistani government and military. Government negotiators were searched for weapons by Taliban fighters prior to entering the meeting. Heavily armed Taliban were posted as guards around the ceremony. The al Rayah — al-Qaeda’s black flag — was hung over the scoreboard at the soccer stadium where the ceremony was held. After the Pakistani delegation left, al-Qaeda’s black flag was run up the flagpole of military checkpoints and the Taliban began looting the leftover small arms. The Taliban also held a ‘parade’ in the streets of Miranshah. They openly view the ‘truce’ as a victory, and the facts support this view.

While this is not reported in the media, the “Taliban commanders” in attendance include none other than Jalaluddin Haqqani, military commander of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Tahir Yuldashev, the commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Although Pakistan changed its position later, originally

To add insult to the defeat of the Waziristan truce, Pakistan has openly admitted that it would let Osama bin Laden remain a free man if committed to living a peaceful existance in the region. “If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden ‘would not be taken into custody,’ Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, ‘as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen,” reports ABC News’ The Blotter. An independent intelligence source confirms Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan Khan’s position is an accurate reflection of Pakistani policy.

Time to invade a few more Islamic countries.

The Hindustan Times reports a Pakistani legislature from Chitral (the northernmost district in the North-West Frontier Province) protesting his province’s innocence in exactly the manner which arouses the most suspicion.

US intelligence agencies’ reports suggesting that Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was present in Chitral are “unauthentic and unjustified”, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) legislator Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali has said.

“Neither have we sheltered anybody nor will we tolerate foreign interference in the area,” the Daily Times quoted Chitrali as saying.

Raising a point of order in the National Assembly on Friday, Chitrali said that the mountainous Chitral area shared a border with five countries, but “was completely peaceful”.

He said that the CIA and FBI had set up offices in Chitral, but had left the area after locals protested their presence.

A couple of days ago, a US official had said that Laden was living comfortably in a house, possibly with a family and no more than two bodyguards.

And here’s the US anonymous source rumor.

The Telegraph reports:

A senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden has told US interrogators that the al-Qa’eda leader’s big mouth was a security liability.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also complained that the schemes bin Laden approved lacked destructive ambition….

..Mohammed, held in American custody at an unknown location since his capture in Pakistan three years ago, portrays himself as a brilliant terrorist manager.

Throughout the discussion, he is almost contemptuous of the wealthy bin Laden, who held the purse strings.

According to Mohammed, bin Laden lacked inspiration and vision. The Saudi failed to understand the basic security requirements of terrorist plots, such as keeping silent about impending attacks. Mohammed cites bin Laden’s decision to inform a group of visitors to his Afghan headquarters that he was about to launch a major attack on American interests.

Then he told trainee terrorists at the al-Farooq training camp “to pray for the success of a major operation involving 20 martyrs”.

Mohammed and a fellow terrorist manager, Mohammed Atef, who was later killed in an American air attack, were so concerned that they asked bin Laden to shut up.

The men “were concerned about this lack of discretion and urged bin Laden not to make additional comments about the plot”.

Douglas A. Borer

And, what do you know? in the course of researching my previous posting, I discovered that John Arquilla is not even unique in his views among the faculty of the Monterey, California Naval Postgraduate School. Its Department of Defense Analysis is a little hotbed of Peace Studies.

In addition to Mr. Arquilla, it includes assistant professor Douglas A. Borer, who, on last January 24th in the Christian Science Monitor, also editorialized that, in response to Osama bin Laden’s truce offer, the president needs to decide whether to stick to the moribund old cliché “we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” or whether he should use this as a potential opportunity to redirect global politics along a path that serves US national interests. … (that) even if negotiations fail, we may have more to gain than to lose by exploring peace.

Certain professors of defense analysis seem to overlook the fact that only four and half years ago, dozens of Americans were forced to choose between jumping from 90 floors, or burning to death. The United States has no honorable alternative to avenging their deaths upon the persons responsible. There is nothing moribund or clichéd about our government having the basic decency to refuse to bargain with bin Laden.

John Arquilla

Would anyone living outside America’s coastal enclaves of leftism actually believe that any major American newspaper would run an editorial arguing that we ought to be accepting Osama bin Laden’s recent truce offer? Remarkable, isn’t it?

But we can top that. Would you also believe that the editorialist, one John Arquilla (a man with these kinds of views) is employed by the Defense Department as a professor of Defense Analysis, no less (in his case, clearly: Surrender Analysis), at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Arquilla is additionally a senior consultant for the RAND Corporation, and an advisor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld(!).

It’s a wonder we’re not all speaking Arabic.

Arquilla writes:

Osama bin Laden’s offer of a truce has sunk from sight without leaving a ripple, but it should have made waves… bin Laden’s overture should be carefully weighed and thoughtfully debated. …the practical upside of giving peace a chance looks very attractive. Our ethical obligation to try in good faith to negotiate is even more compelling… Reconsidering the immediate dismissive response to his overture is the necessary next step. I pray we have the courage and compassion to take it.

How does anyone with this person’s philosophy and strategic acumen ever come to be hired to teach at a US military educational facility in the first place? Shouldn’t a personal philosophy of Utopian Pacifism be considered a disqualification for a defense analyst?

Mr. Arquilla somehow manages to overlook in his supine analysis the fact that Osama bin Laden and his confederates were responsible for the murder of more than 3000 innocent American civilians. There are no legitimate truces or negotiations after 9/11. The only conclusion to the current conflict acceptable to Americans ought to be the deaths of bin Laden and his terrorist associates.

Alexis Debat discusses that intriguing question:

Osama bin Laden’s tapes — like his operational directives — are hand carried from courier to courier in a long and intricate route that involves several dozen “runners.”

According to al Libbi, it takes six to 12 weeks of travel in the remote and inhospitable areas along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahri are still hiding. Based on this piece of intelligence, the Pakistani government succeeded in infiltrating parts of these courier networks in 2005.

But because of the extraordinary precautions taken by al Qaeda’s messengers, the Pakistanis were unable to trace them back to either Zawahri or bin Laden.

The system involves each courier hand delivering the tape or the written message to another courier or location without knowing the courier’s identity, the origin of the tape or message or its destination. It makes it almost impossible for intelligence agencies to roll up the entire network.

Some of these intermediaries are recruited among the thousands of travelling Muslim preachers who roam Pakistan’s tribal and northern areas, usually on foot.

Analysts believe this system is still in place today, and may span several countries. According to a senior Pakistani intelligence source, the latest tape was hand delivered by an anonymous source to al Jazeera’s Dubai bureau in the United Arab Emirates.

Hat tip to Andrew Cochran.

The same article in Counterterrorism Blog reveals that the supposedly “new” Zawahiri tape is a recycled older one. This fact provokes the suspicion that perhaps the CIA Predator strike might have really bagged Al Qaeda No. 2 after all, and efforts are being made to conceal the US success.

Andrew Cochran at the Counterterrorism Blog discusses news reports of a new Osama bin Laden tape broadcast by Al Jazeera offering a truce. If it really was bin Laden, this would be his first new broadcast since December 2004. He links also an Evan Kolhmann posting arguing against the likely veracity of the recent Michael Ledeen story of Osama’s death in December in Iran.

———————————————————-

Reuters reports that Major General Jay Hood, the US Guantanamo Bay commander, told the press yesterday that prisoners held at the US facility had provided important information on last summer’s UK bombings:

He said “a good, significant number” of mid-level al Qaeda associates were captured during the war in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo and had discussed men they knew or trained who may have since moved up in the hierarchy of the militant Islamist group.

“Who knows those people better than anyone else? The people that were training them, the people that were preparing them for future roles in that terrorist organization,” Hood said.

He said the Guantanamo prisoners learned about the London bombings shortly after they occurred, probably from visiting lawyers who are challenging their detention in the U.S. courts.

“Most of the information available to detainees comes to them from their contacts with legal counsel,” Hood said.

Michelle Malkin thinks these lawyers’ relationships with terrorist prisoners will bear watching, asking “How many of those lawyers are the next Lynne Stewarts?”

I was discussing the (indeterminate at this point) results of yesterday’s CIA attempt to nail al Qaeda number 2 man Ayman al-Zawahiri with a friend, who had not yet seen news of the previous day’s report by Michael Ledeen of the alleged death last month of Osama bin Laden. For his convenience, and those of any others who have not seen it, I am quoting, and linking, the story:

According to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden gave the world the most marvelous Christmas present he could possibly give by departing from it in mid-December. The Al Qaeda leader died of kidney failure and was buried in Iran, where he had spent most of his time since the destruction of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Iranians who reported this note that this year’s message in conjunction with the Moslem Haj came from his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for the first time.

Though the California Governator is not in-step with the European intelligentsia, Brendan O’Neill identifies someone who is (though he does seem to be a bit of a plagiarist):

How long before Osama bin Laden gets invited to something like the Edinburgh Book Festival, to rub shoulders with the likes of Julian Barnes, wolf down canapés and win polite applause from the chattering classes for his poetic ramblings?

One of his statements has already been published as a bona fide opinion piece in that liberal bible the Guardian (under the heading ‘Resist the new Rome’ in January 2004), and now there’s this new book from the leftish literary publishing house Verso. It’s a collection of bin Laden’s statements from 1994 to 2004 with a handsome and serious jacket cover and discoloured, raggedy-edged pages to give it the look and feel of an instant classic. Reviewers have fawned over its ‘magnificent, eloquent, at times even poetic Arabic prose’, and claim that it shows the ‘author’ bin Laden (he’s not really the author, being stuck in a cave and all and with few means to receive royalties) as a ‘charismatic man of action, an eloquent preacher, a teacher of literature and a resilient, cunning, wonderfully briefed politician’ (1).

If it were not for the fact that bin Laden is the most wanted man in the world, and a mass murderer, and possibly dead, and apparently painfully shy (but then, aren’t all great poets?), surely the book festival circuit would not be far behind. I can picture him in the Speakers’ Tent in Edinburgh, all ethnically coiffured and clutching a copy of this, his life’s work, surrounded by wide-eyed journalists inquiring about his writing style and what inspires him to put pen to paper.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.