Clinton's anti-terrorist performance; commentary from the front

[frogcycle]

Dennis Hastert is Playing Politics With Terrorism, Again.
Submitted by john on Tue, 09/26/2006 - 4:32pm.

I started writing this Blog after I watched Bill Clinton defend his record on terrorism. I did not know that the same week would also bring America the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report and an attempt by Dennis Hastert to silence the debate on terrorism in Congress.

Terrorism is a serious and growing problem and it is an American issue, not a political issue. Congress should make the NIE report a top priority before they adjourn this fall. But according to Hastert’s spokesperson, Ron Bonjean, Congress should not have any oversight.

In a letter to Dennis Hastert, Nancy Pelosi wrote:

"We therefore call on you to direct the committees of jurisdiction to hold immediate oversight hearings this week and next on the new National Intelligence Estimate and its ramifications for U.S. policy."

According to CNN.com, Bonjean responded to Pelosi:

"Democrats calling for terrorism hearings will only lead America to conclude that Democrats have not done enough to help Republicans fight terrorism,"

This is exactly how Republicans politicized the debate in 1998 when Bill Clinton first went after Usama Bin Laden – read on to get an eye witness account of Operation Infinite Reach.

I will never forget the day that two bombs exploded at U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August of 1998.



The blasts killed more Africans than they did Americans, but the message was clearly from Usama Bin Laden and directed towards the United States and "United States sympathizers."

By 1998, I had become the leader of our small Crisis Action Team at COMUSNAVCENT (forward deployment of CENTCOM), based in Bahrain. Following the bombings, our office churned with activity for the next few days while local analysts worked with counterterrorism experts in Washington D.C. to figure out, "who done it?"

On August 16, a lazy Sunday afternoon, one of the watch floor analysts showed up at my apartment for a short conversation. “We’re sharpening our missiles and the N2 has a project for you," she said.

I knew that we had received orders from Washington and it didn’t take me long to make my way to the military base.

Clinton Attacked Bin Laden - Republicans cried, “Wag the dog."
My first job was to make sure that a cruise missile route from a sea-based platform would have clear sailing over Pakistan and all the way to Afghanistan.

It was an easy task because the Pakistani’s don’t have a solid air defense network. By the 1800 briefing time, I had completed my first pre-mission assignment and sat back while the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, ONI and a long list of other intel/ops types worked out a plan via VTC. By the way, this is what they call joint warfare – intelligence agencies sharing information to complete a mission.

During the strategy session, it was decided that we would scratch one of the economic targets, a tannery, from the hit list. Two destinations were selected for cruise missiles. We went after Bin Laden himself by striking multiple terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and the second target in Sudan, a pharmaceutical plant, was targeted to take out one of Bin Laden’s sources of income.

After the VTC meeting, the N2, Capt. Mike Noll, (you can see a letter of recommendation here) laid out a list of things to do for the rest of the NAVCENT staff.

My job was to analyze the post-strike reaction from all of the other AOR (Area of Responsibility) countries.

On August 20, 1998, cruise missiles pummeled terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. The strike was largely successful, but we missed Bin Laden.

Bin Laden dropped off of the radar screen following the attack and analysts continued to speculate about his whereabouts. Days later we learned that Bin Laden had probably escaped one of the camps with about 20 minutes to spare. Please keep in mind that the credibility of these sources is often difficult to evaluate, but we know for a fact that Bin Laden disappeared from all "chatter."

Back to Post Strike
In addition to compiling all of the Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) reports and briefing slides, I was tasked with evaluating the international response to the strikes.
I was shocked to learn that some daring Republicans all cried, "wag the dog," implying that the strike was a diversion from the Lewinsky scandal. Of course this fueled speculation in the international community and my job was fairly easy.

My post-strike analysis of other countries’ reactions to Operation Infinite Reach was, "wag the dog." The Republican Congress played politics with terrorism because throwing mud at Clinton was more important than protecting our country.

I am dying to know where these bold Republicans are now hiding. I did think that these "wag the dog" claims reflected amazing levels of ignorance by elected officials, but I didn’t think in political terms those days.

Now that I am a candidate, I understand how political messaging works and I think that it is pretty sad that people are willing to silence an honest debate on Iraq during the election cycle.

How did Clinton Crack Down on Terrorism?

1996 I arrived in Bahrain shortly before the Khobar Tower bombings in 1996. This was one of the first terrorist attacks on a U.S. military facility that killed U.S. servicemen and women; 19 to be exact.

The bomb was so powerful that we felt it across the bridge in Bahrain. My first operation stemmed from this event and my experience with terrorism grew.

In response to Khobar Towers, Clinton responded by putting FBI agents on the ground in Saudi Arabia and other things that I can not talk about. Additionally, we saw concrete barricades go up around our base and more Marines were added to the force protection unit. All military bases overseas saw similar changes.

1998 In 1998, Bin Laden took out an advertisement in the local newspaper, claiming that he would attack Americans in nightclubs.

Clinton responded by putting our base on "lockdown" and teams of analysts poured into the little island. Soldiers were not allowed to visit bars or nightclubs and greater force protection measures were taken. By now the intelligence community was starting to really understand just how well networked Al Qaeda was. Bin Laden had declared a Jihad (holy war) and the network was starting to move against the United States.

In response, the United States added new analysts to the growing terrorism threat and for the first time, our office put together a wall-size diagram that connected terrorists links and nodes. The network was expansive and touched every continent.

Next came the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania – see above.

These things all happened on Bill Clinton’s watch.

I departed the Arabian Gulf region in 1999 just prior to the bombing of the USS Cole. I was in Bethesda Naval Hospital (the best socialized medicine in the world) recovering from my second knee surgery when the Cole was bombed.

I want to underscore that I was an Iranian analyst instead of a counterterrorism analyst. However, as a key member, and later leader of the Crisis Action Team we responded to every crisis that came into the CENTCOM AOR.

Please take note of a significant difference between Clinton and Bush.

Terrorists attack on Clinton’s Watch and Clinton uses a measured response and greater force protection of U.S. military facilities and embassies.

Terrorists attack on Bush’s watch and Bush ignores the culprit, ignores border security, sells our ports to Dubai and attacks Iraq.

And now a non-partisan report claims that Iraq has grown the terrorist threat and the Republican Congress refuses to debate the issue and seek solutions.

I am here to say that the first step to winning the war on terror is getting out of Iraq. I do not need to see the NIE report; I have been saying this all along.

Because George Bush has been a diplomatic failure, it is time to transfer peacekeeping duties over to the international community, get our troops out of Iraq, stop building permanent military bases in Iraq, stop playing world dictator and start rebuilding our own democratic form of government!

Respectfully,
John Laesch