Bill Clinton says the CIA abandoned an operation against Osama bin Laden before the September 11 attacks because officials feared that a failed mission could kill innocent civilians.
The former US president discussed the operation during a September 13 interview on WABC’s “Cats Roundtable” with host John Catsimatidis. Clinton said he had authorized the CIA to go after bin Laden and would have preferred to capture him alive, but stopping him was the main goal.
Clinton said he was angry and frightened when the CIA decided not to proceed. In his account, the agency believed the operation could have succeeded but did not want to take the risk of killing civilians if the mission went wrong. He said he did not second-guess the decision at the time, although he later wished more had been done to stop bin Laden.
Clinton had already identified bin Laden as a serious threat during his presidency. The 9/11 Commission later documented several Clinton administration efforts to capture bin Laden and disrupt al Qaeda. It also found that there was disagreement and confusion within the US government over exactly how far the CIA’s authorization to use lethal force went.
Clinton also recalled the morning of September 11, 2001, when he was in Australia. He said he immediately suspected bin Laden after watching the second plane hit the World Trade Center in New York.
His concern was also personal. Clinton said his daughter was in Lower Manhattan that morning and that the family struggled to contact her as people were being told to leave the area and move north.
Clinton said he believed bin Laden had the money, people and ability to carry out a major attack on the United States. He also said he had long believed that bin Laden was planning to strike the country.
Bin Laden remained a target of the United States after the 9/11 attacks. Nearly a decade later, US Navy SEALs killed him during a secret operation at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, during President Barack Obama’s administration.
During the interview, Clinton also said another terrorist attack on New York remains possible. He argued that the United States is better prepared than it was before September 11, but warned that intelligence agencies and national security officials still need to remain alert.
Clinton’s latest comments offer his personal account of one of the difficult decisions surrounding the US pursuit of bin Laden before 9/11. The historical record shows that US officials were already deeply concerned about bin Laden and al Qaeda before the attacks, but the plans to capture or kill him faced serious operational and legal difficulties.
