Customer Reviews

Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(51)

 

 

Here's a list of the reasons this book is simply outstanding:

1. It has the goods on what Clinton did and didn't do from Clinton's own people. High-level, in the Situation Room kinds of people.
2. It has the goods on what Clinton did and didn't do from court records, government documents, and extensive research.
3. It has the goods on what Clinton did and didn't do from the CIA and the FBI. Even from foreign intelligence services that were involved!
4. It's fair. It really is. The author actually tells you the things Clinton got right, even though there are very very few of them. But you can't blame the author that there are so few things Clinton did right! But the fact that it's fair makes the failures even more powerful.
5. It's a serious piece of work. Lots of fact and little opinion. That's the way indictments should be.
6. It deals head-on with the "Reagan/CIA created bin Laden myth," and debunks it. (That's for all the reviewers pretending to have read the book who complain the book doesn't deal with that issue.)
7. You learn alot about how all the pieces fit together right up to the Oval Office.
8. It's a page-turning read.
9. It's suspenseful.
10. It has fascinating characters.
11. And the final reason that it's outstanding is that it's got the Clinton lovers running scared for all the reasons above.

P.S. If you want a test for someone who didn't read the book writing a review, just look for the words "polemic," "rant," "boring," "screed," "badly researched," etc. You get the picture

In this book, investigative journalist Richard Miniter looks at the activities of terrorist Osama bin Laden during the tenure of the Clinton administration, and looks at the administration's responses. Every terrorist attack, from the 1992 bombing at the Aden Hotel in Yemen, to the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, is covered in fascinating detail. Along the way, the reader is treated to a great deal of information about the roots of the present "War on Terror."

This book is somewhat hard to review. Starting with the introduction, the author seems to make it clear that he had intended this book to be a resounding indictment of President Clinton, and balance was not what he was aiming for. However, that said, I did find this book to be a fascinating resource on the pre-911 activities of Osama bin Laden. I did not realize how much there was to know about what Bin Laden had been up to, and am quite glad that I read this book.

Yes, supporters of the Clinton administration will find this book too unbalanced to enjoy, whereas opponents of the previous president will relish it. But, for anyone who is simply interested in the pre-911 activities of Osama bin Laden, I would recommend this as a fascinating resource.

This book honestly examines why we are where we are today as far as terrorism is concerned.

History is 20/20 hindsight and the author, Richard Miniter, pieces together information from all sides, including interviews from individuals from both parties - democrat and republican - as well as loads of documents from international sources.

This book about a President focused on domestic issues while the rest of the world focused on "going global." This book examines the fact that we could have stopped bin Laden if we had listened to Sudan, but we didn't. Even after our embassies in Africa blew up, the Sudanese continued to try, but our intelligence organizations failed time and time again. And it was those agencies who briefed Clinton.

The title may focus on Clinton alone, because "the buck stops (t)here" but the book explores the hows and whys this system failure happened.

"Losing bin Laden" is well worth reading no matter who you are if we want to make sure these things never happen again.

This book is something of a tribute to those who lost their lives on 9-11. We should not forget them or why they died.

The book is an excellent read as far as outlining the recent history of Global Terrorism, but it cannot all be placed at President Clinton's door either. Although I found this book to be a compelling indictment on President Clinton's mistakes in Foreign Policy, I feel it is just as unfair to try to lynch him over the failure to capture or kill Bin Laden too.

As I read it, I had to recall all the Presidents who have made critical, expensive, and devastating errors in American Foreign Policy costing Americans lives and trillions in dollars. All American Foreign Policies have never-ending legacies of well intentional protections of our nation and citizens in the name of the pursuit of power.

These policies date back to the very founding of our continent and can change into blunders, triumphs and vice versa.

A Young George Washington was not perfect when he actually started the French and Indian War by attacking the Half-Brother of Fort Duquesne Commander when he was sent to only give a message. President Andrew Jackson sent Davy Crockett and Sam Houston to Texas to support Texas Independence. Franklin Roosevelt War Department had cables from coded messages saying Pearl Harbor was a target. Harry Truman put the first US Advisors in Vietnam along with $10 Million in Aid to help the French to keep colonialism.

All blunders that hurt Americans, yet at the same time made us stronger in the future, and sometimes became burdens. Americans often make gaffe when we confront the blowbacks or enemies of our own creation or simply do not stand up to bullies eventually. Presidents often inherit problems caused by other Presidents too.

Thus, often it takes the mistakes of one President to solve threats to American Interests over time and Clinton should be held to no higher standard than other Presidents should. After all, Saudi Arabian Whabbism started back in 1870, flourished in 1920, and started to export its hate way back in 1970's to today. Should we hold all those Presidents accountable for a failure to face a future threat that started over 100 years ago?

I am not holding President Clinton blameless for errors in judgment. Nevertheless, I disagree that the Clinton Administration knew bin Laden was as a national security threat since such action often rally radicals to their cause by shining attention on them. Upon hindsight, sure, it was slip-up not to do it, but you have judged President Clinton on the threat level against America at the time, not after 911.

President Reagan was guilty of the same offenses President Clinton is being held accountable in this book. He too sent troops to Lebanon an over 200 of them died in a suicide attack and we left Lebanon. Did we not aid and arm Iraq when they needed our support against Iran in the 1980's? Did we not support the Taliban in Afghanistan when they were fighting the Russians? If the 1993 World Trade Center attack happen just a few months into Clinton Presidency do, we blame President George Bush Father for not seeing that threat too in the early 1990's.

What I found to be very good in this book was the information to learn from our President's faux pas not just dwelling on them. We now know we can learn from all of them too. We should credit President Clinton who began having the FBI playing a more important role in fighting terrorism. The book does offer documents showing how Clinton considers the early bombings as a matter for a FBI investigation, thus preparing that agency for future interaction with terrorism. Today, the FBI, CIA, and Department of Homeland Security have learned from past miscues together.

As the book points out, the real enemy is bin Laden who is taking lives instead of helping others live and prosper. The book will make others come to their own conclusions too and I highly recommend it with a wary eye in judging all our Presidents. Terrorism did not start with President Clinton and he need be judged only on what he knew and could do at the time.

This book documents how the indecisive Clinton administration missed numerous chances to capture or kill Bin Laden and severely damage or destroy his terror organization. It also shows how Clinton's decision, backed by his top advisors who were all lawyers, to deal with Bin Laden as a legal/law enforcement problem rather than a foreign intelligence/military problem was a major factor in missing foreign intelligence about Bin Laden and in squandering opportunities for capturing or killing Bin Laden. Also, indecision and endless debate and counterdebate caused the Administration to miss, ignore, or misinterpret opportunities to capture Bin Laden from Sudanese authorities.

From the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 to the USS Cole in 2000, this book shows how Bin Laden and his terrorists were embolden because the US did not overwhelmingly retaliate. After the attack on the USS Cole, the Clinton administration developed plans to eliminate Bin Laden, which in retrospect seemed very likely to succeed, but in the end the political risks deterred the poll-driven Clinton from acting. Clinton has said the failure to capture or kill Bin Laden was the biggest failure of his presidency. How right he was. How different the world may have been if he had captured or kill Bin Laden.

The final chapter is about the attack on the USS Cole. It documents how Clinton's advisors debated and counter-debated whether the US should respond militarily to the attack. Michael Sheenan, former State Department counterterrorism coordinator, was exasperated and baffled by the 7-to-1 vote by Clinton's national security advisors not to retaliate and by the Defense Department's conclusion that our ships just needed better protection. This frustrated advisor was prophetic when he stated: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"

The appendix documents the connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda is good, but the Iraqi-Al Qaeda connection is more fully described in "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America" by Yossef Bodansky.

Imagine what happens when a few good breaks and infinite shoe leather let you start interviewing members of the intelligence services of African, Middle Eastern, and some European countries, and they let you copy the files the CIA sent them, and they show you the files they sent the CIA, and the same disastrous patterns of cluelessness and incompetence by the architects of American foreign policy show up again and again. The foreigners agree to talk because they are as dumfounded as you are. Then, more amazingly, the key players in Washington confirm everything themselves in on-record interviews. This meticulously researched, amply documented, and tightly written account of 12 botched opportunities to stop bin Laden is must reading for all Americans.

The author, Richard Miniter, provides a fair treatment of the Clinton adminstration's lack of going after terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and lays out his case in a 241-page book, entitled "Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror." The title is a bit of a stretch, since President Clinton alone cannot be blamed for what happened on 9/11/01. But according to his ex-advisor, Dick Morris, Mr. Clinton never wanted to lead the charge to bring bin Laden and his Islamofascist minions to justice because he was acutely aware of how the American public would perceive his use of the military, and even refusing a Sudanese offer to take bin Laden into custody because of a short-sighted belief that there was nothing to pin on the Saudi-born terrorist. Miniter disagrees with this inaction.

Though it is true that Regnery Publishing is responsible for releasing Miniter's book, and therefore making those who lean left in the political spectrum naturally leery of reading it, this reviewer believes that Miniter treats the administration fairly; for instance, he refutes the long-held belief by those on the right that President Clinton ordered a retaliatory strike on Sudan to deflect his oncoming domestic problem due to the Lewinsky affair; Miniter notes that Clinton's order to strike bin Laden's headquarters and the Sudan was given immediately, even as he was aware the House could vote to impeach him for a variety of reasons.

Miniter does, in fact, argue that Mr. Clinton knew full well that something had to be done to counter the mounting terrorist attacks, and he had done some things...just not enough of them and often not the right amount. The author lays out the events chronologically to give the reader the right historical perspective. Whenever certain news items were found to be incorrect, Miniter clarifies them in his notes section, which is copious and quite helpful.

Miniter notes that a large problem in fighting the fledgling War on Terror had been also directly attributable to the lack of dialogue and sharing of intelligence between the NSA, the CIA, and the F.B.I., not even figuring in the gridlock common between the administration and the three bureaus. The author is quick to note that Clinton was not often eager to discuss possible threats to national security with his bureau chiefs. Interviews with National Security Advisor and former N.S.A. Tony Lake, along with those of Counter-Terrorism czar Richard Clarke go a long way in helping the reader to form his/her own opinion.

While this reviewer is inclined to believe, based on abundant evidence presented in this book and many others, that the Clinton Administration is found wanting when it comes to aggressively fighting the Islamic terror threat, one will come to realize that mistakes were made in previous administrations too. But Mr. Clinton had an opportunity to strengthen his presidential legacy by campaigning aggressively against bin Laden & Co., but squandered numerous chances to do so. Even Clinton supporter, Mansoor Ijaz, who was used by the administration as an unofficial diplomat to bring Sudan's intelligence files to Mr. Clinton's attention, could tell of the disappointments he encountered in dealing with Berger and the rest of the administration hacks.

This reviewer found this book to be a great read, engaging and thought-provoking to the max. It contains 28 pages (in Appendix B) of passports and intelligence files that the Sudanese government had offered gratis in an attempt to clean up its image and gain the trust of the administration, according to Miniter. As one reviewer also noted, it does read like a Tom Clancy novel; meaning, it is not dry reading in the least. My only caveat would be that it needed to focus a chapter or two more on the moribund tactics of the aformentioned national-security bureaus, as much as on those presented of the Clinton Administration.

Reading this book left me with 3 distinct impressions:
1) The author is not great at the craft of writing, but this isn't of prime importance in a research text. It just makes it unpleasant to read.

2) There is a lot of musing about what Clinton might have been thinking at various times. This is exceptionally vague and unsupportable for a history/research book and it sometimes wanders into the realm of Monica Lewinski fantasy, but only lightly.

3) The author seems to be giving offhanded slams to Bush (W). He frequently refers to ineffective missile strikes on Bin Laden by Clinton with terms like "empty gesture." It happens enough that it seems to be alluding to Bush's frequent bombings of empty caves in Afghanistan and empty buildings in Iraq. It is confusing coming from a purportedly rightward leaner, and is a bit out of line to undermine a sitting president this way. It think he should save it for a later book.

The author does a great job in connecting the dots. He does not hold Clinton responsible for the first attack on the WTC but rather holds him responsible for the politically correct, flacid response to a near disaster. The author continues to develop events here and overseas into a pattern where the US response to Bin Laden's ever more aggessive attacks only encouraged further attacks.

The problem is not just Bill Clinton but the rather the team he brought and the culture he initiated in DC. As the author documents, there were multiple opportunites to get inside the 9-11 plot and Bin Laden , but many were overlooked, killed by the Justice Dept under Reno's dictatorship or stalled.

The State Department's opposition to adequate support for the troops in Somalia lead to the disaster. For those who believe the presence of the requested AC-130 gunships would not have altered the battle they might look to see who won the Collier trophy last year - the crew of one gunship which fought off a large force of Taliban/Bin Landen troops to save vastly outnumbered special forces in Afganistan.

Those who doubt the author's conclusions might also look to the written comments of Dick Morris in his columns or Dereliction of Duty which also documents Clinton's lack of focus.

There is also the written documentation from the FBI offices asking only that HQ allow them to follow up on leads and offering the comment that someone will die if they are ignored. The chokepoint was not in the field offices of the CIA/FBI/DOD but rather in DC where Clinton's people ruled.

Finally, in the organized group of negative posters there is a fixation on holding Reagan/Bush responsible for Bin Laden. If this is so ( in the beginning) then they need to give Reagan/ bush credit for the defeat of the Soviet Army in Afganistan, something they have been very reluctant to do. It was this defeat which played a major role in convincing the world that the often proclaimed manifest destiny of Communism was a hollow promise/threat. Furthermore, it ignores the reality that leaders of countries and movements change. Many in the State Department supported Mao but none have stepped forward to accept responsibility for the 30 million or so innocent citizens who died at his hand.

In summary - a very readable book which will help to understand many of the pieces of the puzzle as they unfold.

Highly recommended
Most of the one and two star reviews start off with the premise that the author or publisher is only interested in trashing the Clinton legacy. It is painfully obvious that most of these posters have NOT read the book.

Miniter's outstanding book is a masterpiece. It keeps the reader completely engaged as it reveals the truth behind Clinton's failure to apprehend Bin Laden and prevent the attacks of 9/11.

I have read many books on this subject and cannot recommend this one highly enough. From the first page it is impossible to put down this gripping account of history.