Hank Crumpton, a
former CIA officer and top counterterrorism official, said in a recent interview
that President Bill Clinton's White House missed a golden opportunity to take
out Osama bin Laden in 1999.
Bin Laden was in
Afghanistan in 1999, Crumpton told CBS's "60 Minutes" in a segment that aired on
Sunday. His convoy had been clearly identified by an early edition Predator
drone, which at the time didn't have weapons capabilities.
"We saw a
security detail, a convoy, and we saw bin Laden exit the vehicle, clearly,"
Crumpton told CBS's Lara Logan, describing aerial images captured by a drone
flying somewhere outside of Kandahar. "The optics were spot in, it was beaming
back to us, CIA headquarters. We immediately alerted the White House, and the
Clinton administration's response was, 'Well, it will take several hours for the
TLAMs, the cruise missiles launched from submarines, to reach that objective.
So, you need to tell us where bin Laden will be five or six hours from now.' The
frustration was enormous."
The
administration also denied the CIA's request to engage their on-ground forces,
Crumpton said, which could have acted more quickly. The missed opportunity led
the CIA to speed the process of arming the unmanned drones with Hellfire
missiles, so that they could act more swiftly if they found bin Laden again.
Huffington Post
Clinton has been
criticized for a supposed failure to seize opportunities to kill bin Laden on
multiple occasions. A 9/11 commission report, which brought the original release
of the drone footage that Crumpton is referring to, led to accusations from
Clinton's opponents that he had neglected to act despite a wealth of convincing
intelligence. Huffington Post Bin Laden would
go on to help facilitate the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and evade capture until
last year, when he was allegedly shot several times by Navy SEALs during a raid
on his compound in Pakistan. Crumpton said that a drone never got another clear
look at him, despite their increasing prevalence. Raw
Story The first
Predator drone to be weaponized with Hellfire missiles was tested in February
2001, according to George Washington University's International Affairs Review.
The Obama administration has used drone aircraft to bomb more targets than his
predecessor, President George W. Bush, and his top advisers feel that using
drones is more humane than sending soldiers into a remote part of the world to
needlessly risk their lives. Raw Story
SM/KA
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