Disney's Dubious Path to 9/11

[Scrooge McSam]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

... likely had a cumulative downward pressure on the willingness to use violence against bin Laden. The four factors are:

1) The apparent failure of the missile strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan to accomplish anything of significance.
2) The "wag the dog" stories in the press and the Republicans. This is the idea that aggressive acts by Clinton were to distract the nation from his Lewinsky problems. The report does not say that they were intended to distract just that the idea that they were caused problems for the Clinton administration.
3) Intense partisanship (that is, any action, regardless of merit, resulted in bickering)
4) The apparent evidence that the strike in Sudan had been on a non-threatening site.

I don't know how exactly it is presented in the movie. The report also notes that Tenet and Berger testified that they didn't feel contrained by these things. But the report does explicitly contradict that claim.

No sir... it does not.

In the paragraph directly above the one you cite...

Everyone involved in the decision had, of course, been aware of President Clinton's problems. He told them to ignore them. Berger recalled the President saying to him "that they are going to get crap either way, so they should do the right thing." All his aides testified to us that they based their advice solely on national security considerations. We have found no reason to question their statements.

The passage you cite specifically mentions "willingness to use violence".

[Alex]

And it says those thing affected their willingness to use violence.

Like I said, I don't know how the ABC show presents it so I don't know how at odds it is with what the report says:

The report says the Clinton people say they weren't constrained by Clinton but that a non-explicit cumulative effect likely was there.

The report says there is no reason to believe that they were ever explicitly constrained because of these things.

You can disagree with the conclusion but it is still there in the report. So, just to put it together:

Everyone involved in the decision had, of course, been aware of President Clinton's problems. He told them to ignore them. Berger recalled the President saying to him "that they are going to get crap either way, so they should do the right thing." All his aides testified to us that they based their advice solely on national security considerations. We have found no reason to question their statements.

The failure of the strikes, the "wag the dog" slur, the intense partisanship of the period, and the nature of the al Shifa evidence likely had a cumulative effect on future decisions about the use of force against Bin Laden. Berger told us that he did not feel any sense of constraint."

You asked for a page cite for the quote you offered. That is what I was giving. I do not think it supports what exactly is said in the quote but it does appear to be the source for that statement and does support the idea that the 9/11 commission believes the Lewinsky affair had some impact on how the Clinton administration was willing to act.

Again, I don't know how the show actually represents this.

Hell, it makes perfect sense to me. Clinton was in an environment where every form of aggressive policy action on his part was used as a bludgeon against him. It is only reasonable, especially for a poll-driven political organization like the Clinton White House that this would cause some trepidation but additional such actions.

Of course, if I were to blame someone as a result of this it wouldn't be to blame Clinton (asking a politician to not be political is stupid) but rather on the Republicans for being stupid and creating such a vitriolic atmosphere.

I personally believe that if Clinton had killed Bin Laden in 1997 it would today be used as an exmaple of misuse of American military power. Only in the hindsight of 9/11 are we willing to have endorsed any violent means necessary to have killed the man.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

.

Hell, it makes perfect sense to me. Clinton was in an environment where every form of aggressive policy action on his part was used as a bludgeon against him. It is only reasonable, especially for a poll-driven political organization like the Clinton White House that this would cause some trepidation but additional such actions.

If only we had a President who just did his job and followed his beliefs no matter what the polls said....

[Alex]

I don't think ignoring polls is necessarily better (we tend to want politicians to be poll driven when we disagree with them and to be staunch supporters of their own opinion when we agree with them). Nor do I think that Bush is one who ignores the polls, there are just institutional factors that pretty much force the president to continue misdirected policies even once they become obvious failures.