Bill Clinton has revealed why the CIA scrapped a pre-9/11 mission to kill Osama bin Laden.
The former president, 80, told WABC’s Cats Roundtable show host John Catsimatidis this weekend that he had approved an operation to eliminate the Al-Qaeda leader years before the 2001 attacks, only for the agency to abandon it over fears of civilian casualties. Clinton appeared on the program as the nation marked the 25th anniversary of the terrorist strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Clinton recalled his exact location when the second plane struck the World Trade Center. “I was watching television and in Australia when the second plane hit,” he said in the radio interview. The former president added that he immediately suspected bin Laden was responsible.
The Arkansas Democrat traced the terrorist’s animosity toward the United States to the Soviet-Afghan War. “We had been working with him when he wanted to get the Russians out of Afghanistan,” Clinton explained. He continued that bin Laden “believed that he had to get all the infidels wherever they were from out of the, you know, what he hoped was his sphere of influence.”
The former president described bin Laden’s lethal determination. “They were willing to kill a lot of people to do it – and I always thought that. So I wanted to get him, and I did what I could to do that,” Clinton shared. He admitted to lingering regret about the outcome: “I wish we’d done even more to get him. I always thought he was our biggest threat.”
Clinton defended the CIA’s decision to call off the assassination attempt despite his own authorization. The agency abandoned the mission because “they were afraid that if they missed, they’d kill a lot of innocent civilians and they didn’t want to run the risk,” he disclosed. Clinton added that he did not second-guess their judgment at the time, though he concluded that bin Laden “was determined to do what he did and he had lots of money and lots of capacity.”
The former president also praised the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, who forced hijackers to crash the plane in a Pennsylvania field rather than reach its intended target. “The people in Shanksville, Pennsylvania deserve a lot of credit for bringing that plane down,” Clinton told Catsimatidis. He noted the sacrifice prevented a greater catastrophe, stating: “It was clearly meant to hit the Capitol or it would have been a lot worse.”
Looking ahead, Clinton warned that New York remains vulnerable to future attacks. “I think it’s entirely possible, and I think we have to stay on guard about that, and we have to make sure we’re getting all the intelligence we can on the issue, because I think there is a chance that that will happen,” he said. He expressed confidence in improved American preparedness while acknowledging persistent risk: “I think we’re much better prepared than we were – we’re much more likely to pick up on it than we were. But you only have to miss once, and then you’re screwed. So I think it’s just something that has to be a continuing part of our national security plan.”
The CIA has recently declassified dozens of presidential daily briefings related to bin Laden and Al-Qaeda from the period leading up to September 11, shedding new light on what intelligence officials knew about the emerging threat.