February 25, 2004

While al Qaeda Planned, The Clinton Administration Snoozed

Neal Boortz is jumping all over the Clinton administration today for its failure to follow up on intelligence info that could have prevented the September 11 terror attack.

Boortz:

We all know that President Clinton turned down an offer from the Sudan to hand over Osama Bin Laden outright. As if that weren't enough, there's more news that the Clinton administration looked the other way when it came to terrorists. Gee ... thanks for nothing, Bill.

The federal commission investigating the 9/11 attacks is looking at whether the United States failed to track one of the hijackers after obtaining his information more than two years before September 11, 2001.

The New York Times quoted German intelligence officials who said that in March of 1999 they gave the CIA the name and phone number of Marwan al-Shehhi, and asked America to track him. The Germans never heard back from the U.S. until after 9/11. How nice ... just a little late, don't you think?

Our Washington correspondent Jamie Dupree says that the Germans only provided a first name, and the phone number was in the Middle East. If so .. admittedly that didn't give our spooks much to go on ... but we've done great things with less information in the past.

Turns out Al-Shehhi was a member of the al-Qaida cell in Hamburg, Germany and was the roommate of 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta. Ah-Shehhi flew United Airlines Flight 175 into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Had this terrorist been properly tracked, his cell may have been exposed and al-Qaida's cell interrupted.

It's impossible to know what might or might not have happened. One fact, however, remains crystal clear. The last time the Democrats occupied the White House and were in charge of the war on terror, they failed us miserably. Are you prepared to let that happen again?