Former US President Bill Clinton
Because officials feared civilians could be killed if the operation failed, former US President Bill Clinton has revealed that the CIA abandoned a plan to take out Osama bin Laden before the September 11 attacks.
Speaking on WABC’s “Cats Roundtable” with host John Catsimatidis on Sunday, Clinton said he had authorised the CIA to target the al Qaeda leader and would have preferred to see him captured alive, although stopping him was the priority. Clinton said he was “scared” and angry when the agency called off the operation, which he believed could have succeeded. “But they were afraid that if they missed, they’d kill a lot of innocent civilians,” Clinton said. Clinton said his family was unable to reach their daughter as people in the area were instructed to leave and walk north. I immediately said that bin Laden did this,” Clinton recalled. He said bin Laden was among the few US adversaries he believed had both the motive and capability to carry out such an attack, adding that the al Qaeda leader had been planning an assault on American soil for years.
“They didn’t want to run the risk. “I was watching television in Australia when the second plane hit.