The Clinton Commandos Swing Into Defense Mode Over “The Path to 9/11”

 By

Barbara J. Stock

The American Broadcasting Company has done the unthinkable.  It has made a movie that will not make Bill Clinton look like a compilation of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and Gandhi.  Madeleine Albright will not be portrayed as Margaret Thatcher with the wisdom of Mother Teresa.   

It is unlikely that the viewing audience will see Sandy Berger secrete any documents into his pants or socks.  Hillary Rodham Clinton will not be cleaning any closets in the White House and discovering missing papers.  Richard Clarke will not be seen as the silver-haired hero who saves the day.   

No, Americans will see a docudrama, “The Path to 9/11,” spread out over two nights with a speech from the present president stuck right in the middle of it all.  That is, unless ABC, fearing the Democratic machine in the Senate might pull its broadcast license and takes its 40 million dollar endeavor off the air.  It is an endeavor made even more expensive because it is being shown without interruption or commercials.  Apparently at some point, ABC felt this broadcast was so important that interruptions would be to distracting and disrespectful of the topic.  

As a brief refresher course in history for those too young to remember, Nixon was vilified for threatening the broadcast media and called several unpleasant names by the political party now doing the very same thing to ABC.  

Robert A. Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, the parent company of ABC, has been besieged with letters, phone calls, threats, and demands from Clintonites that the movie either be altered or not shown at all.  One has to wonder how worried these howling liberals really are about Americans knowing the truth.   

There is a sort of “ballet” going on with the liberal politicians and it is filled from beginning to end with denials, pointing fingers, and complete shifting of blame—always to someone lower in the pecking order.   

Here is a perfect example of how blame is shifted so that the political players can claim innocence.   

In the movie, Secretary of State Albright is reportedly challenged by George Tenet, head of the Central Intelligence Agency when he realized that Pakistan, then friendly to the Taliban and bin Laden, was given a warning that cruise missiles would be crossing their air space in an attempt to strike bin Laden.  Albright apparently snaps back that the “Pakistanis had to be warned!”  Ms. Albright claims that she never called the Pakistani government, “some military guy” did.

She is probably telling the truth.  But to say “some military guy” made the call is deceiving.  Wondering if even a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would have such unilateral power to make such a call without direction from someone in the White House, I put the question to a retired Army Colonel.  This man spent over 25 years as a military lawyer and then, a Judge Advocate, with some of that time at the Pentagon.   His response was a resounding, “NO.”  But, playing the political game, someone like Ms. Albright would ask a general for his advice on the matter.  If that general says a country must be warned that American missiles will be passing through its air space, then Ms. Albright is covered.  All she has to do is give HIM the order to make the call.  She is now in the clear and can blame, “…some military guy” for making the call.  That “military guy” is helpless to defend himself because he is not allowed to speak out against a superior.   

Of course, if you are going to put missiles into another country’s air space, that country must be warned.  In this case, those missiles could have been mistaken for missiles from India which is an enemy of Pakistan and the result could be a disastrous war.  However, timing was everything.  Perhaps, had Bill Clinton made the call to Pakistan after the missiles were in the air, Pakistan would not have had time to warn bin Laden as they did, and at the same time Pakistan would have known that the missiles were not from India.  Why was such an important task relegated to “some military guy?” 

There have been advisors overseeing this production for authenticity.  Thomas H. Kean, who chaired the 9/11 Commission, was asked to be a co-executive producer on the film.  This was done because the movie leaned heavily on the commission’s report as a resource.   

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, a military aide to then President Clinton, states that he witnessed several opportunities to “get bin Laden” which were missed due to the indecision of the president.  In fact, Patterson’s book, “Dereliction of Duty” was one of the sources for “The Path to 9/11.” 

A copy of the movie was sent to Patterson to watch and he was asked to correct any inaccuracies that he saw.  While he said he realized some conversations and events had to be compressed for time’s sake, the constant mishandling of the several opportunities Clinton had to kill Osama bin Laden is “100% factually correct.” 

The bottom line isn’t if Albright made a phone call to Pakistan herself or ordered someone else to do it, the call was made too early and bin Laden was lost. 

The movie has a scene where National Security Advisor Sandy Berger refuses to give permission to a group of CIA agents and Northern Alliance men to capture or kill bin Laden.   Berger yells, “I don’t have that authority.”  But in reality, states Paterson, Berger was frustrated time and time again because he could not get the indecisive President Clinton to make a decision.  One such incident involved a two-hour window to make the decision.  Clinton refused to give Berger an answer, stating he needed more time. 

What this movie has done is take several missed opportunities and condensed them into one.  Did Berger slam a phone down?  Probably not, and does anyone really care?  Did Bill Clinton refuse to make important decisions leaving everyone frustrated and angry and bin Laden alive and well?  It seems that he did and that is the important message. 

I suspect that had Bill Clinton moved as fast to kill bin Laden as he has to block this movie, bin Laden would be long dead.  That is no guarantee that the attack on 9/11 would not have happened, but we will never know.  It’s time that Clinton and his minions face up to the fact that constant indecision, distractions, weakness, and poor leadership allowed bin Laden to live, thrive, and become a legend and hero when he successfully carried out the attack on 9/11 and killed nearly 3000 Americans.   

As to this movie, it is just a movie, nothing more.  Bill Clinton’s threats and protests have made it larger than life and his protests far too loud not to make people wonder just what is in it that he doesn’t want known.  I guess we will have to watch it and find out.