America At War:
The Covert Hunt for bin Laden
With Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, Dec. 21, 2001; Noon EST

Long before Sept. 11, the U.S. began its "war on terrorism" -- or more specifically, its war on certain terrorists. During the last two years of his administration, President Clinton not only issued a "finding" approving covert action, but he also authorized killing rather than capturing Osama bin Laden, as well as several al Qaeda lieutenants. In addition to other activities, CIA recruited, trained, paid or equipped surrogate forces in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden.

Washington Post staff writer Barton Gellman chronicled the U.S.'s pursuit of bin Laden in a two-part series, "The Covert Hunt for bin Laden," this week. He was online to talk about it on Friday, Dec. 21.

The transcript follows.

Gellman worked on the Pentagon beat a month during the Persian Gulf War, and in the Jerusalem bureau from 1994-97. He was The Post's diplomatic correspondent from 1998-99, and currently works on special projects in the newspaper's New York bureau.

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Folsom, Calif.: Barton,

This article appeared to be a well-written excuse for the inaction and lack of leadership during the Clinton years. The complaints of how aides and Clinton "tried to" do this and that ring hollow. Blaming a lack of results on bureaucracy, flaunting increases in spending, and pointing out a few speaches where Clinton talked about terrorism are the usual Clinton spin tactics to deflect criticism of ineptitude.

If Clinton took the deaths of Americans in Africa, Saudi Arabia and on the USS Cole seriously, then shouldn't he have provided the leadership necessary to CREATE the political will and justification for eliminating the terrorist network through ALL means necessary?

Barton Gellman: I've had a ton of email along these lines, much of it less polite. Feelings run so strong on Clinton, pro or con, that a lot of readers experience my stories as debater's briefs for or against their own ideas of the man. So my correspondents accuse me of rehabilitating Clinton in craven disregard for the facts, or denounce me for criticizing his failure to make terror a top priority, or praise me for being the lone voice of one or the other, etc.

These are silly caricatures. Anyone who implies I shaded my stories with a political agenda should understand that this accuses me of an egregious breach of my obligations. It is wrong, and bluntly, I resent it.

You can argue Clinton's performance round or flat. I doubt that anyone involved in this problem before Sept. 11 can escape soul searching. But I tried to show with careful attention to all the evidence that the last administration did more than its predecessors. I also showed where they chose not to take the hardest steps. Your views on this might want to take account of the fact that the boundaries Clinton set remained the same in President Bush's first eight months.

Marco Island, Fla.: Were you approached by persons representing Bill Clinton and fed information to help rehabilitate his image? Are you the first installment of the spin that will be coming from the clintonites to distorte, embellish and twist the facts to make clinton looking like he was actually doing something during his administration then selfishly only caring about Bill Clinton?

Barton Gellman: The Washington Post initiated this series. The object was to look back and find the back story on a war that is foremost on everyone's mind today. What was happening before we started paying so much attention?

Sourcing on the story included Clinton's political appointees, career offiicals who remain in office, and political appointees of the Bush administration. The Clinton people took a long time to decide to cooperate, as did everyone else. It's a sensitive subject and I was looking to disclose information that had been closely protected.

If you believe I have distorted or embellished facts, you might try to show where they are in error or provide evidence for something important that's missing.

Boston, Mass.: Barton, I thought that your articles were very well done. There seems to be a lot of finger pointing in the press on the what Clinton did or did not do. In my opinion he could not have gone after Bin Laden as Bush has without a horrific incident. Also, why has there been no mention of the Bush administration ignoring the Hart-Rudman Commission report in May that stated that we were vulnerable to an attack.

Barton Gellman: I don't think anyone ignored Hart-Rudman or the comparable effort led by Bremer in June 2000. Under Clinton and Bush both, the government took some steps to respond. Also under both administrations, there were other priorities that took preeminence. Government is full of tradeoffs.

Cherry Hill, N.J.: It seems that from reading your article that Clinton actually had a better understanding of what was going on with terrorists than people thought. Was this knowledge passed on to the Bush administration? Did they regard it as important. I do now remember hearing anything from the Bush administration about bin Laden before Sept. 11.

Barton Gellman: I've checked and haven't found any mention of Bin Laden's name by candidate or President Bush. There were extensive briefings on terrorism during the transition. Bush often linked the threat of terrorism to missile defense, and that was his priority defense initiative.

Los Angeles, Calif.: What do you think the prospects are for Gen. Musharaf to prosecute a serious and effective campaign against Islamic radicals in Pakistan, and will moderate forces in Pakistan support a hard-line crackdown on such radicals and those that do their bidding within the ISI?

Barton Gellman: I think the Pakistani leader has done more on this already than most commentators expected. I'm no expert on that country's internal politics and will watch with interest on how far he's able to go.

Greenbelt, Md.: Your articles tiptoed around the central truth without simply saying it: Clinton wouldn't do anything like the post-Sept. 11 response because he simply wasn't willing to sacrifice any of those high personal job ratings he was getting in the polls to do it. All the pages and pages about secret phone calls from Deutch and nighttime meetings with Cohen and Albright are just a smokescreen if it obscures that essential fact.

Barton Gellman: There are lots of theories on why Clinton didn't push harder. This is one of them. I've seen commentary accusing him of worrying more about his place in history, and therefore valuing a Mideast peace deal over protection of the United States. Then there are the claims that he was distracted by, and sought to distract Americans from, the impeachment. I don't see how any of these things could fail to have been present in his mind, but I don't know to what extent and you don't either. Personally I'm skeptical of all reductionist explanations that explain everything with one simple motive.

Boston, Mass.: You cite officials as saying the Clinton administration did not have the diplomatic or political capital to mount a large-scale military action against the Taliban, even in the wake of the August 1998 embassy bombings.

Was it primarily a lack of international support, or a perceived unwillingness of the American people to support an extended military campaign?

In either case, how could those unprecedented bombings not have precipitated the necessary support?

Barton Gellman: It was both, and if you go back to the news and opinion pages of the time you'll find a good deal of evidence: there was very little pressure for a war on the Taliban, and much against.

It seems to me that Clinton and his people were quite sophisticated judges of what the political and diplomatic market would bear on any large subject. Some of the more interesting questions, I think, have to do with their willingness to try to shift those attitudes or disregard them when they thought it important.

Silver Spring, Md.: In the Osama Bin Laden tape a Saudi cleric or guerrilla is identified as visiting him. If the religious police of Saudi Arabia knew where to find bin Laden, how come as allies of the U.S. against terrorism, the Saudis, did not give his address to the CIA?

Barton Gellman: He didn't have a fixed address. A friendly visitor, such as the sheikh, would make contact through intermediaries, then still other intermediaries, and if thought safe, would be escorted to a location that the visitor probably never learned. That's certainly the way journalists reached bin Laden for interviews from time to time.

Clayton, N.C.: Why do you continue to give Clinton credit for that which he didn't get done? If Osama continues to be elusive during this administration, are you going to call it a failure or give Bush the same credit you give Clinton?

Barton Gellman: You won't find the words credit or failure in the stories. They tried to record what did and didn't happen. Judging performance of either man is your job, thus armed.

Irvine, Calif.: If Clinton was so attentive to the needs of terrorism and terrorists as you claim relative to the pre Sept. 11 sentiment, how do you explain his lack of dealing with Saddam Hussein and the weapons inspection program after Clinton himself proclaimed the program's vital importance after symbolically bombing Iraq on the day of Clinton's impeachment?

In other words, was he really attentive to this issue or did he want it to look like he was to reporters like you? After all, can't we all grade his work having seen the results of his final exam given on Sept. 11?

Barton Gellman: Clinton plainly didn't live up to his own government's declarations of policy on Iraq. I wrote a quite lengthy treatment of this subject at the time: you can find it beginning at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/stories/unscom101198.htm

Willow Grove, Pa.: Instead of focusing on Clinton praising or bashing, I assume that the covert operations set up by the CIA during the last two years of Clinton's presidency were still in place early in Bush's. Why weren't these "assets" able to aid in the capturing or killing of bin Laden immediately after Sept. 11? I would have assumed that these local networks would have made many contacts etc., by that time.

Barton Gellman: There's some reason to think bin Laden went even further to ground just before Sept. 11 than he had been already, but your question bears a good deal more scrutiny. It's a hard one to get information on, but stay tuned.

Arlington, Va.: Thanks Mr. Gellman for sharing your information with us, the readers. It was a very weel researched and well written piece.

Coming from Pakistan I can certaily say had Nawaz Sharif's proposal been taken seriously and pursued with the Musharraf administration later on, bin Laden might have been killed long ago. Same could have happened if Saudi offer on putting some pointing device in his mother's luggage were paid heed to. Unfortunately arrogant elements in the U.S. administration failed to understand how sincere the other side was in offering assistance for a mutually shared objective.

Barton Gellman: There's good reason to think the Pakistani offer was doomed from the start, since it could not have been hidden from the Interservices Intelligence Directorate, and in fact it was not. The NSA, as I reported, found that it had been compromised.

The Saudi offer might have led to something, but the basic intelligence challenge remained. The government didn't need to know where bin Laden was, it needed to know (within the lethal radius of a warhead) where he would be in six hours. That's a hard one, not solved yet.

washingtonpost.com: The UNSCOM story: Foiled by Saddam's Concealment Strategy (Post, Oct. 11, 1998)

Washington, D.C.: Is the Clinton effort the first U.S. government backed effort to get bin Laden? Given the Oliver North knew and hated bin Laden during the Regan administration, are we sure that the Clinton effort was the first? Could the former President Bush have issued such an order?

Barton Gellman: I doubt Oliver North heard of bin Laden in the Reagan administration. If it had, keep in mind that U.S. policy in those years backed -- with a good deal of covert aid -- the Afghan and non-Afghan insurgency against Soviet rule. The very first indications of bin Laden's antipathy to the United States came in 1992 or thereabouts, and those assigned him only a minor role. The change in understanding of his aims grew from his 1996 fatwa onward.

Annandale, Va.: Mr. Gellman,

After writing and researching this story, do you sense that "all that could be done" was was done to get bin Laden? Were any of the individuals you interviewed covering themselves in the wake of Sept. 11?

Barton Gellman: I showed lots of places where all that could have been done was not done. And sure, those in power tried to justify their decisions.

New York, N.Y.: Follow up to your answer to question from Cherry Hill, N.J. Are you suggesting that the Bush/Republican focus on missile defense distracted him from focusing on terrorism? In other words was he so concerned about missle defense that he didn't pay enough attention to/missed the boat on terrorism?

Barton Gellman: The Bush analysis was that the gravest risks of terrorism were from ballistic missiles. That was and is a matter of debate.

Washington D.C.: Hi my name is Katina from Washington, D.C.

You mean to tell me that Clinton was planning to kill bin Laden but he didn't get the chance to stop a devil in real life (bin Laden). When Bush came into office, why didn't he keep the hunt on for him? He probably would not had the chance to kill so many innocent people.

Barton Gellman: You can never know what you don't know, especially about covert ops. We don't know for sure how hard Bush tried. We do know he didn't mount an actual attack on bin Laden until after 9/11.

Washington, D.C., and Takoma Park, Md.: If the Clinton adminsitration was so serious about opposing terrorisn and capturing bin Laden, why were there so few resources (such as agents, covert operatives, etc.) in Central Aisa, specifically in Uzbekistan? I recall reading early on in the war that there were virtually no human intelligence resources there.

Thanks you. You wrote a great series, very illuminating.

Lena Zezulin

Barton Gellman: There's no doubt the agency put its major focus on technical collection in the '80s and '90s, especially the latter. The atrophy of humint is much discussed and the CIA seems to be trying to reverse it.

Boston, Mass.: Barton, you seem to be getting a lot of responses blaming Clinton for not doing enough to fight terrorism. I agree that more could have been done, but people need to remember that he was being ripped apart by the Republicans, who rejected an anti-terrorism act in 1998 (I think that was the year). As far as what his response would have been to a Sept. 11 act of terror. I think that almost any president would have acted the same as Bush. What would remain to have been seen is if the Republicans would have supported him like the Democrats have supported Bush on the war effort.

Barton Gellman: There were in fact legislative proposals that would have increased wiretapping powers, placed chemical markers on explosives, and given much more power to find and block terrorist financial flows. Those did not pass, and Republicans led the opposition to the last two.

Washington, D.C.: What was the shortfall that prevented us from getting Osama bin Laden before Sept.r 11?

Barton Gellman: That simple question has a very complicated answer and the best I can do on it is laid out in the two stories.

Wakefield, Mass.: To all, yes this is pro-Clinton excuse spin. Just look at the story in today's New York Times for goodness' sakes. It describes how the Clintonites are now engaged in an effort to get out the "message." This Post story, unfortunately, is the first installment. That is obvious.

Barton Gellman: Clinton's efforts to defend his legacy do not entail the Washington Post's collusion in them. That's the leap you're making and it's foolish. If there are important contrary facts, what are they? And why haven't knowledgeable people who don't have an axe to grind for Clinton supplied them?

Alexandria, Va.: When President Clinton rightly ordered attacks on bin Laden targets in 1998, some naysayers claimed that it was only to distract attention from impeachment.

Do you think that the public would have been more supportive of President Clinton's war on bin Laden if the Republicans hadn't been impeaching President Clinton at the time?

Barton Gellman: All presidents get criticized from all sides. It's a fact that the strongest criticism Clinton got for the 8/20/98 Tomahawk strikes held that he did them only to distract from impeachment. But others said he didn't do enough.

Detroit, Mich.: You reported on phone calls between CIA Director Tenant and Clinton, but is the story I've been hearing true that Bill Clinton never once MET in person with his CIA director in the two YEARS before he left office? This is incredible if true, and puts paid to the notion that he was really that serious about terrorrism.

Barton Gellman: Far from true. They met very often, and during peak efforts against bin Laden Tenet briefed Clinton nearly daily.

Seattle, Wash.: Great piece of reporting on a little-known, important topic. Bravo.

The series indicated you had incredible access to some of the players. At some points, you mentioned "records show."

What are the sorts of public records or archival materials that one can use to flesh out stories such as this one? What strategies can "outsiders" use to dig deeper into such events?

Barton Gellman: I was ambiguous about the records and have to remain so. It is just not possible to get into these archives before 30 years pass. It's perhaps not widely known that, after leaving office, even the officials who WROTE a document of this sort lose clearance to read it. I'm sure history will find I missed some important stuff.

Alexandria, Va.: Could Presidents Clinton or Bush legally have ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden before Sept. 11? Could Bush to so now?

Barton Gellman: Executive Order 12033 forbids "assassination" but doesn't define it. Any president may change an executive order at any time, without disclosing it. Our extensive reporting on this suggests that neither Clinton nor Bush changed the order, but both ordered operations aimed at killing bin Laden. For the legal analysis, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/specials/attacked/AA63203-2001Oct27.html

Arlington, Va.: Responding to your response of my earlier question, I would differ with your opinion on the ISI. There was nothing to hide from the ISI; it could have been and should have been used to execute the job. CIA has a long history of working with ISI. With a good carrot, Pakistan government would certainly have used it to assist the U.S. Don't forget that it was basically ISI-assisted operations that helped nab Ramzi Yousef and Aimal Kansi.

Barton Gellman: There was lots of good cooperation with ISI but Yousef and Kansi were not important to that agency. The Taliban by contrast was considered a strategic partner by perhaps a majority in the ISI, and Al Qaeda likewise because of its symbiotic relationship to Pakistani-backed Kashmiri rebels. Recall that the casualties of Clinton's missile strike on the bin Laden Khost camp included a bunch of Pakistanis from, I believe, the HUK.

washingtonpost.com: Story: CIA Weighs 'Targeted Killing' Missions (Post, Oct. 28, 2001)

Northern Virginia: "And why haven't knowledgeable people who don't have an axe to grind for Clinton supplied them?" Maybe they are a little bit busy with fighting the war? C'mon, you didn't even answer the earlier poster's question about whether you were approached by Clinton's people or whether you had to go out and question them. Merely saying that you haven't been subjected to a barrage of spin by the other side isn't proof thay you aren't being sold a shaggy dog story by people with reputations to protect.

Barton Gellman: I did answer: I approached them, they were reluctant at first, and when it became clear I had learned things and would move forward without them they decided to make their case. I had comparable conversations with their political opponents, also at my initiative.

Washington, D.C., and Takoma Park, Md.: I find myself opposing the war effort, at least as the war was conducted, for the following reasons. U.S. mistakes of the Reagan era created the Taliban and indeed allowed them to flourish. Once it was clear that bin Laden and the Taliban were connected to the Sept. 11 attacks, I would have preferred to see resources spent on the following actions:

1. An intense airport security effort in the U.S. including real surveillance of questionable aliens entering the country.
2. A financial blokade of the Taliban, including of some organizations that have just been targeted today, three months after the events
3. Covert activity inside Afghanistan, including execution of Clinton's order to kill bin Laden.
4. A demand to Pakistan to eliminate IMMEDIATELY the intelligence and military support provided to the Taliban.
5. Demands to the Saudis, Yemen, Somalia, etc. that all finances be shut off.
6. Relief efforts for the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

If we had done all of the above I think that we could have achieved a slower but more cost effective and just victory without the bombing and destruction that we have seen in the last few months. We lost some 3,000 people in the WTC. Are we to believe that fewer lives have been lost through "collateral damage" -- this includes starvation, illness and cold as well as bombing -- in Afghanistan?

Barton Gellman: I don't know enough about collateral damage in Afghanistan to answer. As for your program of action, some of them were done but less intensely than now (1, 2, 4, 5, 6) and another (3) is a lot easier said than done.

Boston, Mass.: After the WTC bombing in 1993, I do not remember any speech Clinton gave about that. He offered no overt response. He should have taken action then, no matter what Congress may or may not have said.

Barton Gellman: He spoke about it at once, and devoted at least four major speeches to terrorism afterward, not counting the ones on national television after the Khobar, Embassy, and Cole attacks. But speech is not action.

Mt. Lebanon, Pa.: Have you personally met/interviewed any of the bin Laden central command? If not, how reliable are your connections to this fluid terrorism network? As an ex-journalist, I wonder how much white bread and jam Americans are being fed by our own media organs. Few reporters seem to have more than a passing acquaintance with the principal players. Thanks much.

Barton Gellman: Nope. I don't know the inside of al Qaeda and therefore didn't write about it. There are a few American journalists -- ABC and Time come to mind -- who snagged interviews with bin Laden in the '90s.

New York, N.Y.: Hi Barton.

Just wanted to thank you for an excellent and informative set of articles.

1. How do the people in the current admistration view the actions of their predecessors -- do they think Clinton et al were lax? Hemmed in by circumstances? Doing a good job?
2. Do trhe people you talked to from the Clinton administaration feel we can really trust Mushareef/Pakistan?
3. Did the Isreal/Palestine conflict get in the way of Clinton's pursuit of al Qaeda?

Barton Gellman: Thank you.

1. Bush and his people carefully avoid comment on that question. Many of those who served as their proxies in debate, during and after the presidential campaign, have been deeply critical of Clinton.

2. No. But full trust isn't necessary to collaborate where possible.

3. It was a limiting factor, because Clinton knew that war on Taliban would blow up the Mideast peace talks.

Silver Spring, Md.: You didn't even touch upon the fact that Somali leaders offered to hand OBL over to U.S. authorities back in '96, but that the Clinton administration refused, citing pressure from the Saudis. And some accuse Bush and Cheney of being stooges for the oil monarchy!

Barton Gellman: It wasn't Somalia, it was Sudan. It wasn't quite that simple, either. And I was the one who broke that story, on October 3. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61251-2001Oct2.html.

Canterburry, Conn.: The Western media has paid little attention to the financial and political relationships of George Bush Sr., George W. Bush, and their political allies (related to the Carlyle Group, BCCI bank, etc.) with certain Middle East and West Asian financial and political figures -- Osama bin Laden being one of them.

These relationships, one might speculate, has influenced our policy in those parts of the world.

Do you agree this issue has been underreported and that it warrants more attention?

Barton Gellman: I don't know of any Bush relationship, financial or otherwise, with bin Laden. It would be a helluva story. I live by the rule that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you have any, please be in touch.

washingtonpost.com: Story: Sudan's Offer to Arrest Militant Fell Through After Saudis Said No (Post, Oct. 3, 2001)

Wakefield, Mass.: I guess then that it is merely coincidence that your article came out around the same time that we hear Clinton aides are out and about trying to bolster his image (Richard Berke, today's New York Times). Maybe so, I should give you the benefit of the doubt. But to call it a foolish leap -- no, I wouldn't say that.

Barton Gellman: I don't claim that Clinton's people, eventually, gave me the best spin they could. I deny they are the authors of my account.

It's my job to verify and correct for the bias of my sources. I can't say more than the stories said about where I got my information, and where I checked it, but careful reading will show I talked to lots of career intelligence, military and diplomatic contacts, as well as foreign sources.

Arlington, Va.: Your pieces repeatedly tried to impress us that Clinton really really really wanted to take on al Qaeda, but that the political and popular market for such action wasn't there. Well, excuse me, but isn't it the definition of a leader that perhaps some political capital should be expended to do the right thing? Far from rehabilitating the Clinton administration, I think your series inadvertantly damned it, by showing that since Clinton wouldn't explain and sell action to the American people, he really was just following opinion polls, and that in his inability to forge an international coalition, his foreign policy was in fact little more than a chase after Rose Garden photo-ops.

Barton Gellman: This is an excellent question, which I alluded to earlier. A good test of leadership is its use of political capital -- on what, and with what boldness and what results. My series neither praised nor damned Clinton with advertance, but it provides ammunition for a legitimate debate.

Virginia: Mr. Gellman: I read your article regarding the war on terrorism and just finished listening your spot on MSNBC. I was quite intrigued by your article pretaining to Mr. Quaglia (station chief) in Sudan.

Paul from the moment he arrived at Post was the nerveoud type. He was not pleased with the assignment, didn't want to be there and was the one who pushed the ambassador to close the post.

While assigned to Sudan, bin Laden was seen by numerous embassy personnel during diplomatic functions, arrivals departures at the airport. He was also very noticeable driving throughout the city with his Afghan bodyguards.

President Clinton had numerous occasions to apprehend bin Laden, nothing was done. Locations of his training camps were brought to Washington's attention. It was ignored.

Fararkhan came to Sudan and met with numerous terrorist leaders/murderers. Nothing was done.

The ambassador strongly objected to closing the post. Washington got nervous and flinched. The Sudanese authorites welcomed bin Laden with open arms. We had numerous chances to stop bin Laden and did nothing.

Barton Gellman: You appear to be well informed on the views of the ambassador and on Quaglia's role in closing the embassy. I don't agree that knowing the location of a training camp provides sufficient opportunity to capture one man who sometimes go there. That hasn't been the experience before or after 9/11.

Laurel, Md.: I'm not sure I understand exactly what this thing would mean. It gives permission and encouragement to track and kill bin Laden right? But what does that help? If he's dead he's dead, if his executed he's still dead. You can't make an example out of him unless you like strip his power and throw him in jail until he rots but thats besides the point. I'm 14 and I can't understand what the covert thing is saying. Can you explain it to me?

Barton Gellman: The covert thing is saying that since 1998 the U.S. government tried to kill bin Laden, with the view that the world would be a better place for it and that al Qaeda's capacity to harm Americans would be reduced.

Boston, Mass.: My understanding is that Congress is going to convene hearings on Sept. 11, at some point. As someone who reported on it, what kind of information do you think will be brought up? I heard that the commission will be made up including four people of Bush's choice. It seems like this will make the commission way too political, and nothing will probably come out of it. Why would the commission be formed this way instead of completely independent?

Barton Gellman: I don't know much about the hearings. The most interesting stuff will certainly be in closed session. It's the norm for such commissions to include most of the stakeholders in a problem, in hopes that each will keep the other ones honest. When they don't work well, which is often, they reach a least common denominator that isn't very illuminating.

washingtonpost.com:

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