facture of chemical-warfare materials.
The White House was urged by Janet Reno, the Attorney General, to delay the raids, in order to give the F.B.I. time to assemble more evidence linking bin Laden to the embassy bombings. Justice Department officials say they understood that Reno warned the White House that it was not clear, based on the information then available, that the United States had enough evidence against bin Laden to meet the standards of international law.* The Attorney General is said to have had a second reservation: the Administration had not accumulated clear evidence of a link between bin Laden and the targets to be attacked.
Finally, there is known to be dismay within the Directorate
of Intelligence and the Directorate of Science and Technology of
the C.I.A. over what is seen as an unseemly rush to judgment on
the involvement of the Al Shifa plant in chemical warfare--and
the refusal of the agency publicly to acknowledge serious
omission in its analysis. Many C.I.A. analysts believe that
there is evidence tying Al Shifa to chemical weapons at some
point in the past--but not the evidence that was cited by the
Administration. Some agency officials conveyed their discontent
to George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, and his senior
deputies.
UNDER current law, the President is not obligated to include the military-service chiefs in his decision-making--they are not officially in the chain of command. But their exclusion last August enraged many senior officers, because, as one former member of the Joint Chiefs told me, the military leadership was generally called upon to review plans and comment. "The President and his men never talked to the pros," another senior general, with firsthand information, told me. "If you have a selection process and your best and brightest get on top, use them." This general, who has run one of America's intelligence services, described Shelton as being "not happy" with the order not to discuss the Tomahawk raids with his fellow-members of the Joint Chiefs. "He was presented with a fait accompli," the general told me, and "obeyed his orders. And now he's catching it from both sides." The strictures on Shelton were so tight that he was unable to consult with terrorism experts in the Defense Intelligence Agency. One insider said that Shelton apologized later to the agency's distraught director, Lieutenant General Patrick M. Hughes, assuring him that he would "never let this happen again." (A spokesman for Shelton did not respond to a request for comment.) A four-star general depicted Shelton, a special-forces expert who was confirmed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs in September of 1997, as having far less influence on military issues with the President than his civilian advisers did.
One senior Pentagon officer told me that when the four service chiefs were finally "plugged into the operation," the day before the missile attacks, they managed to force one significant change: The initial target list, as presented to the President and Berger, called for Tomahawks to hit the Al Shifa plant and a storage facility, also in Khartoum, which the C.I.A. believed was linked to Osama bin Laden. At the storage facility, "unlike the pharmaceutical company," the Pentagon officer said, "there were no ground samples" pointing to the manufacture of chemical weapons. "We didn't know what the hell was in there. It could have been dangerous" for nearby residents--or, if the facility was full of nonmilitary materials, acutely embarrassing to the United States. "We told them, 'Take it off the list.'" The target was removed.
Ken Bacon, a spokesman for the Pentagon, did not dispute the assertion that none of the service chiefs had been involved in the initial planning for the retaliatory missile attack. Bacon instead provided the following statement: "The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff advises that both the Secretary [of Defense] and the President. General Shelton played an active role throughout the planning and execution of this operation. As is appropriate for any sensitive military operation, planning was limited to those who needed to be involved."
Many men who served in the Pentagon believe that the service
chiefs were excluded from the planning because the White House
did not want to hear what they had to say. Since the early days
of the Clinton Presidency, the White House and the
Pentagon have disagreed on the use of expensive Tomahawks, which
are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, to send a political
message. The missiles appeal to civilian leaders because of
their high accuracy and because no military troops are put at
risk: the President can bomb a target with no fear that a
shot-down American pilot will be put on public display in a
foreign capital.
*-THERE IS A SAYING I'VE HEARD ABOUT DEALING WITH MIDDLE EAST ISSUES: "THEY LOVE SYMBOLISM." (THERE IS A TERM OF REFERENCE HERE ON THIS SUBJECT IF YOU TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE.)
YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE ENTIRETY OF THE POINT AND CONTENTS OF THIS AWARD-WINNING WEBSITE HAS TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT THEN-BRITISH COLUMBIA PREMIER WILLIAM VANDER ZALM WAS CORRECT IN HIS OCTOBER 27, 1986 LETTER TO ME: "(I) KNOW HOW MUCH IS BEING LEFT UNSAID" BY THE INVOLVED POLITICIANS.
IN REGARDS TO THE ANNOTATED PASSAGE OF THIS, TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE TO CONSIDER A TERM OF REFERENCE THAT RELATES (UNTIL THE END OF THIS MILLENNIUM) TO THIS ASPECT OF THE THINKING BY THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION IN THE PLANNING AND EXECUTION OF THESE BOMBINGS AND THEIR OVERALL FOREIGN POLICY BETWEEN 1993 AND THE END OF 1999 (...THE END OF THIS MILLENNIUM).
THEN, FOLLOWING THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION'S EXAMPLE/LEADERSHIP: "AD HOC," AS IT WERE (IT COMES UP ON THE FOURTH PART OF THIS ARTICLE BY MR. HERSH)--OFF THE TOP OF YOUR HEADS, DECIDE WHETHER TO TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE TO SEE THE NEXT PART OF THIS ARTICLE.