You Decide

Bin Laden's known ties to the terror cell that would later be implicated in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center stands in marked contrast to the ex-president's claim that when he turned the Sudanese offer down, bin Laden had committed no crime against the U.S.

"At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America," Clinton insisted in a 2002 speech to a New York business group. "So I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."

But reports published before March 1996, when the Sudanese tried to hand the top terrorist over, show that the ex-president did indeed have a legal basis to bring him to America and at least hold him, with an eye toward putting him on trial.

On April 21, 1995, USA Today reported:

"One of the most notorious patrons of Sudan's terrorist camps is Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian. He was named by federal prosecutors in New York as a potential co-conspirator in the terror trial of radical Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 10 other Muslims accusing of plotting a 'war of urban terrorism' in the USA."

Mohammed Jamal Khalifah, better known as "bin Laden's banker," was also named an unindicted co-conspirator who financed Ramzi Yousef's plot to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993, according to a November 1995 report in U.S. News & World Report.

Six Americans died in the '93 attack, with over 1,000 injured.

Five months before Sudan offered to turn bin Laden over to Clinton, the 9/11 mastermind helped carry out another terrorist attack that killed five Americans.

On Nov. 27, 1995, U.S. News reported, "At 11:40 a.m. last Monday, dozens of Americans sat eating lunch in a downtown Riyadh snack bar in a building that housed a U.S.-run military training center for the Saudi National Guard. Suddenly, a van packed with explosives erupted outside. Another explosion followed seconds later. When the dust settled, six people were dead and 60 injured, most of them Americans."

The final death toll rose to seven, with two Indians among those killed.

Four Saudis later confessed to the crime, naming bin Laden as their leader.

In 2001, PBS's "Frontline" chronicled what the U.S. knew about bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks. According to PBS, prior to Sudan's March 1996 offer to turn the wealthy Saudi over, bin Laden had been implicated in the following terrorist activity:

"February/March 1995 - Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, is captured in Pakistan and extradited to the United States. A search of his former residences leads investigators to believe he is financially linked to bin Laden. Also, he had stayed at a bin Laden-financed guest house while in Pakistan.

"June 1995 - Unsuccessful assassination attempt on the life of the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, in Addis Ababa. U.S. intelligence sources believe bin Laden was somehow linked.

"August 1995 - Bin Laden wrote an open letter to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia calling for a campaign of guerrilla attacks in order to drive U.S forces out of the kingdom.

"November 13, 1995 - Five Americans and two Indians are killed in the truck bombing of a US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh. Bin Laden denies involvement but praises the attack.

"Spring 1996 - President Clinton signed a top secret order that authorized the CIA to use any and all means to destroy bin Laden's network." [End of Excerpt]

On Tuesday the Independent Commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said there was "no reliable evidence" to contradict denials from Clinton administration officials that Sudan ever offered bin Laden to the U.S. The Commission did not explain why President Clinton's own admission that the offer was real was not considered "reliable evidence."

To listen to President Clinton explain why he turned the Sudanese offer down, Click here.     http://www.newsmax.com/clinton2.mp3    (mp3 link working as of this posting)

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/3/25/124653.shtml