Tag: William Cohen

13 December 1998

Posted on by William Arkin

 

FBI director Louis Freeh briefs White House national security advisor Sandy Berger about the conclusion that Iran and Hizballah were behind the terrorist attack at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.

According to Freeh, Berger asks, “Who knows about this,” saying the Bureau’s conclusions seem to be hearsay. Later, Berger convenes a meeting including Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Henry (Hugh) Shelton, and CIA director George Tenet.

Freeh writes: “I thought that we were meeting to discuss what our next move would be, given the fact that we now had solid evidence that Iranians, with involvement at the highest official levels, had blown up nineteen Americans. But I was wrong. The meeting started with how to deal with the press and Congress, should news of Iranian involvement in the Khobar murders leak outside of the room.”

Freeh says that Shelton invited him to the ‘tank’ at the Pentagon to brief the Joint Chiefs on Iranian sponsorship. There, Marine Corps commandant Chuck Krulak said he would do whatever was necessary to bring the Khobar bombers to justice, “even if that meant taking on the White House.” (My FBI, pp. 29ff) Nothing was really ever done. The Iran connection faded into history.

18 November 1998

Posted on by William Arkin

 

The CIA issues a compartmented top-secret report, “Further Options Available Against UBL” [Osama bin Laden], outlining covert and military actions that could be taken as a follow-on to the August 1998 cruise missile attacks (that were retaliation for the African embassy bombings).

White House staffers were still arguing for bombing a broad range of sites that would include al Qaeda camps and Taliban facilities in Afghanistan. Beyond air defenses and airfields, the Air Force said there weren’t any easy targets—that is, those which were outside urban areas or whose destruction would have significant effects. And the terrorist camps themselves were spread out and lacked critical facilities. Bomb damage assessments of the August strikes indicated no long-term effect.

According to Age of Sacred Terror (p. 284), national security advisor Sandy Berger was leery of bombing alone, believing that the odds of killing Osama bin Laden were low “and that a failure would make the United States look impotent and its target invincible.”

JCS Chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton presented other military options, but his “$2 billion option” as the White House called it, was seen more as passive-aggressive refusal on the part of the Pentagon to engage in combat, piling on logistical and support requirements that turned every option into a major war. Secretary of Defense William Cohen also insisted that any special operations option—even of a small stealthy raid—include a “force protection” package. Ultimately the discussions fizzled into nothing.