CBS Terror Expert: Clinton Wouldn't Kill Osama

Bill Clinton created a big stir when he angrily defended his anti-terror efforts as president during an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday.”

But comments by a top anti-terror expert contradicting Clinton’s defense got far less attention in the liberal press.

The day after Clinton’s Sept. 24 tirade on Fox, Michael Scheuer — head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit during the Clinton administration — said the al-Qaida leader "is alive today” because Clinton and his top aides refused to kill him.

"It's just an incredible kind of situation for the American people over the weekend to hear their former president mislead them,” Scheuer said about Clinton’s remarks.

Scheuer resigned from the CIA in 2004 after 22 years of service to publish "Imperial Hubris,” a blistering assault on the anti-terror policies of both Clinton and Bush.

"Although the intensity of [Clinton’s] outburst against Wallace was unplanned, he was ready to upbraid anybody who questioned his performance,” Robert Novak wrote in a column about Scheuer’s response. "Unexpected by him was a rebuttal by a CIA professional never confused with being a Bush acolyte.”

In his role as CBS News terrorism analyst, Scheuer appeared on the "Early Show” and said this about Clinton’s claim that the CIA could not verify bin Laden’s responsibility for the attack on the USS Cole: "The former president seems able to deny facts with impunity."

Scheuer continued: "He defames the CIA . . . and the men and women who risked their lives to give their administration repeated chances to kill bin Laden."

Asked if Bush was equally responsible for letting bin Laden escape from Tora Bora in Afghanistan, Scheuer replied: "The fact of the matter is that the Bush administration had one chance that they botched and the Clinton administration had eight to 10 chances that they refused to try. At least at Tora Bora, our forces were on the ground."

Novak wrote: "Scheuer's blunt remonstrance goes to the heart of what probably impelled Clinton's finger pointing on national television. Rather than attempting to shape the midterm campaign, as Republicans believe, he was interested in protecting his legacy. No former president in the last half-century has seemed so sensitive to critical assessments of his tenure.”

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