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This is an archive article published on March 25, 2004

‘Strikes wouldn’t have stopped 9/11’

Even if the US had killed or captured Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it would not have prevented the hi...

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Even if the US had killed or captured Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it would not have prevented the hijacked plane attacks on America, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday.

He and other top officials of the Bush and Clinton administrations told the National Commission Investigating the Sept. 11 Attacks that eliminating bin Laden, invading Afghanistan or bombing Al Qaeda training camps would not have prevented them. ‘‘Even if Bin Laden was captured or killed before 9/11, no one I know believes it would have prevented 9/11,’’ Rumsfeld told the Commission. The plot had already been set in motion and the attacks on New York and Washington would have been seen as retaliation for any US Strikes, the officials said.

Rumsfeld and his predecessor William Cohen and Secretary of State Colin Powell and his predecessor Madeleine Albright, were questioned about why they had not taken aggressive action against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan before Sept. 11.

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There were at least four potential opportunities to try to kill bin Laden in Afghanistan from December 1998 to July 1999. Cruise missile strikes were prepared but never approved for fear of civilian casualties and due to doubts that bin Laden would still be there when a missile landed hours later, a commission report said.

Cohen, who was defense secretary under President Clinton, reminded the Commission that when that administration bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in 1998 that it believed might help bin Laden acquire chemical arms, it met a lot of public criticism. He said he would do it again. Cohen also said bin Laden had issued a ‘‘fatwa’’ to have him killed.

Powell told the hearing: ‘‘Most of us still thought that the principal threat was outside the country. Anything we might have done against Al Qaeda in this period or against Osama bin Laden may or may not have had any influence on these people who were already in this country, already had their instructions, were already burrowed in and were getting ready to commit the crimes that we saw on 9/11.’’ — (Reuters)

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