9/11 PANEL Report faults delays by U.S.

The report said Clinton and Bush failed to act on intelligence on terrorism.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton and Bush administrations' decision to use diplomatic rather than military options against Al-Qaida allowed the Sept. 11 terrorists to elude capture years before the attacks, a federal panel said today.
The Clinton administration had early indications of terrorist links to Osama bin Laden and future Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as early as 1995, but let years pass as it pursued criminal indictments and diplomatic solutions to subduing them abroad, it found.
Bush officials, meanwhile, failed to act immediately on increasing intelligence chatter and urgent warnings in early 2001 by its counterterrorism adviser, Richard A. Clarke, to take out Al-Qaida targets, according to preliminary findings by the commission reviewing the attacks.
"We found that the CIA and the FBI tended to be careful in discussing the attribution for terrorist attacks," the bipartisan report said. "The time lag between terrorist act and any definitive attribution grew to months, then years, as the evidence was compiled."
Withholding judgment
Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, appearing on CBS' "The Early Show" today, said, however, the commission will not make any final judgments about the Clarke allegations or other assertions until it has reviewed all the evidence.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the commission that "President Clinton and his team did everything we could, everything we could think of, based on the knowledge we had, to protect our people and disrupt and defeat Al-Qaida."
The preliminary report said that the U.S. government had determined bin Laden was a key terrorist financier as early as 1995, but that efforts to expel him from Sudan stalled after Clinton officials determined he couldn't be brought to the United States without an indictment. A year later, bin Laden left Sudan and set up his base in Afghanistan without resistance.
In spring 1998, the commission found, the Saudi government successfully thwarted a bin Laden-backed effort to launch attacks on U.S. forces in that country.
Sought Saudi help
The Clinton administration turned to the Saudis for help. Clinton designated CIA Director George Tenet as his representative to work with the Saudis, who agreed to make an "all-out secret effort" to persuade Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to expel bin Laden.
Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal, using "a mixture of possible bribes and threats," received a commitment from Taliban leader Mullah Omar that bin Laden would be handed over.
But Omar reneged on the agreement during a September 1998 meeting with Turki and Pakistan's intelligence chief.
"When Turki angrily confronted him Omar lost his temper and denounced the Saudi government. The Saudis and Pakistanis walked out," the report said.
In conclusion, the report said "from the spring of 1997 to September 2001, the U.S. government tried to persuade the Taliban to expel bin Laden to a country where he could face justice," the report said.
"The efforts employed inducements, warnings and sanctions. All these efforts failed."