James Thompson Interviews William Cohen

Published: May 25, 2024 Duration: 00:05:02 Category: People & Blogs

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Governor Thompson Mr secretary let me see if I could get this straight we've been talking for the last half hour on the issue of a response to the USS Cole if I understand the testimony of a lot of people the Clinton Administration didn't believe it had proof sufficient of Al qaeda's responsibility before the left office and perhaps the Bush Administration felt it wasn't on their watch and they had other fish to fry and passing that you seem to suggest in your answer to an earlier question that the only option for a military reprisal for the bombing of the coal was an invasion of Afghanistan U and I think most people would agree and certainly prior testimony has has cited that that was was just not an appropriate response we had no place to forward base from we had no Coalition it was much different than Kosovo where we had overflight rights and we had allies uh but am I wrong in believing that just as appropriate a response would have been action against the Taliban not necessarily just against Usama Bin Laden and his alqaeda followers we knew where Mula Omar lived presumably what about a missile strike on Taliban facilities not just their training camps but on their civil seats of government there would have been collateral damage yes but I think you said you were willing to accept collateral damage and the 13 Sailors we lost in the coal were not collateral damage they were direct damage was any consideration given to reprisals against the institutions and facilities civil government of the Taliban for the coal there were a number of proposals and um I can't recall specifically but I think um Mr Clark may be talking about those tomorrow but there were a number of recommendations uh to go in and flatten a number of areas um during that time we did not have specific information this was Ben Laden frankly that was my suspicion it could have been other Islamic extremists that were operating out of Yemen we knew we found out in retrospect there had been a previous attack uh that was unsuccessful against the Sullivan um but um that was my suspicion uh we were trying to get Bin Laden in any event whether it was before the coal or after the coal we were still looking for ways in which we might attack Bin Laden so the recomend there was some recommendations to actually just flatten a number of areas it was the considered Judgment at the time that that would not have either gotten Bin Laden or have resulted in a positive um reaction by either Pakistan that we were courting at that point to try and persuade them to join us in this effort or any of the others in the region so it was uh determined again that it would have been not been effective and it might have been counterproductive that was a judgment call at the time my as the Secretary of Defense I have to um make recommendations to the president I have to do so uh certainly filled with passion in terms of what had happened to the coal uh I went to those funerals in services and I met with all the families and so it was pretty uh important to me that um I had to also take into account what would have been the impact of launching an attack against the Taliban at that point when we didn't have the support of Pakistan who was officially still supporting the Taliban would that have been counterproductive and less effective our judgment was that it would not have been effective and we didn't do it do you think it's appropriate to assert as some people have that one of the first acts of a brand new National Administration in this case the Bush Administration would have been to go to war over the coal uh no uh I think the First Act of the administration is to assess uh all of the information it can to make an informed judgment to take actions not only one action but to see what are the consequences of that action uh I don't think any Administration should uh take um a precipitous action they should look at the facts and then make a determination what are the consequences of this what is the follow-up if we take action to attack uh the Taliban uh what will how much will it take how many forces will we all of these factors have to be taken into account and I think you never take step one when without asking yourself what's step five and six where are we and so no I don't fault the administration for not doing that immediately thank you Mr secretary thank you Mr chairman

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