Former President Bill Clinton says he authorized CIA to kill Osama bin Laden before the September 11 attacks, but the operation was canceled at the last minute because intelligence officials feared killing civilians.By World Israel News StaffFormer US President Bill Clinton has renewed scrutiny of the opportunities the United States had to capture or kill Osama bin Laden before September 11, 2001, saying the CIA abandoned one planned operation at the last moment because of concerns that civilians could be killed if it went wrong.Clinton made the remarks Sunday during an interview with John Catsimatidis on WABC Radio, days after the US marked the 25th anniversary of the attacks that killed roughly 3,000 people.“I had authorized the CIA to try to take him out,” Clinton said, explaining that capturing the al-Qaeda leader alive would have been preferable but stopping him was the overriding objective.Clinton said he remained frustrated by one operation in particular.“I was scared, and I was mad because we tried to get him before, and the CIA at the last minute killed the plan that I think might well have succeeded,” he said.According to Clinton, CIA officials concluded that the risk to civilians was too great if the mission failed.“But they were afraid that if they missed, they’d kill a lot of innocent civilians. They didn’t want to run the risk. I didn’t second-guess them,” Clinton said.His comments have attracted new attention because they coincide with the release of dozens of previously classified presidential intelligence briefings detailing how closely US intelligence was following bin Laden and al-Qaeda during the years before 9/11.The broad outlines of missed opportunities to target bin Laden, however, are not new. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission documented several occasions during the Clinton administration when US officials considered operations against the al-Qaeda chief but ultimately decided the intelligence or operational circumstances did not justify the risks.That record also makes the history more complicated than a single decision by the CIA.In spring 1998, the agency developed an elaborate plan using Afghan tribal fighters to raid a compound, capture bin Laden and transfer him to US custody.CIA leaders and the principal officer in the field ultimately concluded that the risks were too high and did not recommend the operation to the White House for approval.After al-Qaeda bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that August, killing more than 200 people, Clinton authorized cruise-missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. Bin Laden survived.Additional opportunities followed.In December 1998, intelligence indicated that bin Laden might be staying at a compound in Kandahar. Officials prepared for a possible cruise-missile strike but decided against it amid doubts about the intelligence and concerns that hundreds of civilians could be killed, including people at a nearby mosque.The 9/11 Commission later said the calculation weighed roughly 50% confidence that bin Laden was present against an estimate of perhaps 300 collateral casualties.Clinton himself described a similar dilemma in comments recorded in Australia on September 10, 2001 — just one day before the attacks.“I nearly got him,” Clinton said in the recording, which became public in 2014.He said killing bin Laden at the time could have required destroying part of Kandahar and killing “300 innocent women and children,” a price he was unwilling to pay.Another opportunity emerged in February 1999 after intelligence placed bin Laden near a desert hunting camp used by senior visitors from the United Arab Emirates.US officials considered a strike but worried that Emirati dignitaries could also be killed. By the time the deliberations ended, bin Laden had moved on.Perhaps the most consequential episode occurred in May 1999.CIA sources tracked bin Laden’s movements around Kandahar for five days and nights, producing what officials later described as unusually detailed intelligence. Cruise missiles were ready to launch.“This was in our strike zone,” a senior military officer later told the 9/11 Commission, calling the opportunity “a fat pitch, a home run.” When orders came not to fire, he recalled, “we all just slumped.”The officer believed bin Laden “should have been a dead man” that night.The commission nevertheless concluded that officials confronting those decisions had to balance uncertain intelligence, potential civilian deaths, diplomatic consequences and the danger that an unsuccessful attack would strengthen bin Laden politically while exposing the limits of American power.It also found disagreement inside the Clinton administration and CIA over precisely how much authority existed to kill bin Laden outright. Clinton and his national security adviser told investigators that his intent was clear and that he wanted bin Laden dead, but CIA leaders said their understanding was generally that lethal force was authorized as part of a capture operation rather than as a standalone assassination mission.Clinton’s latest remarks therefore add a sharply personal account to a history that has been publicly debated for more than two decades.“I wish we had done even more to get him,” Clinton said Sunday. “I always thought he was our biggest threat. I wanted to get him, and I did what I could to do that.”Clinton recalled being in Australia when the attacks began. Hillary Clinton was in Washington, while their daughter Chelsea was in Lower Manhattan.After the second plane hit the World Trade Center, Clinton said he immediately suspected bin Laden.“I immediately said that bin Laden did this,” Clinton recalled. “They all looked at me and said, ‘How do you know this?’”The post Clinton: US scrapped secret CIA op to kill Osama bin Laden before 9/11 appeared first on World Israel News.