Clinton Pressures ABC To Change 9/11 Show

[TxBroadcaster]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060909/tv_nm/sept11_abc_dc

[parentofredheads]

This irritates me. I've said it, now I feel better. We had to put up with Michael Moore's junk, and Clinton's sure telling us, oh.... let's not let the cat out of the bag. What a bunch of bahookey!

[RETIREDFAN1]

Clinton aide says

9/11 film 'correct'

Producer consulted with military attaché

who saw aborted attacks on bin Laden

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted: September 8, 2006

3:33 p.m. Eastern

 

 

 

By Art Moore

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

 

 

Buzz Patterson with President Clinton

A former military aide to President Clinton who claims he witnessed several missed opportunities to capture or kill Osama bin Laden says the producer of the ABC mini-series "The Path to 9/11" came to him in frustration after network executives under a heavy barrage of criticism from former administration officials began pressing for changes to the script.

 

In an interview with WND, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson said producer and writer Cyrus Nowrasteh called him the morning of Sept. 1, explaining he had used Patterson's book "Dereliction of Duty" as a source for the drama.

 

Later that day, Nowrasteh brought a preview copy of "The Path to 9/11" to Patterson for him to view at home. Patterson, who says he has talked with the director seven or eight times since then, also received a phone call from an ABC senior vice president, Quinn Taylor.

 

Patterson told WND he recognizes the television production conflates several events, but, in terms of conveying how the Clinton administration handled its opportunities to get bin Laden, it's "100 percent factually correct," he said.

 

"I was there with Clinton and (National Security Adviser Sandy) Berger and watched the missed opportunities occur," Patterson declared.

 

The five-hour drama is scheduled to air in two parts, Sunday night and Monday night, Sept. 11.

 

 

 

As a military aide to President Clinton from 1996 to 1998, Patterson was one of five men entrusted with carrying the "nuclear football," which contains the codes for launching nuclear weapons.

 

Reached by phone at his home in Southern California, Nowrasteh affirmed to WND he consulted with Patterson and gave him a preview of the drama.

Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson (FrontPageMagazine.com)

 

During the interview this morning, Nowrasteh took a moment to watch as President Clinton's image turned up on his nearby TV screen to criticize the movie. The director did not want to respond directly to Clinton's comments, but offered a general response to critics.

 

"Everybody's got to calm down and watch the movie," Nowrasteh told WND. "This is not an indictment of one president or another. The villains are the terrorists. This is a clarion bell for people to wake up and take notice."

 

Patterson pointed out the Bush administration also is depicted in an unfavorable light in the months before 9/11.

 

An ABC executive who requested anonymity told the Washington Post the network has made "adjustments and refinements" to the drama that are "intended to make clearer that it was general indecisiveness" by federal officials that left the U.S. vulnerable to attack, and "not any one individual."

 

Yesterday, the New York Post reported Clinton wrote to ABC officials, complaining the "content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has the duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely." Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, according to the Washington Post, has described a scene, in which she is depicted, as "false and defamatory."

 

The Senate Democratic Leadership sent a letter to Robert Iger – president and CEO of ABC's corporate parent, the Walt Disney Co. – urging him to cancel the "grossly inaccurate" drama.

 

The Democratic National Committee today said it delivered a petition with nearly 200,000 signatures to ABC's Washington office calling on the network to drop its "right-wing factually inaccurate mocudrama."

 

Democrats have been particularly critical of a scene that depicts Berger refusing to authorize a mission to capture bin Laden after CIA operatives and Afghan fighters had the al-Qaida leader in their sights.

 

Nowrasteh acknowledges this is a "conflation of events," but Berger, in a letter to Iger, said "no such episode ever occurred, nor did anything like it."

 

Patterson contended, however, the scene is similar to a plan the administration had with the CIA and the Afghan Northern Alliance to snatch bin Laden from a camp in Afghanistan.

 

 

 

 

The scene in "The Path to 9/11," as Patterson recalled from the preview version, unfolds with CIA operatives at the camp on the phone with Berger, who is expressing concern that an attack could result in innocent bystanders being killed. An agent says he sees swing sets and children's toys in the area. The scene ends with Berger hanging up the phone.

 

Patterson says his recollection is that Clinton was involved directly in several similar incidents in which Berger was pressing the president for a decision.

 

"Berger was very agitated, he couldn't get a decision from the president," Patterson said.

 

Patterson noted he wasn't sure what Berger wanted to do – whether the national security adviser wanted the answer to be yes or no – but the frustration, at the very least, was based on the president making himself unavailable to make a decision.

 

In "Dereliction of Duty," published by Regnery in 2003, Patterson recounts an event in the situation room of the White House in which Berger was told by a military watch officer, "Sir, we've located bin Laden. We have a two-hour window to strike."

 

Clinton, according to Patterson, did not return phone calls from Berger for more than an hour then said he wanted more time to study the situation.

 

Patterson writes: "We 'studied' the issues until it was too late-the window of opportunity closed."

Harvey Keitel plays counter-terrorism expert John O'Neill in ABC's "The Path to 9/11

 

In another "missed opportunity," Patterson writes, Clinton was watching a golf tournament when Berger placed an urgent call to the president. Clinton became irritated when Patterson approached him with the message. After the third attempt, Clinton coolly responded he would call Berger on his way back to the White House. By then, however, according to Patterson, the opportunity was lost.

 

As WND reported, Berger was the focus of a Justice Department investigation for removing highly classified terrorism documents before the Sept. 11 Commission hearings that generated the report used for the television program.

 

FBI agents searched Berger's home and office after he voluntarily returned some documents to the National Archives.

 

Berger and his lawyer told reporters he knowingly removed handwritten notes he made while reading classified anti-terror documents at the archives by sticking them in his clothing. They said he also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

 

Patterson said Berger's response to the "The Path to 9/11" is similar to his response to the accounts in "Dereliction of Duty," insisting the incidents attributed to him "never occurred."

 

Patterson said his book put him under intense pressure from Clinton officials – an aide even spoke of taking away his military retirement benefits – but when the title reached No. 1 on Amazon.com, "they shut up."

 

There are others who can corroborate his accounts, Patterson insisted, but they are still in military service and therefore legally bound not to come forward and make statements.

 

Three of the four other military aides who rotated being at the president's side were additional sources for his book, Patterson affirmed.

 

If ABC ends up pulling "The Path to 9/11," it won't be the first time Democrats have succeeded in pressuring a network not to air a politically charged film during a major election season.

 

During the 2004 presidential campaign, as WND reported, the Sinclair Broadcast Group canceled a planned showing of "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal." The documentary featured former POWs who told how John Kerry's 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was used as propaganda against them by their North Vietnamese captors, allegedly intensifying their persecution and prolonging the war and imprisonment.

[Observer]

The "Legacy" continues to crumble under the scrutiny of history!

[KirtFalcon]

It Clinton had been half as concerned with national security as he was with his legacy, we would all be a lot better off!!!! Who knows, bin Laden's 9/11 plot might have been prevented! :whistle:

[Middle]

Shoulda woulda coulda, Kirt.

 

Why do people insist on beating a dead horse with 9/11? It happened, move on.

[KirtFalcon]

That would be great if the liberal media and the democrats would report the facts and let the chips fall where they may. If you listen to the liberals, the Islamic terrorists started hating American and attacking us right after GWB took office! Just get the history right and we CAN move on!!! :whistle:

 

National security is too important to play politics with the way the Bush-haters are doing! :w00t:

[Middle]

Does the media control the government? Nah. I said there's no use sitting here playing the blame game; it's easy to judge in hindsight. Bush was in office for a time before the attacks, why did he do anything? What does the president really have to do with the CIA/NSA/whoever looking out for terrorists, especially pre-9/11?

 

And if you haven't noticed the conservatives avoid Bush like the plague because midterm elections are coming up. It's not just the libs who are the "Bush-haters" anymore.

 

By moving on I was speaking of people making "documentaries" about 9/11. I can't expect you to ever move on, 9/11 is a wonderful excuse for you to feel better about ignoring the Constitution and fear mongering all in an effort to beat the democrats. When will you start believing in what's best for the country and not a political party? More importantly, when will you start arguing in a coherent, linear manner?

[KirtFalcon]

No, the media doesn't control the government, or the other way around. That doesn't mean the liberals haven't done everything in their power to blame GWB for everything from diaper rash to terrorism while giving Clinton a pass even though GWB had only been in office for a few short months before 9/11.

 

I think you, like most liberals, will be surprised at the outcome of the mid-term elections and the dimocrats failing to take control of congress. You will also probably come up with several feeble excuses when the Republicans put another man in the White House in 2008.

 

I din't expect you to respond with anything other than your usual flippant and off-base commentary. I guess psycho babble and demagoguery is all you've got.

[Middle]

Refute my point Kirt: What did the president have to do with CIA/NSA/etc/ pre 9/11? Nothing. Reagan was in office for eight years in the eighties, the Taliban existed, Osama Bin Laden existed, Saddam Hussein existed. Why didn't he do anything? See the flawed logic there? If anyone is to blame it's the respective bureaus, and not any president. It happened because it happened. No president is going to stop something like that; it's not their job.

 

As for the midterm elections, when did I ever state that I thought the Democrats were going to take back Congress? Do you see what I mean with your method of arguing? You go from point A to point X and blab on about the most irrelevant things in some twisted attempt at transitive logic to debase anything and everything I say. It's an obvious fact that the majority of Republicans up for re-election this November have distanced themselves from the president.

 

Point out my psycho babble and demagoguery for me please. Or were you just throwing out some pseudo-intelligent words so you wouldn't have to prove a real point?

[Observer]

Here you go Middle

 

What did Clinton have to do with the CIA..etc.

 

He worked to cut their funding.

He did not set a standard of cooperation.

He ignored their suggestions.

 

That enough?

[Middle]

Okay, so why didn't Bush increase their funding, set a standard of cooperation and listen to their suggestions?

 

Same line of logic there.

 

Budgets for things like the CIA are set by Congress. What the CIA does has little to do with the President. Pre-9/11 things aren't as involved for the executive branch as they are now.

 

And if you want to use semantics: Reagan and H.W. Bush armed and trained the people who are now considered terrorists. Saddam got his WMD's from us. SO by your logic it's their fault that 9/11 happened.

 

How can you seriously blame one person or thing for something like 9/11?

[TxBroadcaster]

The ONLY thing I think Clinton desrves some blame on when it comes to Osama is that more than once all was needed was he say so, and we could have taken him out. I think Clinton was to worried about how the Middle East would react.

[Middle]

That's what I was thinking Eagle. And I figured the same thing; they weighed in would it be worth killing an annoyance (That's all he really was back then, compared to what he is now) to stir up the wasps' nest.

 

But I try not to judge in hindsight. We know so much more now.

[TxBroadcaster]

Originally posted by Middle

That's what I was thinking Eagle. And I figured the same thing; they weighed in would it be worth killing an annoyance (That's all he really was back then, compared to what he is now) to stir up the wasps' nest.

 

But I try not to judge in hindsight. We know so much more now.

 

But we knew they had tried once...and with himbeing tied to the attack on a naval ship it should have been a no brainer IMO

[Observer]

Bush did put more funding toward the CIA and Military....

 

Then the Dems and Media beat him up for deficit spending...

 

Bush never had a chance to take down Ossama before the attacks...

 

By the time Bush was in office the plan was in action....

[Middle]

Originally posted by Observer

Then the Dems and Media beat him up for deficit spending...

 

Totally unrelated reply to that: It's not just the president who is increasing the deficit. If you've ever been around anyone who works for the federal government you'd see how much money they waste for nothing. It's absolutely mind boggling.

[Observer]

I agree...

 

The libs, and media have made it out like Bush not only came up with the spending bills, but also passed them in Congress & the Senate.... while getting Katrina ready... and planting explosives in the twin towers....