{"id":345959,"date":"2026-09-14T01:42:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T01:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/345959\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T01:42:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T01:42:39","slug":"bill-clinton-reveals-why-the-cia-told-him-not-to-take-out-bin-laden-before-9-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/345959\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Clinton reveals why the CIA told him not to take out bin Laden before 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former President Bill Clinton revealed on Sunday that the CIA abandoned a plan to take out Osama bin Laden<\/a> before 9\/11 over fears that innocent civilians could die if the risky operation went sideways.<\/p>\n

Clinton, 80, spoke about the spy agency\u2019s reasoning during a radio interview on WABC\u2019s \u201cCats Roundtable\u201d show with host John Catsimatidis \u2014 and reflected on how he \u201cimmediately\u201d knew the al Qaeda leader was responsible for the terror attacks while watching them unfold.<\/p>\n

Former President Bill Clinton revealed on a broadcast of \u201cCats Roundtable\u201d that the CIA abandoned a plan to take out Osama bin Laden before 9\/11. Barry Williams\/POOL\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cI had authorized the CIA to try to take him out,\u201d Clinton told Catsimatidis, adding that he told the agency it would have been good to capture bin Laden alive, but the main priority was to stop him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d the former Democratic president said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they were afraid that if they missed, they\u2019d kill a lot of innocent civilians. They didn\u2019t want to run the risk. I didn\u2019t second-guess them, but I think, in the end, [bin Laden] was determined to do what he did, and he had lots of money and lots of capacity,\u201d Clinton reflected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish we had done even more to get him. I always thought he was our biggest threat \u2026 I wanted to get him, and I did what I could to do that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Clinton added that he \u201cimmediately knew\u201d bin Laden was behind the terror attacks while watching them unfold on television from Australia. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Clinton also recalled knowing that bin Laden was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as soon as he watched the second plane hit the Twin Towers on television, remembering that the terror mastermind had long been planning to hit US soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, I was in Australia. Hilary was in Washington. But our daughter was in Lower Manhattan, and we were worried to death about her. She was one of the thousands of people who were told to just walk north. We couldn\u2019t get in touch with her,\u201d Clinton told Catsimatidis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was watching television in Australia when the second plane hit. I immediately said that bin Laden did this. They all looked at me and said, \u2018How do you know this?\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, because the only adversaries we have with the capacity to do this are Iran and bin Laden,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the Iranians wouldn\u2019t do it because we could wipe them off the face of the Earth immediately. And bin Laden is holed up in a cave in Afghanistan.\u2019 I just knew it had to be him. I also knew that he had been planning to do what he did to hit us for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bin Laden was later killed in a targeted, secret raid on his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound led by US Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011, under Barack Obama\u2019s presidency. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Bin Laden was later killed in a targeted, secret raid on his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound led by US Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011, under Barack Obama\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

Clinton added that he believes that it\u2019s possible that New York City could face another terrorist attack, but maintained the US is \u201cmuch better prepared\u201d for an attack of that scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s entirely possible. I think we have to stay on guard about that. We have to make sure we\u2019re getting all the intelligence we can on the issue. I think there is a chance that will happen,\u201d Clinton said when asked if New York could be targeted by terrorists again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re much better prepared 1789350159 than we were\u2026 [But] you only have to miss once, and then you\u2019re screwed. It\u2019s just something that has to be a continuing part of our national security plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re running the country, you want to make big good things happen, and stop big bad things from happening \u2026 That\u2019s where I think we are as a country, and where I think we can maybe find unity again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former President Bill Clinton revealed on Sunday that the CIA abandoned a plan to take out Osama bin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5301,113412,10049,8305,9,24,55,54,56,85934,3694,58],"class_list":["post-345959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-9-11","tag-9-11-25th-anniversary","tag-bill-clinton","tag-john-catsimatidis","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-osama-bin-laden","tag-terrorism","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}