Democratic presidential front-runner John F. Kerry pledged on Saturday that if he becomes president he'll treat terrorist acts against the U.S. as a law enforcement problem rather than as acts of war - the approach favored by President Clinton throughout the 1990s as Osama bin Laden repeatedly struck U.S. targets with impunity.
Speaking before a group of Oklahoma City firefighters, Kerry complained that the Bush administration "doesn't understand the war on terror."
Under a Kerry administration, he said, the fight against terrorism "will involve the military now and then," but it will be "primarily an intelligence-gathering, law enforcement operation."
"It's a great big manhunt," Kerry explained. "[The Bush] administration has translated that legitimate threat into a completely wrongheaded kind of full-fledged military response."
Since 9/11, U.S. terrorism experts have said that the Clinton administration's legalistic approach to fighting al-Qaeda not only proved ineffective - it actually emboldened bin Laden to the point where he thought he could launch an attack on U.S. soil without prompting a serious military response.
Indeed, in a 2002 speech to New York business leaders, Mr. Clinton himself cited legal concerns as an excuse for his decision not to have bin Laden arrested five years before the 9/11 attacks.
"At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America," said Clinton. "So I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America."
To listen to ex-president Clinton explain why he
didn't have Osama bin Laden arrested, Click Here.
Editor's note:
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