Clinton lost chance to kill bin Laden, book claims

Published on Wednesday 19 March 2003 00:00

FORMER United States president, Bill Clinton, lost the codes that activate an American nuclear attack on the day his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky became public, a new book alleges.

Mr Clinton also refused to sanction an Iraqi air strike because he was too busy watching golf - and missed an opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden because he was "unavailable" for two hours.

Conspiracy theorists and far right "Bubba Bashers" - as die-hard Clinton foes are known - have long blamed the philandering former commander-in- chief for leaving the US open to terrorist attacks.

The new revelations, however, come from Robert "Buzz" Patterson, a former lieutenant colonel who carried the attach case containing the country’s Doomsday apparatus for two years.

Mr Patterson claims he was not surprised Mr Clinton lost the secret code because he "normally kept the world’s most sensitive document rubber-banded to his credit cards in his pants pocket".

In Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security, Mr Patterson writes: "In my humble opinion Bill Clinton should have been impeached for losing the nuclear codes. It was a spectacular violation of our national security laws and a cavalier betrayal of the public trust."

The book has shot onto the Amazon.com best-seller list. Mr Patterson, now a regular war commentator on television, carried the 45lb Doomsday briefcase and accompanied Mr Clinton everywhere from 1996 to 1998.

He claims Mr Clinton treated the military with contempt and that Pentagon chiefs were forced to call off a cruise missile attack on bin Laden because the president was unavailable for two critical hours.

When Mr Clinton finally re-emerged, Mr Patterson charges, he waffled until it was too late to hit the cave-dwelling terrorist. He also charges that when the military suggested an Iraqi air strike in 1996 Mr Clinton was too distracted watching golf on television to respond.

The book’s allegations are hotly denied by Clinton aides, who called it the latest sally by a "right-wing publisher". The former national security advisor, Sandy Berger, said: "At no time during my years at the White House was I unable to reach Mr Clinton for timely decisions on military action or national security. The two incidents described in this book that involve me, regarding Iraq and bin Laden, simply are false." But the 47-year-old author defends his story saying: "I’ve spent the past five years mulling it over, whether to write this book.

"Lying was just second nature to Clinton. His lies were so smooth, so carefully crafted and so larger than life."

Mr Patterson has stopped short of blaming Mr Clinton for the 3,000 deaths on 11 September but extreme right-wingers have not. A 1994 article by a conservative journalist claimed Mr Clinton rewarded an Arkansas state trooper with the job of carrying the nuclear attach case in exchange for keeping quiet about his dalliances.

The officer "had the tendency to break down and cry in stressful situations" it was claimed.

Then there was the occasion Mr Clinton did launch an attack on bin Laden. The Lewinsky scandal was at its height when he announced he had bombed an al-Qaeda training camp and a chemical weapons plant. That target was later described as an aspirin factory.