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that a soil sample from the vicinity of the al Shifa plant had tested positive for
EMPTA, a precursor chemical for VX, a nerve gas whose lone use was for mass
killing. Two days before the embassy bombings, Clarke's staff wrote that Bin
Ladin "has invested in and almost certainly has access to VX produced at a plant
in Sudan."
43
Senior State Department officials believed that they had received
a similar verdict independently, though they and Clarke's staff were probably
relying on the same report. Mary McCarthy, the NSC senior director respon-
sible for intelligence programs, initially cautioned Berger that the "bottom line"
was that "we will need much better intelligence on this facility before we seri-
ously consider any options." She added that the link between Bin Ladin and al
Shifa was "rather uncertain at this point." Berger has told us that he thought
about what might happen if the decision went against hitting al Shifa, and nerve
gas was used in a New York subway two weeks later.
44
By the early hours of the morning of August 20, President Clinton and all
his principal advisers had agreed to strike Bin Ladin camps in Afghanistan near
Khowst, as well as hitting al Shifa.The President took the Sudanese tannery off
the target list because he saw little point in killing uninvolved people without
doing significant harm to Bin Ladin. The principal with the most qualms
regarding al Shifa was Attorney General Reno. She expressed concern about
attacking two Muslim countries at the same time. Looking back, she said that
she felt the "premise kept shifting."
45
Later on August 20, Navy vessels in the Arabian Sea fired their cruise mis-
siles.Though most of them hit their intended targets, neither Bin Ladin nor
any other terrorist leader was killed. Berger told us that an after-action review
by Director Tenet concluded that the strikes had killed 20­30 people in the
camps but probably missed Bin Ladin by a few hours. Since the missiles headed
for Afghanistan had had to cross Pakistan, the Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs was sent to meet with Pakistan's army chief of staff to assure him the
missiles were not coming from India. Officials in Washington speculated that
one or another Pakistani official might have sent a warning to the Taliban or
Bin Ladin.
46
The air strikes marked the climax of an intense 48-hour period in which
Berger notified congressional leaders, the principals called their foreign coun-
terparts, and President Clinton flew back from his vacation on Martha's Vine-
yard to address the nation from the Oval Office. The President spoke to the
congressional leadership from Air Force One, and he called British Prime Min-
ister Tony Blair, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak from the White House.
47
House Speaker Newt Gingrich and
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott initially supported the President. The next
month, Gingrich's office dismissed the cruise missile attacks as "pinpricks."
48
At the time, President Clinton was embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal, which
continued to consume public attention for the rest of that year and the first
months of 1999. As it happened, a popular 1997 movie, Wag the Dog, features a
RESPONSES TO AL QAEDA'S INITIAL ASSAULTS
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