[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 128 (Wednesday, September 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H8508]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      DISTURBING NEW DETAILS IN AFTERMATH OF U.S. EMBASSY BOMBINGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of 
the Congress and the American people disturbing new details of national 
policy decisions made in the aftermath of the bombing of the U.S. 
embassies in East Africa last month. This emerging information focuses 
on the Clinton administration's decision to retaliate against 
terrorists it suspected of carrying out the embassy attacks and in 
particular the decision to attack a pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan 
suspected of producing chemical weapons for the use of the terrorists 
led by Mr. bin Laden.
  This new insight is contained in an article in the September 21, 1998 
issue of the New York Times by reporters Tim Weiner and James Risen. It 
raises serious questions regarding the accuracy of intelligence 
information on which the decision was made and the credibility of 
statements made by senior officials in the Clinton administration as 
they sought to justify their decisions after the bombing in which it is 
estimated 20 to 50 people were killed.
  The article reconstructs how a group of 6 senior administration 
officials and the President picked the bombing targets. It is based on 
interviews with participants and others at high levels of the national 
security apparatus and recounts how an act of war was approved on the 
basis of fragmented and disputed intelligence.
  I quote from the article: Within days of the attack, some of the 
administration's explanations for destroying the factory in the Sudan 
proved inaccurate. Many people inside and outside the American 
government began to ask whether the questionable intelligence had 
prompted the United States to blow up this factory under false 
information.
  I note that today former President Jimmy Carter asked for a 
congressional investigation about this matter.
  Quoting further, Senior officials now say their case for attacking 
the factory relied on inference, as well as evidence that it produced 
chemical weapons for Mr. bin Laden's use. However, in analyzing more 
closely the efforts of those officials to justify their actions, it 
should be noted that since United States spies were withdrawn from the 
Sudan more than 2 years ago reliable information about the plant was 
scarce. In fact, in January 1996, weeks after American diplomats and 
spies were pulled out of the Sudan, the CIA withdrew as fabrications 
over 100 reports furnished to it by an outside source regarding 
terrorist threats against U.S. personnel in the Sudan.
  A month after the attack, the same senior national security advisors, 
who had described the pharmaceutical plant as a secret chemical weapons 
factory, financed by bin Laden, are now conceding that they had no 
evidence to substantiate that claim or the President's decision to 
order the strike. It is now clear that the decision to bomb the factory 
was made amidst a three-year history of confusion in the intelligence 
community and conflicting foreign policy views within the 
administration regarding the Sudan.
  It is with sadness that we must acknowledge the inevitable 
probability that these revelations will feed public suspicion that the 
heightened domestic turmoil enveloping the White House may cause other 
acts of misjudgment. This is regrettable but it is a graphic 
illustration of the debilitating consequences of the commander in 
chief's unfortunate personal behavior.
  Of more concern are the important national security questions that 
are raised by the decision-making process that let the President target 
a factory in the Sudan that may not have been manufacturing chemical 
weapons. More hard information, however, needs to be developed and I 
urge the appropriate committees in the Congress to investigate this 
matter in more detail.

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