Need help debunking "Clinton was handed bin Laden" myth... any takers?

One of the guys in one of my classes today said that the Sudanese government was prepared to give us bin Laden, but Clinton didn't take the opportunity. I've heard this and it's refutation before; can anyone help me refresh my memory?

Thanks a bundle!

That is usaully my first stop on such things.

Nothing specifically about it.

I also did a DU search (yay donor benefits), but came up empty.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61251-2001Oct2

Probably clarifies the situation a little.

But here's the thing that gets me: the right wing keeps bitching about how Clinton did nothing, yet they voted for a president who RAN FOR ELECTION on the platform of "I'm not going to do anything"!!

That helps a lot.

and I have yet to hear ANY right-winger tell me ONE THING Bush did about terrorism during that time

:-)

http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/binlad.htm

"Unless the Clinton administration can come up with some hard evidence that bin Laden is in fact calling the shots of a vast new anti-American terrorist network, all the present allegations and faceless intelligence-source leaks claiming facts too secret and explosive to be revealed should be taken with a grain of salt.

Bin Laden may be a dangerous anti-American zealot with a mouth as big as his bankroll. But the evidence so far does not support him being a cerebral Islamic Dr. No moving an army of terrorist troops on a vast world chessboard to checkmate the United States."
SALON | Aug. 27, 1998

Or this:

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/09/23news.html

"Clinton needed to look "presidential" for a day. He may even have needed a vacation from his family vacation. In any event, he acted with caprice and brutality and with a complete disregard for international law, and perhaps counted on the indifference of the press and public to a negligible society like that of Sudan, and killed wogs to save his own lousy Hyde (to say nothing of our new moral tutor, the ridiculous sermonizer Lieberman). No bipartisan contrition is likely to be offered to the starving Sudanese: unmentioned on the "prayer-breakfast" circuit."

These were the attitudes that Clinton faced. People forget that though he had a high approval rating, the media and the Republicans (repititious, I know) claimed every action he took was wagging the dog. Now they want to pretend he did nothing except stand in their ways. Without the Republican attempts to destroy Clinton at any cost, Bin Laden would be less than a footnote.

For a list of things Clinton did to fight terrorism: http://www.makethemaccountable.com/myth/ClintonAndTerrorism.htm