Less than 40 days after Clinton became President, a truck bomb exploded in the World Trade Center - the first strike in the terrorist attack on the US and its people abroad. So began an eight year duel, fought by proxy and bomb, between Osama bin Laden and Clinton.
Clinton knew, from 1995 onwards, that to a large degree his role in history would be shaped by the outcome of his private war on bin Laden. What he achieve and how he ultimately failed is revealed in full for the first time in this riveting narrative.
Among the revelations:
- Why the duel had to be kept secret.
- The contents of the still secret US government letter that threatened the Sudan's President with military action for shielding bin Laden's headquarters in the Sudan.
- How Clinton shattered bin Laden's operations for almost a year by ordering cruise missile attacks on al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and on a nerve-gas producing plant in Sudan.
- How Clinton foiled 14 separate plots to kill Americans - including attacks in New York, Rome and Amman Jordan - during the millennium celebrations.
- How bureaucratic infighting between the FBI and the State Department paralysed the investigation of the assault on the USS Cole, and allowed the al Qaeda killers to escape.
- The contents of the Sudanese government's voluminous intelligence files on bin Laden derived from moles inside the al Qaeda network - revealed here for the first time.
- How Richard Clarke, who in July 2000 was Clinton's counter-terrorism czar, destroyed Clinton's last and best chance to capture bin Laden.
- Why Clinton's secret war on bin Laden ultimately failed in the face of feuding bureaucrats, incompetent political appointees, ambitious cabinet secretaries, a Republican-led Congress, a rudderless CIA, and an increasingly hostile press.
Neither an anti-Clinton screed or a pro-Clinton apologia, 'The Duel' is a first draft of history and a gripping read.
