Rating: 
Summary: A stunning, awesome, well-reported book
Review: Imagine what happens when a few good breaks and infinite shoe leather let you start interviewing members of the intelligence services of African, Middle Eastern, and some European countries, and they let you copy the files the CIA sent them, and they show you the files they sent the CIA, and the same disastrous patterns of cluelessness and incompetence by the architects of American foreign policy show up again and again. The foreigners agree to talk because they are as dumfounded as you are. Then, more amazingly, the key players in Washington confirm everything themselves in on-record interviews. This meticulously researched, amply documented, and tightly written account of 12 botched opportunities to stop bin Laden is must reading for all Americans.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst Book of 2003
Review: No matter what name this book goes by (his first title THE DUEL: CLINTON AND BIN LADEN'S SECRET WAR), no matter who writes it, no matter what publisher ends up getting stuck with it, right-wing angels will be sure to buy it in bulk a la TREASON and assure it a place on the NY TIMES bestseller list. Whenever the Right feels compelled to shift the blame for their inadequacies, failures, and crimes, Bill Clinton is their number one scapegoat. Wasn't the economy great in the 90's? Strangely enough, Reagan's 80's tax cuts -- which took us STRAIGHT into the biggest deficits ever -- get all the credit. George W. Bush's own surplus-depleting tax cuts ruined the US economy, and Clinton's bold, successful, and progressive economic policies -- which resulted in the longest continuing peacetime growth of the economy in history -- inexplicably catch the blame. So is it any wonder that the criminally incompetent and mendacious Bush administration -- after wrecking the economy (in the same cavalier fashion that former Governor Bush wrecked Texas' economy), dismantling longstanding environmental protections, giving massive tax cuts only to himself and his family and all their friends and to anyone else who's made or inherited a fortune, tearing up the Bill of Rights, and making the USA the world's most loathed nation of the 21st century -- fails to protect its citizens from terrorists acts IT KNEW WERE COMING? And that Bush then wraps himself in this tragedy to avoid taking any responsibility for his CRIMINAL negligence of our security -- and lays the blame for it at Clinton's doorstep? Books like this exist not to present facts but to part fools from their money. David Brock proved with his bestseller THE REAL ANITA HILL that the right wing won't spend a dime on the truth, but they'll happily throw their tax refunds at any printed lie that smears their enemies.
I read once where the most popular book titles among conservative Republicans are about golf, Nazi Germany, and cats. If Miniter wants this book truly to succeed with the right wing he should have titled it GOLFING FOR BILL CLINTON'S CAT and put a big swastika on the cover.
Rating: 
Summary: Helluva Read
Review: Never mind Minter's considerable skill at sleuthing out disturbing facts about the Clinton administration's inability to confront Bin Laden. What truly makes this book a must-read is his ability to present these facts in an eminently readable fashion. From Khartoum to the White House to CIA headquarters in Langley, Miniter deftly engages the reader with vivid reconstructions of key meetings, conversations and events. Indeed, so strong is Miniter's story-telling that readers will be forgiven for believing they had a seat at the table -- though given the negligence shown by those participants, whether they would want to have been there is another matter.
Rating:
Summary: Historical Tripe, Ideological Noise
Review: To evaluate this book for objectivity one need only look at the Regnery Press homepage. Any sane, open minded person will quickly ascertain the quality and bent of the source and obvious bias inherent in all their publications.
A quick scan of Mr. Miniter's bona fides, via Google or any database search engine, will disabuse all but the most rabid of ideologues, that any true, in depth research has been done. Nor, after such an examination of readily available facts, could any pretense of historical scholarship, reportorial gravitas or, at times, even simple common sense be considerered as having anything to do with this screed.
Now that that's settled. It must be said that this is an important issue, one that all Americans should be well informed about. This book fails that test miserably.
Misinformation is more than a trifle. It does real harm. The fact that Mr. Miniter and Regnery, conciously let partisanship trump the truth is to be regretted.
Rating:
Summary: Thumbs Up From Cap Weinberger
Review: The following review appeared in the Washington Times on September 2. "Effective Foreign Policy a Must"
By Caspar W. Weinberger Richard Miniter's new book, "Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror," tells the sad, infuriating history of the number of opportunities President Clinton had to capture and imprison or kill the terrorist Osama bin Laden. Instead, we are still hunting. Bin Laden is still at large and alive enough to sponsor and concoct the details of the worst attack on America in our history -- the destruction of the World Trade Center and the bombing of the Pentagon. What other horrors he is planning we do not know, simply because he is still uncaptured. That reality is the sickening part of this remarkably well-researched and -sourced new book. Mr. Miniter -- part of the reporting team that broke the "The Road to Ground Zero" story in the Jan. 6, 2002 London Sunday Times -- has told how many real, actual and missed opportunities the Clinton administration had to capture and defang bin Laden. Why in the world would any U.S. administration not accept any and all offers to help dispose of one of the most vicious and well-financed terrorist leaders? For several reasons, as the author points out. The Clinton foreign policy was to get re-elected. Therefore, anything that might be controversial had to be avoided. So, from the beginning to the end of the administration, the Clintons "demanded absolute proof before acting against terrorists." This high bar guaranteed inaction. At the beginning of his term, after the attack of Feb. 26, 1993, Mr. Clinton refused to admit that the World Trade Center had been bombed. Later, he referred to it only as "regrettable" and "treated the disaster. . . like a twister in Arkansas." Earlier, he had "urged the public not to 'overreact' to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing." That attitude was typical of the Clintonites. The president did not want to hear about bad news -- such as our terrible losses in October 1993,-- when Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia, or the even more terrifying losses in New York. That would require a strong response which might upset some of the strange group of advisors and officials Mr. Clinton had collected. So it was with all the other missed opportunities to get bin Laden. CIA Director James Woolsey rarely had any meetings with Mr. Clinton. The president never supported Mr. Woolsey's urgent request for Arabic-language translators for the CIA in 1994. A separate feud between Mr. Woolsey and Sen. Dennis DeConcini, Arizona Democrat, was allowed to run its course without direction by the Clinton White House, which further set back the CIA director's appeal for Arabic translators. So, as the author concludes, "a bureaucratic feud and President Clinton's indifference kept America blind and deaf as bin Laden plotted." The Sudanese would offer to let the U.S. see their intelligence files and all the data they had gathered about bin Laden and the associates who had visited him in Sudan, "and would be repeatedly rebuffed through both formal and informal channels. This was one of the greatest intelligence failures of the Clinton years as the result of orders that came from the Clinton White House." Had the Clinton administration accepted and examined these files, countless terrorists could have been tracked. Sudan's offer to arrest bin Laden and deliver him to U.S. officials was likewise refused. The Clinton Administration did try to get Saudi Arabia to accept bin Laden from Sudan, but the Saudi government apparently had as difficult a time as Mr. Clinton in making up its mind. The issue finally resolved itself thus: "The Clinton Administration refused to work with the government of Sudan," and so all the Sudanese efforts to help us by cooperating in the capture and delivery of bin Laden failed. Nothing more happens even after Mr. Clinton won re-election in November 1996. This is the long sad story of the Clinton Administration's blind refusal to accept offer after offer to deliver one of the world's terrorist leaders before and after his minions killed thousands in various terrorist attacks. The book is climaxed by a documented recital of the links between bin Laden's al Qaeda units and Iraq that should convince all but the most extreme Bush-haters that these links exist and continue. In all of this, we should try to remember and be grateful for the brilliant military achievements of our forces in overthrowing Saddam Hussein. There have always been disputes within administrations. What is important is to contrast the methods President Reagan used to resolve these differences with Mr. Clinton's indecisiveness. If Mr. Reagan had so feared taking any kind of position that might become controversial or might injure his chances for re-election, as Mr. Clinton did every day, we would never have won the Cold War. "Losing bin Laden" is a valuable history that should serve as a training manual in how not to run a foreign policy. Caspar W. Weinberger, a former Secretary of Defense, is chairman of Forbes.
Rating:
Summary: Straight From the Horses' Mouths
Review: The crack reporting in "Losing bin Laden" completely changed my perspective of 9/11. The most compelling aspect of the book is that the author uses testimony from face-to-face interviews with Clinton officials to indict President Clinton for not grabbing bin Laden when he had the chance. Clinton's own aides know they screwed up and they are all pointing fingers at their colleagues to try to divert blame away from their own roles in setting America up for disaster. Liberals and Democrats who are criticizing the book are in the embarrassing position of having to rebut the evidence offered by their own fellow travellers. If Richard Miniter had relied on conservative Republican sources for his reporting, there would be room to doubt his conclusions about Clinton's irresponsible handling of foreign policy. But by using information from mostly Clintonite sources, he provides a truly objective criticism of the Clinton administration. The book proves that, without a doubt, Bill Clinton lost bin Laden and thus made 9/11 possible.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: This is quite the most important book published so far on the background to the war on terror we are now having to fight. Using unrivalled sources, with revelations on almost every page, Miniter disects with precision the culpability of the Clinton administration.
It is not, as some of the more partisan reviewers have alleged, a rant. It is a sober, carefully argued, detailed expose of how we have arrived at the current state of affairs. And it is truly compelling.
Rating:
Summary: Strong reporting makes this an excellent read
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author takes you into important national security meetings, whicle also discussing what is happening in Sudan at the exact same moment and why this is important. It is exceptionally well documented. It is a sobering look at what we could have done to prevent the September 11 tragedies.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent. It will be an historic reference !
Review: The book is a clear path of neglect by our national government that led up to the attacks in NYC and in Washington, D.C.
Rating:
Summary: fight hillary. never let bill back in the white house
Review: The books is a good read and makes a solid case against Bill Clinton. Hillary is going to run for President in 2004 or 2008. We can never let Bill or Hillary back in the White House. We already knew about their corruption and money and sex scandals. From this book we know about Bill's bin Laden scandals. After reading this book, you'll never want Bill Clinton near Washington, D.C.
| 
