Rating: 
Summary: Proves that Clinton is a bufoon!
Review: If you had any doubt that Bill Clinton was not an utter buffoon, read this book.If Clinton would have spent time chasing Bin-Laden and not southern women, then the world would have been a better place.
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Summary: A fascinating resource on pre-911 Osama bin Laden
Review: In this book, investigative journalist Richard Miniter looks at the activities of terrorist Osama bin Laden during the tenure of the Clinton administration, and looks at the administration's responses. Every terrorist attack, from the 1992 bombing at the Aden Hotel in Yemen, to the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, is covered in fascinating detail. Along the way, the reader is treated to a great deal of information about the roots of the present "War on Terror." This book is somewhat hard to review. Starting with the introduction, the author seems to make it clear that he had intended this book to be a resounding indictment of President Clinton, and balance was not what he was aiming for. However, that said, I did find this book to be a fascinating resource on the pre-911 activities of Osama bin Laden. I did not realize how much there was to know about what Bin Laden had been up to, and am quite glad that I read this book. Yes, supporters of the Clinton administration will find this book too unbalanced to enjoy, whereas opponents of the previous president will relish it. But, for anyone who is simply interested in the pre-911 activities of Osama bin Laden, I would recommend this as a fascinating resource.
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Summary: Shows How Law Enforcement Approach to Terrorism Fails
Review: This book documents how the indecisive Clinton administration missed numerous chances to capture or kill Bin Laden and severely damage or destroy his terror organization. It also shows how Clinton's decision, backed by his top advisors who were all lawyers, to deal with Bin Laden as a legal/law enforcement problem rather than a foreign intelligence/military problem was a major factor in missing foreign intelligence about Bin Laden and in squandering opportunities for capturing or killing Bin Laden. Also, indecision and endless debate and counterdebate caused the Administration to miss, ignore, or misinterpret opportunities to capture Bin Laden from Sudanese authorities. From the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 to the USS Cole in 2000, this book shows how Bin Laden and his terrorists were embolden because the US did not overwhelmingly retaliate. After the attack on the USS Cole, the Clinton administration developed plans to eliminate Bin Laden, which in retrospect seemed very likely to succeed, but in the end the political risks deterred the poll-driven Clinton from acting. Clinton has said the failure to capture or kill Bin Laden was the biggest failure of his presidency. How right he was. How different the world may have been if he had captured or kill Bin Laden. The final chapter is about the attack on the USS Cole. It documents how Clinton's advisors debated and counter-debated whether the US should respond militarily to the attack. Michael Sheenan, former State Department counterterrorism coordinator, was exasperated and baffled by the 7-to-1 vote by Clinton's national security advisors not to retaliate and by the Defense Department's conclusion that our ships just needed better protection. This frustrated advisor was prophetic when he stated: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?" The appendix documents the connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda is good, but the Iraqi-Al Qaeda connection is more fully described in "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America" by Yossef Bodansky.
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Summary: hindsight is 20/20
Review: In reviewing this book, one is tempted to be extremely partisan, as the only people likely to read it are those who either love or loathe Clinton and are intimately interested in the consequences of his presidency. I belong to the latter camp; I find him feckless and superficial at best, disingenuous and duplicitous at worst. My natural inclination, therefore, is to agree unilaterally with everything Mr. Miniter writes in his book. The problem that I run into, and the problem that anyone writing on such a topic runs into is that his whole argument is constructed on hearsay and circumstantial evidence. While that does not condemn his argument entirely, it creates a huge burden for Mr. Miniter to bear as an author. He apparently never interviewed Clinton (though he likely tried to get access to do so), and it may be a brilliant conceit of Clinton that he did not submit to an interview, but, absent an interview of one of the main players of the book, it is impossible to be certain what thoughts went through Clinton's mind as he missed opportunity after opportunity to do something decisive about bin Laden. Clearly, there are many points in the book in which Clinton's ulterior, political, motivations are exposed, but who is to say that any other President's motivations are not similarly political? That is, it seems inconsequential to me to explain Clinton's failings due to political calculation; all Presidents are by nature political animals, and anything they do or do not do can be construed as a political decision. Therefore, this kind of analysis, I believe, is of little use. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. The more interesting analysis comes when Mr. Minter focuses less on Clinton's political actions and more on the ideology in which Clinton operates. This is the ideology that believes in pafcisim and diplomacy, not force and compulsion, that believes in the inherent goodness and reasonableness of man, not the gross baseness to which uncivilized man aspires. In short, the more interesting angle from which to analyze Clinton is in the context of the culture wars. Whereas liberals of the past 50 years have been content to adopt the 'all views are equal' mantra of multicultralism, a more appropriate response to the threat of terror would have been one that explicitly defines the inherent goodness of America and its values and the inherent evil and baseness to which terrorists aspire. Come to think of it, this is precisely what W has done in his take on Osama. Too bad Clinton was so naive as to see a basic goodness in everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: FULL OF LIES...
Review: just a few things to say 1-who was the responsible for presidency when 9-11 happened??? 2-who has obstructed congress inquiry for 9-11? 3-who has invaded a independent country named iraq without any international resolution or consent?who has not found any alleged chemical weapons in iraq?? 4-who has corporate links with ladins family members as well as taliban rulers? do not look for the answer in any place: george dubya bush parrots always repeat what masters says like this so-called writer in my opinion as an outsider, clinton was the best president whom americans can ever have. my
istanbul-turkey
Rating:
Summary: Uneven
Review: Miniter's approach is self-admittedly journalistic. I think a number of these events are distant enough that a little analysis and perspective are in order. Therefore, I didn't find this book as informative as Laurie Mylroie's 2 books, for instance. Miniter's less analytic approach is least effective when examining the factual specifics of each terrorist attack. For the most part, he is relying on newspaper accounts of who the participants were in the conspiracy, what each did, and what his motives were. This is problematic, because any familiarity with the phenomenon of Islamist terrorism in the 1990s will encourage you to be on your guard: both the terrorists and their sponsors have obvious incentives to lie and much of what passes for common knowledge has been initially disseminated to produce certain effects. Even various factions in our intelligence bureaucracies (CIA, State Department) are pushing specific agendas. The book is better in providing insights in linking the terror campaign of the 1990s to events in the Clinton White House and Clinton's own political objectives at any given time. I think Miniter accurately concludes that the Clinton administration was not serious about this threat and lacked the will and talents needed to prosecute the war effectively. As an aside, one reason I bought the book was the Annex summarizing the evident of coordination between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Oddly enough, Miniter has done a better job in some of his newspaper pieces summarizing this evidence than what is found in this book, which is far from comprehensive.
Rating: 
Summary: Well, at least he did some research
Review: The good news is that this is one of the few right-wing publications in which the author actually did some research, instead of filling his book with the usual juvenile name-calling, misrepresentations and outright lies. Unfortunately, it's still doesn't pass the stink test. First, many of his "facts," such as the mythical Sudanese offer, have already been proven to be untrue. But the true litmus test of a fair book is an author's willingness to spread blame to ALL of those who are responsible, even those of his own ilk. This is where Miniter fails miserably. The fact is that the Clinton administration did make bin Laden a priority and tried to convince the current administration to do the same. However, they chose to ignore the warnings and instead concentrated of the re-introduction of the ridiculous (and ridiculously expensive) "Star Wars" missle defense system. They were still stuck in the Cold War until 9/11 provided them a wake-up call that they still haven't effectively answered. It is certainly useful to expose Clinton's failings but in light of the fact that Bush II also completely dropped the ball and the fact that we STILL don't have bin Laden AND that this administration will do nothing to deal with the Saudi terrorist breeding ground (which will eventually produce another bin Laden) because of precious oil deals, means that this book is only telling half (or less) of the real story. Given the fact that this book was published so recently, there's no excuse for ignoring the full culpability of the current administration. This is biased writing of the worst kind but he gets a second star for at least looking for the facts, though he conveniently ignored too many other truths that don't fit the "It's-all-Clinton's-fault" thesis. If you're going to play the blame game, at least get it right.
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Summary: first book to trace the tracks of losing an important foe
Review: This book reads like a Tom Clancey novel, but the book itself is based on true life, not fiction. It is better than fiction, and traces the failures of the Clinton Administration to do anything about a terrible threat to American security. I couldn't put the book down, it was that good.
This is the first book that details all the events that bin Laden launched against the US and the Western World, in general, with a lackluster response from the White House. This definitely illustrates the faulty worldview of Clinton, wherein his belief in the inherent goodness instead of the fallenness of man, made him leave a menace untouched, specifically one with the name of Osama bin Laden. The few responses, including military ones, that Clinton gave were pathetic, and the book entails all this.
I know that there are other reviewers that have gone into great detail about the things in the book, but I believe that people should read the book on their own.
Their are detailed pictures in the appendix of the book, as to papers and identities. A great book for future historical reference, if nothing else.
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Summary: This book is much more important then the title indicates!!!
Review: I have been reading many books on Bin Laden, Al Quaida, Muslim extremist and law enforcement as it relates to 9-11. I must say this book, Losing Bin Laden, is one of the best. It is completely documented and thoroughly sourced. It centers on the History of the raise of Bin Laden in relation to the response of our intelligence agency's, State department, and the Clinton Administration. Many may think, why read a book about past failures in not realizing how dangerous Bin laden was before 9-11? But this book is so much more than an indictment on Clinton's legacy as president. This book documents all of Al Quada's attacks on the US and American citizens all over the world; Documents the History of this declared war on US; and How each attack was handled my the FBI, CIA, And by the administration. Miniter shows us how and why the dots weren't connected. And how opportunities were missed to get Bin Laden and Stop his organization long before 9-11. Yes, the Book is critical of President Clinton and his administration; BUT I would ask everyone to look beyond the question of Clinton's legacy and LOOK TO learning from are past mistake's. Also there is a good Appendices hear explaining Al Quada's connection the Sadam and Iraqi Intelligence. This book is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Truth Well Told
Review: Finally a book that credibly, intelligently, coherently lays out the facts of how the Clinton administration failed the United States when it came to leading the charge to defeat global terrorism--even after inumerable opportunities to do so. This book details yet more examples of how the Clintons were more interested in their own political futures than doing what was right for the United States. George Stephanopolous in his own book "All Too Human" even admits Clinton didn't do anything in the first World Trade Center attack because it was deemed an unsuccessful attempt. Well, this book is the proverbial rest of the story. I can't wait to see how Madeline Albright and crew spin their way past this book. This book is destined to be a best seller. A must read!
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