Why the CIA told former President Bill Clinton not to take out bin Laden years before 9/11

Falyn Stempler Mon, September 14, 2026 at 5:44 AM UTC

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Bill and Hilary Clinton at a memorial service for the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks (Image: Getty)

The CIA abandoned an operation targeting Osama bin Laden years before the 9/11 terror attacks out of concern for civilian casualties, former President Bill Clinton said Sunday.

Clinton, 80, spoke about the agency's decision during a radio interview on WABC's "Cats Roundtable" show with host John Catsimatidis, during which he revealed that he "immediately" knew the al-Qaeda leader was behind the terror attacks. Clinton's remarks came just days before the CIA released files indicating that the Clinton administration was issued a warning that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden wanted to crash a bomb-packed plane into a U.S. city three years before 2001.

Clinton said during the radio appearance that he "had authorized the CIA to try to take him out" and hoped to capture him alive, though he knew that may not be possible. Now, 25 years after the deadliest terror attack in the country's history, Clinton appeared to admit to having a guilty conscience.

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"I was scared, and I was mad because we tried to get him before, and the CIA at the last minute killed the plan that I think might well have succeeded," he said. "But they were afraid that if they missed, they'd kill a lot of innocent civilians.

"They didn't want to run the risk. I didn't second-guess them, but I think, in the end, [bin Laden] was determined to do what he did, and he had lots of money and lots of capacity."

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Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was behind the 9/11 terror attacks (Image: CNN via Getty Images)

He confessed, "I wish we had done even more to get him. I always thought he was our biggest threat ... I wanted to get him, and I did what I could to do that."

The former president went on to recall his experience learning about the terror attacks. He said he was in Australia and his wife, Hilary, was in Washington. However, their daughter, Chelsea, was in Lower Manhattan at the time, and the couple feared for their daughter's safety.

"[Chelsea] was one of the thousands of people who were told to just walk north. We couldn't get in touch with her," Clinton told Catsimatidis. "I was watching television in Australia when the second plane hit. I immediately said that bin Laden did this.

Bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Forces at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011 (Image: CNN via Getty Images)

"They all looked at me and said, 'How do you know this?' I said, 'Well, because the only adversaries we have with the capacity to do this are Iran and bin Laden, and the Iranians wouldn't do it because we could wipe them off the face of the Earth immediately. And bin Laden is holed up in a cave in Afghanistan.'"

He added, "I just knew it had to be him. I also knew that he had been planning to do what he did to hit us for a long time."

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Source: “AOL Breaking”