8/20/1998

Regarding the August 20, 1998, attack on bin Laden, President Bill Clinton said: ” ‘…we were told he was going to be at that training site…and he left a couple of hours before [the missiles hit]. So what did I have? A 40 percent chance of knowing we could have hit it. But there were a very large number of women and children in that compound and it’s almost like he was daring me to kill them. …I felt it would hurt America’s interests if we killed a lot of Afghani women and children and didn’t even get him.’ ”

 – Bill Gertz, Breakdown, Pages 13-14