Ambassador Carney to 9/11 Commission: Probe Sudan Offer

Former U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney challenged the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks on Thursday to conduct a thorough review of the Clinton administration's decision to turn down a 1996 offer from Sudan to extradite Osama bin Laden to the U.S.

"I think we need to have a serious section of [the 9/11 Commission] report on the whole question of: What did we know about bin Laden, when did we know it and what were the options that we apparently didn't exercise in getting him to the U.S.," Carney told radio host Sean Hannity.

"I think it needs more attention than it's [gotten]," he insisted.

Carney said the commission also needed to examine the Clinton administration's "failure to take up the Sudanese offer to begin discussions on our terrorism concerns, an offer that was made in early 1997."

The Clinton appointee said that when Khartoum offered to share information on bin Laden and his burgeoning al-Qaida network, "we totally ignored it."

"The FBI couldn't send anybody to Sudan," he told Hannity. "The State Department blocked it."

Though the U.S. diplomat says he fully briefed the 9/11 Commission on the spurned offers from Sudan, the commission's preliminary findings mention nothing about the 1997 overture.

As for the 1996 offer to arrest bin Laden and turn him over to the U.S., Staff Statement No. 5, issued by the commission two weeks ago, reads:

"Former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel bin Laden to the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."

But according to Carney, who, by the way, was a Clinton administration official, that's not true.

"I was also aware, but not directly, that there had been a discussion of whether Sudan might give him to us," he told Hannity.

"I didn't know in what form [the offer] came up or who raised it. But the fact of the matter is, [Clinton National Security Advisor] Sandy Berger himself has said that he had people look into whether the U.S. could take bin Laden. And the decision was there was no indictment on him."

Carney said he was unfamiliar with President Clinton's confirmation that the Sudanese offer to the U.S. had indeed taken place, indicating that when commissioners questioned him, they inexplicably decided not mention Clinton's recorded explanation of why he turned the offer down.

But after Hannity aired the tape - featuring the ex-president explaining, "I did not bring [bin Laden] here because we had no basis on which to hold him" - Carney said, "That sounds pretty definitive to me."

Tim Carney served as U.S. ambassador to Sudan from August 1995 through November 1997.

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