On the September 25 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show, co-host Dan Caplis repeated the dubious claim -- made by a guest on the show's September 11 broadcast -- that, while attending a golf tournament, President Clinton passed up an opportunity to approve a strike against Osama bin Laden when “we had bin Laden in our sights.” Later during the September 25 broadcast, Caplis defended this claim in a discussion with a caller. Citing Colorado Media Matters, the caller noted that the September 11 guest, retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Buzz” Patterson, had misrepresented the contents of his own book, Dereliction of Duty (Regnery, 2003), in asserting that Clinton failed to authorize a strike against bin Laden because he was watching the 1996 President's Cup golf tournament.

Caplis had been discussing an interview Clinton gave the previous day to Fox News Sunday, during which Clinton said he had tried to have bin Laden killed. In claiming that Clinton made insufficient efforts, Caplis cited his September 11 interview with Patterson, in which Patterson claimed that Clinton refused to take a call from National Security Adviser Sandy Berger to authorize a strike when “we had bin Laden in our sights”:

CAPLIS: And then Clinton falls back on the “I tried, at least I tried.” Just what the heck did he do? Just what the heck did he do? Even if you want to start in '98 -- between '98 and the day he left office -- in comparison with the magnitude of the threat. We had a colonel on the show two weeks ago who said, “I was by Clinton's side. I was his right-hand military man and we had bin Laden in our sights. We had the bombers in the air -- and this happened on more than one occasion -- and all we needed was the go order from him. And he wouldn't even take the call because he was at a golf tournament.”

As Colorado Media Matters noted, Patterson's claims echoed -- with significant distortions -- unsubstantiated allegations he leveled in Dereliction of Duty. The book purports to draw upon Patterson's experience as a military aide charged with accompanying the president at all times from May 1996 to May 1998 bearing the so-called “nuclear football” containing the launch codes for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

During the September 11 interview on The Caplis & Silverman Show, Patterson described having accompanied President Clinton to the 1996 President's Cup golf tournament. In his book (pp. 23-30), Patterson claimed that during the event, held September 13-15, Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger repeatedly called Patterson in order to obtain from Clinton authorization to launch a strike against Iraq, which two weeks before had attacked the United States-protected portion of Iraq known as Kurdistan in violation of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire agreement. Patterson set the scene in his book as follows: “On September 11, two days before the golf outing, President Clinton told a crowd in Sun City, Arizona, that 'action is imminent' in Iraq and that 'the determination of the United States in dealing with the problem of Iraq should not be underestimated.' ” In his interview with Caplis and Silverman, however, Patterson apparently changed his story, declaring that the strike in question -- which he misdated as having occurred in July 1996 -- was designed to kill Osama bin Laden:

CAPLIS: And if you would, tell us about those situations where Sandy Berger thought he had a clean shot at Osama bin Laden and then asked the president or tried to seek that authority from the president to take that shot.

PATTERSON: Yeah, there were actually several of them, and I'll tell you that my first book, Dereliction of Duty, I actually start the book off with the first one that I experienced happened only one month into my time and President Bill Clinton -- we were at a professional golf tournament -- and we had a strike planned. We had fighters and bombers in the air. And on three occasions, Sandy Berger called me -- because the military aide is also the call screener for the president -- so in this case, Mr. Berger was calling me to get to the president to get the go-ahead to launch the strike. And on three occasions the president really couldn't be bothered. He didn't want to have his golf tournament interrupted. He wanted to watch the tournament. And I had to go back to Berger each time and say, “Sir, the president is not willing to accept your phone call.” So we ended up having to cancel that attack because we lost the cover of nighttime over the Middle East, and the president never did make a decision. In fact, he jumped into the limousine headed back to the White House that day and said, “I'll give Berger a call later,” which was obviously too late.

SILVERMAN: Hey, Colonel Patterson, this is Craig Silverman. I'd like a little more detail about that. What golf tournament was it?

PATTERSON: It was the President's Cup in Manassas, Virginia, in July of 1996.

SILVERMAN: Sure, where the Americans are competing against the Australians --

PATTERSON: Exactly.

SILVERMAN: -- the South Africans, etcetera. And, did you go up to the president and say, “Sandy Berger's on the line,” and he said, “Don't bother me?

PATTERSON: Yeah. The third time -- not only was Berger angry at me the first two times because I was not getting the answer he wanted. The third time the president got angry at me because I kept interrupting him. I mean, literally, the final time I went up to the president, I said, ”OK, sir, this is the situation. These are my peers -- Air Force pilots -- in those cockpits. We have a limited amount of time to pull this off. I need you to give Mr. Berger a call or take his call right now." And he basically just snapped at me and said, “I'll get back to him when I want to!”

SILVERMAN: So, did he know specifically it was about bin Laden, a strike on bin Laden?

PATTERSON: He knew, because he'd ordered the operation in the first place. And this was the point of my book, throughout my time at the White House. It wasn't so much that President Clinton didn't take the phone and say, “No, don't initiate the attack.” President Clinton told us to prepare this attack, this plan. We had, you know, sent fighters and bombers to the region. They were actually in the air ready to go. And he wouldn't -- at that point he wouldn't take the situation seriously enough to even make a decision. And again, I don't care if it is “Yes, we go” or “No, we don't go.” But, you know, not making a decision, not talking to your senior foreign policy adviser, to me is dereliction of duty.

Later in the September 25 broadcast, a caller challenged Caplis with the observation that Colorado Media Matters had shown “that in his own book, Patterson says the strike was against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and not Osama bin Laden.” Caplis later said to the caller, “OK, fine. Has Bill Clinton denied it? ... I haven't heard him [Clinton] deny it.”

Colorado Media Matters has not found an instance in which Clinton denied Patterson's claims about the President's Cup golf tournament. But as Colorado Media Matters noted in its original item, Berger has categorically denied the allegations in Patterson's book. Shortly after the publication of Patterson's book, the Daily News of New York quoted Berger in an article [purchase required] published March 18, 2003, saying, “At no time during my years at the White House was I unable to reach President Clinton for timely decisions on military action or national security,” and "[t]he two incidents described in this book that involve me, regarding Iraq and Bin Laden, simply are false."

The other incident to which Berger referred described an episode in 1998 in which Berger supposedly attempted to reach Clinton from the White House Situation Room to authorize a missile strike on bin Laden's camp. According to Patterson's account, Berger finally reached Clinton one hour into a two-hour window of opportunity for the strike, and the strike was called off when debate over whether to proceed consumed the final hour of the window of opportunity. Patterson dated this incident to around the time of the August 7 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. However, as Colorado Media Matters noted, on page 19 of his book Patterson stated that his White House service ended in May 1998 -- before the alleged incident took place. According to a story posted by the right-wing news website WorldNetDaily, Patterson “insisted” that "[t]here are others who can corroborate his accounts" but “they are still in military service and therefore legally bound not to come forward and make statements.” WorldNetDaily reported that Patterson “affirmed” that "[t]hree of the four other military aides who rotated being at the president's side were additional sources for his book."

From the September 25 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show:

CAPLIS: Dependent upon which history you choose to accept. But one thing's undeniable. We have Clinton's words right here in '98: “compelling information that bin Laden is planning additional terrorist attacks, inevitable casualties, seeking to acquire chemical weapons and other dangerous weapons.” And then Clinton falls back on the “I tried, at least I tried.” Just what the heck did he do? Just what the heck did he do? Even if you want to start in '98 -- between '98 and the day he left office -- in comparison with the magnitude of the threat. We had a colonel on the show two weeks ago who said, “I was by Clinton's side. I was his right-hand military man, and we had bin Laden in our sights. We had the bombers in the air -- and this happened on more than one occasion -- and all we needed was the go order from him. And he wouldn't even take the call because he was at a golf tournament.”

[...]

CAPLIS: But you can't deny the fact -- or maybe you do -- that it is malpractice, it is complete malpractice for a president to refuse to even take the call when the military has bombers in the air ready to take out bin Laden.

SILVERMAN: I don't like that behavior. But that comes from a pretty partisan source. He was in a position to know. And maybe time will tell -- we'll hear that kind of thing about the Bush administration. I don't know.

CAPLIS: We've never heard Clinton dispute that story, and the colonel's been telling it lots and lots of places.

CALLER: Yeah, Dan. Last hour you told this story about how bombers were in the air prepared to strike Osama bin Laden, and that Clinton didn't authorize them to strike him because he was too busy playing golf and wouldn't take a phone call.

CAPLIS: That's not what I said. What I said in the last hour is we had a guest on this show -- a colonel in the Air Force who was Clinton's right-hand military man -- who came on this show and said they had bombers in the air, they had bin Laden in their sights, they were trying to reach Bill Clinton, who was at the President's Cup golf tournament, and Clinton wouldn't take the call, quoting Colonel Patterson.

CALLER: But you know that he was inaccurate when he made that statement, don't you Dan?

CAPLIS: Well, I don't know that, because Colonel Patterson was standing there. I wasn't. And I don't think you were either.

CALLER: Well, if you've done any research at all, Dan, you would find out that he was wrong. If you could look at Colorado Media Matters, the September 14th issue, it describes that in his own book, Patterson says the strike was against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and not Osama bin Laden. Pages 23 to 30, Dan.

CAPLIS: The guy came on the show, he said he was there, he saw it. Now, can you produce somebody who was there at that same time who will say --

CALLER: I can produce his book, Dan.

CAPLIS: OK, fine. Has Bill Clinton denied it?

CALLER: It's specious!

CAPLIS: Has Bill Clinton denied it?

CALLER: I don't know, Dan.

CAPLIS: I haven't heard him deny it.

CALLER: I don't think he's ever heard anyone make that allegation.

CAPLIS: Oh, come on, are you kidding me? His right-hand man --

CALLER: It's in his book, Dan.

CAPLIS: Hold on a second, [Caller].

CALLER: Look at the book.

CAPLIS: [Caller], I'm trying to be analytical here.--

CALLER: OK, go ahead.

CAPLIS: You say that you don't think Bill Clinton's ever heard the allegation. That is inconceivable.

CALLER: Where would he hear it from, Dan?

CAPLIS: Here's where he'd hear it: It was national news.

CALLER: [GARBLED]

CAPLIS: [Caller], do you want to have a discussion?

CALLER: OK, I apologize. Where would he hear it?

CAPLIS: We're going to break. You're with Dan & Craig, 630 KHOW.

Special thanks to the caller to the September 25 broadcast of the Caplis & Silverman Show, who provided a tip for this item. Thanks, and keep them coming!