The foiled attack came during Mr Clinton's visit to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in the city in 1996.
At one point during his stay, he was scheduled to visit a local politician, his route taking him across a bridge in central Manila.
But as the presidential motorcade was about to set off, secret service officers received a "crackly message in one earpiece" saying intelligence agents had picked up a message suggesting an attack was imminent. The transmission used the words "bridge" and "wedding" – a terrorists code word for assassination.
The motorcade was quickly re-routed and American agents later discovered a bomb had been planted under the bridge.
The subsequent US investigation into the plot "revealed that it had been masterminded by a Saudi terrorist living in Afghanistan – a man named Osama bin Laden".
In fact, I recall discussing about Osama Bin Laden in the early 1990's with a friend of mine. There was big coverage on Bin Laden in the Time magazine and that got us talking.. My friend was adamant that this man is bad news.. and we had never even heard of him!
We have all lived very sheltered existence in the US... and it has taken a LOT for the country to really wake up. Even 9/11 was happily forgotten over the past 7+ years.. It has taken home-grown terrorism and yet another aircraft event for the country to realize this can happen any day! Meanwhile Bin Laden is happily hiding away while is family is comfortably in Saudi.
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Democracy needs defending - SOS Hillary Clinton, Sept 8, 2010 Democracy is more than just elections - SOS Hillary Clinton, Oct 28, 2010
This is incredible. How fortunate that the secret service was able to pick up enough info to know to re-route the motorcade.
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It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less. ~Susan B. Anthony
Why haven't we caught bin Laden yet? I think it's mainly because Bush diverted all of our resources to Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Qaeda.
Why haven't we caught bin Laden yet? I think it's mainly because Bush diverted all of our resources to Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Qaeda.
Stamp.
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It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less. ~Susan B. Anthony