Before President Bush gets anywhere near casting his first veto to ensure that the government of the United Arab Emirates can manage elements of six U.S. ports, someone ought to put before him pages 137-139 of "The 9/11 Commission Report...

The story the commission tells is that [Richard C. Clarke] made a call to a high-ranking UAE official that may have inadvertently saved bin Laden from a U.S. missile strike. The commission's reporting strongly suggests someone in the UAE government tipped off someone in Afghanistan, protecting bin Laden.

In early 1999, the Clinton Administration wanted to fire missiles at bin Laden without risking civilian casualties. Bin Laden played into our hands. Intelligence reports from Afghan "tribals" indicated he was frequenting a small hunting camp adjacent to a larger camp outside Kandahar, Afghanistan. Here U.S. missiles could score a clean kill.

But then officials from the UAE got in the way. The commission said:

"On February 8, the military began to ready itself for a possible strike. The next day, national technical intelligence confirmed the location and description of the larger camp and showed the nearby presence of an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates. But the location of Bin Laden's quarters could not be pinned down so precisely... According to reporting from the tribals, bin Laden regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp where he visited the Emiratis. The tribals expected him to be at the hunting camp for such a visit at least until midmorning on February 11. Clarke wrote to Berger's deputy on February 10 that the military was then doing targeting work to hit the main camp with cruise missiles and should be in position to strike the following morning. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert appears to have been briefed on the situation.

"No strike was launched. By February 12 bin Laden had apparently moved on, and the immediate strike plans became moot. According to CIA and Defense officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike would kill an Emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with bin Laden or close by. Clarke told us the strike was called off after consultations with Director Tenet because the intelligence was dubious, and it seemed to Clarke as if the CIA was presenting an option to attack America's best counterterrorism ally in the Gulf. The lead CIA official in the field, Gary Schroen, felt that the intelligence reporting in this case was very reliable. The bin Laden unit chief, 'Mike,' agreed. Schroen believes today that this was a lost opportunity to kill bin Laden before 9/11...