At the State House vigil, Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse called for "grim retribution." On WBUR-AM, US Representative Patrick Kennedy compared the terrorist threat to the dangers of Nazi Germany, and US Senator Jack Reed advocated that the US "strike those who have struck us." But little discussed in the days following the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is America's last attempt to retaliate violently against Osama bin Laden.

Following the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the Clinton Administration launched missiles against Afghan training camps and a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory, which, it said, were linked to bin Laden. Many now concede that the factory had no link to terrorism. Both the attack and the US failure to acknowledge the mistake, however, have hurt America's standing in the Arab world.

The Al Shifa factory in Khartoum manufactured nerve gas for bin Laden, the US claimed, but the Sudanese government bitterly denied the charge. The attack left the night watchman dead and deprived African children of medicines sold at half the international price, Sudan said. Sudan has steadfastly asked the United Nations to investigate American claims, but the US has blocked an inquiry.

In 1998, according to a UN press release, a US diplomat labeled Sudan's request "an attempt to divert attention from its support of terrorism." During the debate, the Sudanese delegate replied, "The double-standard of the United States led to questions about its attitudes towards Islam."

Bin Laden was expelled from Sudan in 1996 at the request of Saudi Arabia and the US. At the time of the missile attack, US "senior national security advisers" believed Al Shifa was a secret chemical weapons factory financed by him, the New York Times reported in 1998. But a month later, the paper reported, "those same officials concede they had no evidence directly linking bin Laden to the factory at the time the president ordered the strike."

Brent Scowcroft, a national security advisor for the elder George Bush, and others have since acknowledged that the attack was a mistake. The US continues to block a UN Security Council investigation, however, according to Tarik Bakhit, political officer for Sudan's UN mission, and the factory's owner is suing for damages in a US court.

A State Department official, who asked not to be identified, refuses to discuss the 1998 attack or the request for an impartial inquiry. Sudan's cooperation following the bombing of the World Trade Center has been "good," the official said, but the African nation remains on the US list of terrorist nations for allegedly harboring terrorists.

Issue Date: September 28 - October 4, 2001