Officials would later state that there was no proof that the plant had been manufacturing or storing nerve gas- as initially suspected by the Americans- or that it had been linked to Osama bin Laden, who was a resident of Khartoum in the 1980s.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a Sudanese opposition in Cairo led by Mubarak Al-Mahdi, also insisted that the plant was producing ingredients for chemical weapons.

The group that monitors compliance with the treaty banning chemical weapons announced that EMPTA did have legitimate commercial purposes in the manufacture of fungicides and antibiotics, and the owner of the factory stated emphatically in interviews that the plant was not used for anything other than pharmaceuticals, and that there was no evidence to the contrary.

Ms. Oakley called a meeting of key aides and a consensus emerged: Contrary to what the Administration was saying, the case tying Al Shifa to Mr. bin Laden or to chemical weapons was weak.

[5] Directly after the strike the Sudanese government demanded that the United Nations Security Council conduct an investigation of the site to determine if it had been used to produce chemical weapons or precursors.

[9] The Observer noted that "[T]he loss of this factory is a tragedy for the rural communities who need these medicines" quoting Tom Carnaffin, technical manager with "intimate knowledge" of the destroyed plant.

[17] A month later, Guardian correspondent Patrick Wintour elaborated that the plant "provided 50 per cent of Sudan’s medicines, and its destruction has left the country with no supplies of chloroquine, the standard treatment for malaria".

He also noted that the British government (who publicly supported the U.S. decision to bomb the factory) refused requests "to resupply chloroquine in emergency relief until such time as the Sudanese can rebuild their pharmaceutical production".

[19] Germany's ambassador to Sudan at the time of the airstrike, Werner Daum, wrote an article in 2001, in which he called "several tens of thousands of deaths" of Sudanese civilians caused by a medicine shortage a "reasonable guess".

[20] Human Rights Watch reported that the bombing had the unintended effect of stopping relief efforts aimed at supplying food to areas of Sudan gripped by famine caused by that country's ongoing civil war.

A letter by that agency to President Clinton stated "many relief efforts have been postponed indefinitely, including a crucial one run by the U.S.-based International Rescue Committee where more than fifty southerners are dying daily".

[21] Mark Huband in the Financial Times wrote that the attack "shattered ... the expected benefits of a political shift at the heart of Sudan's Islamicist government" towards a "pragmatic engagement with the outside world".

[22] Journalist Jason Burke, in the book Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, claims that Operation Infinite Reach "merely confirmed to [bin Laden and his close associates], and others with similar views worldwide, that their conception of the world as a cosmic struggle between good and evil was the right one".

Eventually, Clinton administration officials conceded that the hardest evidence used to justify striking the plant was a single soil sample that seemed to indicate the presence of a chemical used in making VX gas.

The report also notes that in their testimony before the commission, Al Gore, Sandy Berger, George Tenet, and Richard Clarke all stood by the decision to bomb al-Shifa.

Given what we knew regarding terrorists’ interest in acquiring and using chemical weapons against Americans, and given the intelligence assessment provided us regarding the al-Shifa facility, I continue to believe that destroying it was the right decision.