10/14/01:The day GWB refused Taliban hand over of OBL (Consortium News)

[laststeamtrain]

Bush's First 'War on Terror' Blunder

By Peter Dyer
March 15, 2007


There is universal agreement that the events of Sept. 11, 2001 altered the course of history. However, the response of the Bush administration to 9/11 eventually had a far greater impact than the original tragedy.

Seen in that light, Oct. 14, 2001 was an even more momentous day.

That was the day President George W. Bush rejected an offer by the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 terror.

Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, had announced that if the United States stopped bombing Afghanistan and produced evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in 9/11, "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country."

Bush responded: "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty. … Turn him over.”

Some U.S. officials had doubts about the sincerity of Kabir’s offer as well as the ability of the Taliban to deliver bin Laden.

But according to Milton Bearden, a former CIA station chief who oversaw U.S. covert operations in Afghanistan in the 1980s: “We never heard what they were trying to say. We had no common language. Ours was, 'Give up bin Laden.' They were saying, 'Do something to help us give him up.' … I have no doubts they wanted to get rid of him. He was a pain in the neck.''

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http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2007/031507a.html

[merh]

1. They rejected the offer to hand over Osama well before that.

This was the February 27, 2007 White House briefing

From the official transcript

Q Ari, according to India Globe, the Taliban in Afghanistan, they have offered that they are ready to hand over Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia if the United States would drop its sanctions, and they have a kind of deal that they want to make with the United States. Do you have any comments?

MR. FLEISCHER: Let me take that and get back to you on that.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/20010227.html

See the video of the Press Briefing at the link in my sig line.

[thecrow]

2. February WHAT?

Ari?

[merh]

3. Go to the link - it was Feb 27, 2001

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 27, 2001

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/20010227.html

More discussion here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x16718