U.S. military still wants to capture bin Laden alive
Published: March 17, 2010
U.S. troops have not given up on trying to take Osama bin Laden alive, the head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan said.
“If Osama bin laden comes inside Afghanistan which is the writ of my mandate, because I’m the ISAF commander here, we certainly would go after trying to capture him alive and bring him to justice,” Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters on Wednesday.
That is something “understood by everyone,” he added.
But U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told lawmakers the day before that bin Laden will not stand trial because he will either be killed by U.S. forces or his own people, the Washington Post reported.
“The reality is, we will be reading Miranda rights to a corpse,” Holder said, according to the Washington Post.
Holder had originally planned to try terrorist suspects linked to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York, but he faced a strong backlash from local officials and Republican lawmakers, prompting the Obama administration to look trying them by military tribunal.
President George W. Bush famously proclaimed in 2001 that bin Laden was wanted “dead or alive,” but the United States missed its best chance of capturing bin Laden in December 2001 at the battle of Tora Bora by relying on Afghan forces instead of U.S. troops to surround him.
PHOTO: Associated Press.
