Wow.
The CIA sent a team to Afghanistan days after 9/11 with orders to kill Osama Bin Laden and bring back his head, a former agent has revealed.Gary Schroen flew out soon after the attacks on New York and Washington, helping to set up the 2001 invasion, he told US National Public Radio.
He recalled his orders from the CIA's counter-terrorism chief.
"Capture Bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box on dry ice," he quoted Cofer Black as saying.
As for other leaders of Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan, Mr Black reportedly said: "I want their heads up on pikes."
Can this possibly be true? On Wednesday's Nightline, Schroen sure was convincing -- enough a colorless DC bureaucrat to lend his story the rumpled air of credibility. And his explanation for why the CIA allowed him to step forward (basically, to give the agency a shot of good press after the Saddam WMD debacle) felt right, too. But, if Schroen and his new book are, in essence, the spooks' attempt to steer public debate, don't we have to take this all with a large sackful of salt?
