Friday, June 04, 2004
Taliban wanted to hand over OBL before 9/11, but deal was botched
"Not wanted, dead or alive," eh?
I still think Bush has OBL on ice for an October surprise. How hard could it have been to track a guy who needs kidney dialysis like OBL does?
UPDATE Sorry guys, I've got too much on my plate right now. Alert readers point out that this is probably a Clenis™-style smear—look at the timing. More evidence, I guess, of the "tectonic shifts" going on the government right now.
Three slaps with a wet noodle for insufficient display of cynicism!
U.S. and Taliban officials met secretly in Frankfurt almost a year before the Sept. 11 attacks to discuss terms for Afghanistan to hand over Osama bin Laden, according to a German television documentary.
But no agreement was reached and no further negotiations took place before the suicide hijackings in 2001.
ZDF television quoted Kabir Mohabbat, an Afghan-American businessman, as saying he tried to broker a deal between the Americans and the purist Islamic Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, who were sheltering bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.
He quoted the Taliban foreign minister, Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil, as saying: "You can have him whenever the Americans are ready. Name us a country and we will extradite him."
A German member of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok, confirmed to Reuters that he had helped Mohabbat in 1999 to establish initial contact with the Americans.
"I was told (by Mohabbat) that the Taliban had certain ideas about handing over bin Laden, not to the United States but to a third country or to the Court of Justice in The Hague," Brok said.
"The message was: 'There is willingness to talk about handing over bin Laden', and the aim of the Taliban was clearly to win the recognition of the American government and the lifting of the boycott," he said, referring to the international isolation of the Taliban.
The documentary, broadcast Thursday evening, said the Afghans put forward "several offers" and there was talk of holding further negotiations at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan on where and when bin Laden would be handed over.
(via Reuters)
I still think Bush has OBL on ice for an October surprise. How hard could it have been to track a guy who needs kidney dialysis like OBL does?
UPDATE Sorry guys, I've got too much on my plate right now. Alert readers point out that this is probably a Clenis™-style smear—look at the timing. More evidence, I guess, of the "tectonic shifts" going on the government right now.
Three slaps with a wet noodle for insufficient display of cynicism!
