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Did Clinton ignore several opportunities to capture Bin Laden...including one opportunity as late as 2000?

Monsoor Ijaz testified just that before the commission today.

Kasick asks about 'apologies' for prison abuse. He thinks Arabs believe it is an aberration, but the problem is the loudest voices are the fanatical ones. This is not unusual as far as what they're used to in their countries, but will they want to hold us accountable for their own political objectives rather than what really happened.

Kasick says, why you? (commission testimony). Ijaz says was a witness to important events and negotiated an unconditional offer with the Sudan to share intelligence with U.S.. Included very damning evidence that Bin Laden had ties to the militia that killed our Marines in Mogadishu in 1993.

He told the commission that in their overall assessment of things that they needed a much better understanding of things. That there are real political ties, good/bad intelligence use, egos..personal agendas....none of this has been looked at so far. He used the Sudan intervention as a case study.

He gave the commission the specific name of the person they knew in early 1996 - before the Sudan made the offer to the U.S.- that tied Bin Laden organization to the Mogadishu militias. This would have given the Dept. of Justice the evidence they needed to hand down an indictment and that indictment would have been the basis on which we would have brought Bin Laden to the U.S.

What did commissioners say? Ijaz doesn't want to say they were stunned....but they didn't say a whole lot.

His key recommendation is that in countries where we have difficult relationships we craft a policy where we engage on a military level..training people, teacher exchange programs. Big problem to fix long term.

Second recommendation, if a country is on the state sponsor of terrorism list, bring military and intelligence officials to U.S. talk to them...find out what they're doing and a way to work with us to get off the list.

I taped and then transcribed the tape. I type too slowly to get it live.