's brewing tale tales again.
Posted on 05/03/2005 5:02:46 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
US spy chiefs ordered agents to deliver Osama bin Laden's severed head in a box of dry ice and hoist heads of other Al-Qaeda leaders on pikes, a retired field officer has disclosed.
As America reeled in shock days after the September 11 attacks in 2001, former CIA officer Gary Schroen was sent to Afghanistan to help the opposition Northern Alliance to topple bin Laden's hosts the Taliban.
He told National Public Radio in an interview broadcast on Monday and Tuesday that he stopped by the office of then-CIA counterterrorism director Cofer Black for final instructions.
He said he was told: "'your basic marching orders are to link up with the Northern Alliance and get their cooperation militarily and they will take on the Taliban.
"'When we break the Taliban, your job is to capture bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box full of dry ice.'"
Schroen was also ordered to kill other al-Qaeda leaders suspected in the plot, which saw terrorists slam planes into the New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.
t was the first time in 30 years with the CIA he had been ordered to set out to kill a target rather than try to bring them in alive, Schroen told NPR's Morning Edition program.
He said he told Black, '"Sir, those are the clearest orders I have ever received, I can certainly make pikes out in the field but I don't know what I'll do about dry ice to bring the head back but we will manage something."
A week after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush told reporters he wanted Osama bin Laden and recalled Wild West posters that demanded suspects "dead or alive."
But the suspected terror mastermind was never caught and Schroen told NPR that CIA operatives found it hard to get close enough to strike bin Laden, partly due to his ability to move quickly around the country.
"We had could never tell where the man was going to be that night," Schroen, who is promoting a new book and believes bin Laden is now hiding out in tribal areas of Pakistan, told NPR.
Schroen, now 63, and his six-man team were among the first Americans into Afghanistan after September 11, and his book "First In" relates his dangerous mission behind enemy lines.
Coming from the French Press...... I doubt it..
Coming from our failed CIA........ I doubt it..
Looks like this clown failed in his "clearest assignment ever"...
Semper Fi
How does this story square with the early report out of the Afghanistan war that a team had Bin Laden sighted, but, had to wait for the go ahead for a kill from DC? Book hype?
I'd rather see his head packed in pig entrails. ;)
Most people feel it's their duty to do their job and then retire. N'uff said.
's brewing tale tales again.
Sounds like a boatload of BS to me. No doubt we wanted Bin Laden dead still do, but this isnt the type of order that would be given.
"Sounds like a boatload of BS to me. No doubt we wanted Bin Laden dead still do, but this isnt the type of order that would be given."
In any case it would make a real nice display at the Smithsonian.
Jack Bauer would have brought UBL's head back on ice and his nuts back in a Crown Royal bag.
Sounds like a worthwhile order to follow. I'd prefer al-Zawhari in the same deal.
Author is promoting his new book on NPR
Though this probably did reflect quite accurately the feeling of the administration of the Nation at the time, this seems pretty unlikely. Dry ice would be a bit hard to come by in Afganistan, and an operator like Black would know that.
Hell, your average NPR listener is probably more weary of a CIA field operative than they are of OBL.
....in the Smithsonian display case right next to John Dillinger's penis....
(//Urban Legend!)
Yeah, but it's the thoguht that counts.
Stuff it in Osamas mouth to save space.
Great graphic!
Good job.
Ping.
Yes: In one of the Smithsonians urinals.
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