Abu Jandal and Habib

Yesterday on 60 Minutes, Bob Simon interviewed one of Osama bin Laden's former bodyguards, Abu Jandal.




I found it difficult to reconcile what Jandal was saying, via an interpreter, with his demeanor. He looked to be a pleasant, genial man. He smiled frequently.

Jandul proves the validity of the saying that looks can be deceiving.

(Excerpts from CBS)

"Did you ever find out who betrayed Osama bin Laden that night?" Simon asks Abu Jandal.

"It was the Afghan cook," he replies.

Abu Jandal says the cook was not punished. "Sheikh Osama decided to let him go, so we let him go home. Sheikh Osama even gave him money and told him, 'Go provide for your children.' "

"Would you have liked to have killed the cook yourself?" Simon asks.

"Of course," Abu Jandal replies.

Asked how he would have done that, Abu Jandal said, "With a bullet in the head, and that would be the end of the story."

He said that so calmly and with a little smile, as though he took pleasure reflecting on the matter, like some beautiful memory.

It was beyond creepy. It was chilling.

Another aspect about the interview that disturbed me was the story of how bin Laden by chance escaped death from a U.S. missile attack in August 1998.

Abu Jandal says America’s best chances to kill bin Laden came and went before 9/11. Paramount among them, August 1998, right after bin Laden bombed two U.S. embassies in East Africa. The al Qaeda leaders knew the Americans would retaliate, so they left their compound at Tarnak Farms and drove north.

"There was a fork in the road. One road leading to Khost and training camps, and another one leading to Kabul," Abu Jandal recalls. "I was with Sheikh Osama in the same vehicle with three guards, so he turned to us and said, 'What do you think? Khost or Kabul?' We told him, 'Let’s just visit Kabul.' So Sheikh Osama said, 'OK, Kabul.' "

Kabul it was. The next evening, 75 American cruise missiles slammed into the training camp near Khost, the road not taken.

That may have been the best chance the U.S. had to kill bin Laden, but it was most definitely not the only or best opportunity that the Clinton Administration had to "deal" with him.

In a Q & A with National Review Online, Richard Minter, author of Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror, explains:

On March 3, 1996, U.S. ambassador to Sudan, Tim Carney, Director of East African Affairs at the State Department, David Shinn, and a member of the CIA's directorate of operations' Africa division met with Sudan's then-Minister of State for Defense Elfatih Erwa in a Rosslyn, Virginia hotel room. Item number two on the CIA's list of demands was to provide information about Osama bin Laden. Five days later, Erwa met with the CIA officer and offered more than information. He offered to arrest and turn over bin Laden himself. Two years earlier, the Sudan had turned over the infamous terrorist, Carlos the Jackal to the French. He now sits in a French prison. Sudan wanted to repeat that scenario with bin Laden in the starring role.

Clinton administration officials have offered various explanations for not taking the Sudanese offer. One argument is that an offer was never made. But the same officials are on the record as saying the offer was "not serious." Even a supposedly non-serious offer is an offer. Another argument is that the Sudanese had not come through on a prior request so this offer could not be trusted. But, as Ambassador Tim Carney had argued at the time, even if you believe that, why not call their bluff and ask for bin Laden?

The Clinton administration simply did not want the responsibility of taking Osama bin Laden into custody. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger is on the record as saying: "The FBI did not
believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States." Even if that was true — and it wasn't — the U.S. could have turned bin Laden over to Yemen or Libya, both of which had valid warrants for his arrest stemming from terrorist activities in those countries. Given the legal systems of those two countries, Osama would have soon ceased to be a threat to anyone.

After months of debating how to respond to the Sudanese offer, the Clinton administration simply asked Sudan to deport him. Where to? Ambassador Carney told me what he told the Sudanese: "Anywhere but Somalia."

In May 1996 bin Laden was welcomed into Afghanistan by the Taliban. It could not have been a better haven for Osama bin Laden.

Talk about incompetence!

I'm not willing to blame Clinton's failures for 9/11. First and foremost, I blame bin Laden and al Qaeda for what happened.

I point out the 1996 situation merely because the 60 Minutes interview did not.

The viewer is left with the impression that only a twist of fate kept the U.S. from getting bin Laden in the years prior to 9/11. To be historically accurate, it should be noted that there were other opportunites to take care of bin Laden besides the one that Jandal relays and 60 Minutes highlights.

Also, it troubles me that Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright feels justified in lecturing the Bush Administration about how to handle affairs in the Middle East.

In an op-ed piece for the LA Times, Albright of all people has the nerve to criticize the Bush Administration for mistakes in foreign policy.

I think she should have written an op-ed piece apologizing for her laundry list of screw-ups rather than pointing fingers at others.

The end of the Jandal interview segment was the most disturbing of all.

Simon talked about Jandal being unemployed. He was shown with his three children. He gently caressed the hand of his little boy, his only son.

His daughters stay at home while his son, Habib, goes to a private school.

Sweet Habib recited the ABC's in English. It was adorable, and Jandal looked so proud, like a typical father.

That's what made this next part so jolting.

...Habib says he wants to be an engineer when he grows up. Abu Jandal has other ideas for his only son.

"I have great hopes for him and pray to God that he will finish what his father was not able to finish. I pray that he will become a martyr," Abu Jandal says. "Frankly, I hope that my son gets killed and becomes a martyr for the sake of God Almighty."

"You’re sitting here, but you’re not ready to see your daughter killed for America. I, on the other hand, am ready to see my son get killed for the sake of Islam," he adds.

How does a father pray that his precious son grows up to get killed?

The little guy dreams of being an engineer, not a terrorist.

It was heart-breaking.