sws4420
05-05-2005, 10:50 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA officer who led the first American unit into Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said on Wednesday that his orders included an unusual assignment: bring back Osama bin Laden's head on ice.
Gary Schroen and his six-member CIA team arrived in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley two weeks after bin Laden's al Qaeda network orchestrated the attacks on Washington and New York that killed 3,000 people, prompting the Bush administration's war on terrorism.
A 32-year CIA veteran with long experience in South Asia and the Middle East, Schroen's prime task was to build up Northern Alliance forces so they could join U.S. troops in the overthrow of the Taliban.
But in the days that followed the worst terror attack on U.S. soil, Schroen said his boss at the CIA also told him and his deputy in no uncertain terms to kill the al Qaeda leadership.
"What he said (was), 'I would like to see the head of bin Laden delivered back to me in a heavy cardboard box filled with dry ice, and I will take that down and show the president. And the rest of the lieutenants, you can put their heads on pikes'," Schroen told Reuters in an interview.
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050504/2005-05-04T225601Z_01_N04302534_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SECURITY-BINLADEN-DC.html
Gary Schroen and his six-member CIA team arrived in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley two weeks after bin Laden's al Qaeda network orchestrated the attacks on Washington and New York that killed 3,000 people, prompting the Bush administration's war on terrorism.
A 32-year CIA veteran with long experience in South Asia and the Middle East, Schroen's prime task was to build up Northern Alliance forces so they could join U.S. troops in the overthrow of the Taliban.
But in the days that followed the worst terror attack on U.S. soil, Schroen said his boss at the CIA also told him and his deputy in no uncertain terms to kill the al Qaeda leadership.
"What he said (was), 'I would like to see the head of bin Laden delivered back to me in a heavy cardboard box filled with dry ice, and I will take that down and show the president. And the rest of the lieutenants, you can put their heads on pikes'," Schroen told Reuters in an interview.
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050504/2005-05-04T225601Z_01_N04302534_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SECURITY-BINLADEN-DC.html