Dead or alive

July 15, 2011 updated at 08: 25 GMT by Gordon Corera security correspondent, BBC News after 11, President George w. Bush made a seemingly simple statement about Osama Bin Laden: "Wanted - Dead or Alive".

But the question if kill you or capture him was subject of controversy in Washington over long periods during the hunt for 15 years for the leader of al - Qaeda.

During the five years prior to 9/11 "alive or dead?" question was left unanswered and the ambiguity returned to the U.S. raid in Abbottabad, in which Bin Laden died in May of this year.

Involved officials now disputing who is responsible for the confusion and failure kill him for so much time.

One of the Central arguments is whether the White House approved a separate and clear instructions to the CIA that authorizes them to plan to kill Bin Laden in the 1990s.

Richard Clarke, an adviser to the fight against terrorism to President Bill Clinton, said that he did.

Continue reading the main story

want the head of Bin Laden sent a box full of dry ice "

final Center cited Cofer Black former Chief counter-terrorism CIA" the President Clinton made some extraordinary things, "says Clarke." "He broke a 25-year tradition and they agreed that there should be a list of results." "The Government of United States should sponsor the assassination of terrorists".

Then Director of the CIA George Tenet and others claim that an instruction is transmitted from the ranks. But claim casualties have never received.

Suspicions in some quarters - denied by Tenet - is that he and other senior officials fear the consequences of the CIA is considered to go back to the business of murder.

In the 1970s, the CIA had faced general condemnation when it was revealed that he had tried to assassinate foreign leaders--including Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and Fidel Castro in Cuba. Appearances before Congress deeply marked the Agency.

Submarines

At the end of 1990, the Government authorized the military to use deadly force if he was sure of could kill Bin Laden, and that would be minimum us civilian casualties.

9/11 Attacks hardened U.S. determination to kill Osama Bin Laden

"The reality is that the White House - President, national security adviser, I - were asking the Pentagon to do so," says Richard Clarke.

' And the Pentagon were saying - especially military senior leaders-, ', is too risky, it does not have the capacity, you can not do it.'

"" ", Then, would make these military leaders themselves round and said his troops,"the White House did not do it.""

General Richard Myers, Vice President and then, after 11, Chairman of the joint staff, said the Pentagon never risk aversion, but was not oriented in the years immediately after the war cold for this type of operation.

"We need to be clearer, lighter, more flexible, more agile". We are now. "But that were not in 2001 to all, and certainly not in the four or five years before when knew us where Bin Laden was".

United States finally parked two submarines nuclear off the Pakistani coast ready to launch cruise missiles if Bin Laden was.

Head of the CIA Bin Laden unit Michael Scheuer claims that the intelligence was sometimes good enough to shoot.

Continue reading the main story

the problem was always the CIA knew where it was yesterday but not tomorrow "

end quote on counter-terrorism Advisor Richard Clarke White House" on the Sunday before Christmas in 1998, Bin Laden stayed overnight at the Palace of the Governor of Kandahar. We knew it was there because we saw him enter the room, and we know that wing of the Palace, that room was, "recalls Scheuer."

"" "And the President and his advisers decided that"well, if kill him, some of the shrapnel might hit a mosque which was about 300 meters of distance.""

The operation was cancelled.

Others argue whether the intelligence was good enough. "The problem was always the CIA knew where it was yesterday but not tomorrow", says Richard Clarke.

I am sorry

The attacks of September 11, 2001 changed the computation again. President Bush signed a secret authorization to hunt down al - Qaeda's key leaders.

Cofer Black, the hard head talking about the anti-terrorist centre of the CIA, was to report to the President.

"By now overcome with these guys, we will have flies walking through their eyes," recalls saying President Bush. "And then you would see that he was a believer."

Black gave unusual orders to Gary Schroen, who was to be sent to Afghanistan to lead the team of the CIA.

"I want the head of Bin Laden sent a box full of dry ice." I want to be able to show the President the head of Bin Laden, "Schroen recalled black telling him."

Black holds now that this request was not in charge of a desire by a grisly trophy but for easy identification. "" "You have to have a convincing proof that you have been successful and cannot be," well it seemed like him"."

Doubts about which is to take part in the murder to the final operation in Abbottabad.

"The operation was designed as an operation to kill or capture", US Attorney General Eric Holderme said.

"It was not a murder". "If we could have captured - if we could have taken alive - it is something that would have done so."

But the story of what happened during the 38-minute assault changed considerably in the days after the death of Bin Laden.

"" Resist the assault force. ""And he was killed in a firefight, said a senior administration official immediately after the operation.

However, it later emerged that Bin Laden was not armed and no new firearms. It has led to the widespread belief that the operation was "kill or capture" only in a technical, legalistic sense.

"He had indicated very clearly that he wanted to surrender, they were willing to take him that way," says the owner.

But in the night and in the chaos of the compound, a clear signal seems unlikely. Maybe there has been little doubt of how expiring.

For some, as the former FBI man Jack Cloonan, meeting Bin Laden last is nuanced by a grief that never was the possibility of bringing to justice in a court.

"We had dreamed", he says, "from Bin Laden in an orange suit of leap that says 'Metropolitan Correctional Center' in the later part of the same standing in the Southern District of New York."

The hunt for Bin Laden is BBC Radio 4, on Friday, July 15 and July 22 Friday at 1100 BST. Or listen again via the BBC iPlayer.

View the original article here