Donald Rumsfeld, the acerbic US secretary of defence, made no bones about it: he would rather that Osama bin Laden was killed than taken alive.
Asked on an American television show whether the expression ‘taken dead or alive’, as George W Bush had put it, should be taken seriously, Rumsfeld answered: “I don’t know if it’s politically correct to say you’d prefer the former, but I guess I’d prefer the former. But I don’t think we have much choice in it anyway.”

Asked if he’d just as soon see Bin Laden dead, Rumsfeld made it clear he had no scruples on that score: “Oh my goodness gracious, yes! After what’s he done? You bet your life.”
Rarely has a senior member of a US administration so candidly espoused the death, by whatever means, of any adversary in such forthright terms. But, if the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Watan is to be believed, Taliban defectors have told CIA interrogators that Bin Laden has already decided he will never be taken alive and has ordered his men to kill him if capture seems certain, as the world’s most intensive manhunt seems to be closing in.
The events of 11 September
clearly changed the rules
in the war against terrorism
After the Bush administration raised the $5 million reward they had posted for Bin Laden to $25 million, the prospect of his capture by the US and British special forces hunting him, or by bounty hunters, must have increased enormously, even among his fanatical Arab-Afghan followers.
According to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, George Bush signed an intelligence order in September to undertake what one official called “lethal operations” against Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organisation. And, if hawks in the defence department have their way, Saddam Hussein, America’s other nemesis in the region, will also find himself squarely in the crosshairs. If the statements made by Bush and other senior administration officials are anything to go by, the US is planning to go after the Iraqi dictator once they have eliminated Bin Laden and his top lieutenants.

Read the full story in the January 2002 edition of The Middle East Magazine

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