terrorists . NERMEEN SHAIKH : Glenn Greenwald , in one of your recent articles , you suggest that Hillary Clinton has demonstrated comparable support for what you call , quote , " the world ’s worst despots . " GLENN GREENWALD : Well , two things .
Story Continued Below No one knows this better than Gary Berntsen , the CIA officer in charge of the operation at Tora Bora who , with the Afghan forces he commanded , had managed to trap the chief perpetrator of 9/11 , Osama bin Laden , and his fellow terrorists in their mountain redoubt in mid - December of 2001 , only two months after 9/11 . With a Delta Force officer standing by his side , Berntsen drafted a message to his superiors back in Washington that he told me ended with this line : “ Let ’s killlife.die.deathcausedbyviolenteventsthis baby in the crib . ” Berntsen wanted to send in troops — fewer than 1,000 Army Rangers — who could have closed the noose ( his position was backed by Marine Gen. James Mattis , who wanted to send in his own troops ) , but George W. Bush , on the advice of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney , turned him down , believing that Pakistani forces would trap bin Laden as the Afghans forced him southward into Pakistan . ( In fact , the Pakistanis were likely helping bin Laden to escape . ) Other opportunities presented themselves in the months that followed , in places like Shahikot .