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Chris Wallace releases new book on the hunt for Usama bin Laden

2021-09-07 | 🔗
'Fox News Sunday' anchor Chris Wallace discusses the pretrial hearings for 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his new book on the 247-day hunt to bring bin Laden to justice.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Steve thank Ainsley, the accused mastermind behind the September. Eleven attacks will finally appear in a courtroom later today, almost twenty years to the day since the attack, the hearings for four high profile suspects were delayed a year and a half due to Covid former Guard and Fox AMP friends. Weekend co host PETE Hegseth joined us earlier to react to the plans to resume the trial PETE fast forward to twenty twenty one and were having the pre trial for KSM. The Supreme Court stepped in multiple times. Kong Congress rewrote the law and ultimately, international lawyers and others who wanted to gunk up the mix and created constitutional rights for terrorists created a process that was almost impossible to get past Steve here, with more is Fox NEWS, Sunday Anchor and author of brand new book just coming out countdown Bin Laden, Mr Chris Wallace
Chris Good Morning to you Chris Wallace Good Morning to you, Steve Steve. I think we have a little delay Chris. There are a lot of people frustrated its been twenty years since nine slash eleven and just now were trying to get to the pre trial stuff whats going on. It is insane KSM, the architect of nine slash. Eleven was caught in two thousand and three in Pakistan. After going through considerable in tar o equation, including waterboarding, and in two thousand and six was fifteen years ago and still hasnt had his day in court, and it was supposed to happen in two thousand and twenty, but then with Covid it was delayed for a year and a half and they are just doing pre trial were nowhere near a trial. These are pre trial, motions
he confessed after he got to git MO, but now they are saying that has to be thrown out. The lawyers do and yes hes in a maximum security prison, but one wonders if he will ever actually have his day in court and have to answer for what he did to all those thousands of Americans on nine Slash, eleven Steve absolutely so this week today. I believe your book countdown to Bin Laden comes out the untold story of the 247 day hunt to bring the mastermind to justice, and I love the way you opened the book. You open the book where Leon PAN Etta, the presidents chief of staff during the Obama administration hears boss. We think this fortress this street story house in Pakistan is a place where that guy could be, and it took two hundred and forty seven days before they said. Okay lets go, do it. He said at the end of that
meeting, he said you New York, try to get more information before we pull the trigger on this. Well, this is what id call a history thriller and we take you inside the two hundred and forty seven days. It went on for a long time before that for nine years to try to get a lead on where Bin Laden even was. But, as you say, then, the CIA director Leon Panetta on August twenty seven two thousand and ten year, and he said we praised a guy. We think might be his career to that compound. What youre? Seeing there everybody thought he was in a cave Somer, whether in the tribal area, in fact hes in the quite affluent suburb, where the Pakistan West Point was but its a totally circumstantial case. We take you inside the CIA Hunt and then the meetings and the White House to try to decide what to do and then they bring in the military and the head of
joint special operations command and they enlist seal team. Six. Twenty four fantastic and brave and capable navy seals youre in the helicopter as it heads to the compound and then in the house as Rob Oneill climbs up the stairs to the third floor. Everybody knows how the story turns out, but I promise you the last one hundred pages youll, be on the edge of your seat, flipping pages saying what happens next, Steve thats right well, youre great! At these books, you just mentioned Rob Oneill the guy who pulled the trigger here. He is actually featured in chapter two of your book, where he talks about how he learned about the mission to get Bin Laden and his reaction watch here is rob. We found a thing, and this thing is in the house, and this house is in a bowl in these mountains, and this bowl is in a country and you guys are going to go and get this thing. Okay, cool, whats the thing: well, we cant tell you, okay: where is the bowl cant tell you? What country is this cant tell you? How are we getting there
cant tell you how much air support none? Okay, thats! Our only answer is no air support and thats how it started Steve thats, how it started, and we know how it ended. Chris, the book is great and I was reading the thank yous and you do thank your wife, Lorraine, for putting up with you when you were putting this altogether because at one point lightning hit your house and blew up your computer, where you had all the work laughter, yeah. Let me just quickly say you know. I know a lot of people have very mixed or negative feelings about how we got out of Afghanistan, and I think they are completely right. What I think this book reminds you is that we did do a lot in these twenty years in Afghanistan, and maybe the best thing we did is on May one two thousand and eleven we did what we originally came to do, which is to take down Osama Bin Laden to protect this country from a terror attack from Afghanistan for twenty
years and as badly handled as the Biden withdrawal has been. This operation was flawless, the CIA, the White House and the military community all worked together flawlessly to bring those off Steve thats right. Chris new book countdown to Bin Laden is available now and watch his special this Sunday at ten p dot m on the Fox NEWS channel. You can also watch it on Fox nation after it airs live.
Transcript generated on 2021-09-08.