'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.