Joe Pitts: “in the fall of the year 2000, a Predator drone captured Osama bin Laden on tape. At that time, the Predator could not be…”

“in the fall of the year 2000, a Predator drone captured Osama bin Laden on tape. At that time, the Predator could not be armed. But the tape is revealing. It was relayed in real time to CIA headquarters, and the CIA was watching bin Laden as he moved, when he moved. The tape proves that the Clinton administration had bin Laden in its sights, as it did several times during its 8 years in office, but did nothing. A former CIA station chief in Afghanistan said that the Clinton White House issued an ultimatum to the CIA, ``Capture bin Laden, don't kill him.'' They wanted to arrest bin Laden and send him to court. Unfortunately, since then we have learned that you cannot fight terrorism by filing legal papers. We cannot hesitate to act in defense of our national interests, even if that means acting alone or acting preemptively. We cannot wait for appropriate international committees to give us permission. Our national security is far too important to be left to the whims of world opinion, and it is far too important to wait for legal papers to be filed.”