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ernment the possibility of expelling Bin Ladin. U.S.Ambassador Timothy Car-
ney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course.The Saudis, however, did
not want Bin Ladin, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship.
6
Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to
hand Bin Ladin over to the United States.The Commission has found no cred-
ible evidence that this was so.Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push
the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin.Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask
for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment out-
standing.
7
The chief of the Bin Ladin station, whom we will call "Mike," saw Bin
Ladin's move to Afghanistan as a stroke of luck.Though the CIA had virtually
abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal, case officers had reestab-
lished old contacts while tracking down Mir Amal Kansi, the Pakistani gun-
man who had murdered two CIA employees in January 1993.These contacts
contributed to intelligence about Bin Ladin's local movements, business activ-
ities, and security and living arrangements, and helped provide evidence that
he was spending large amounts of money to help the Taliban.The chief of the
Counterterrorist Center, whom we will call "Jeff," told Director George Tenet
that the CIA's intelligence assets were "near to providing real-time informa-
tion about Bin Ladin's activities and travels in Afghanistan." One of the con-
tacts was a group associated with particular tribes among Afghanistan's ethnic
Pashtun community.
8
By the fall of 1997, the Bin Ladin unit had roughed out a plan for these
Afghan tribals to capture Bin Ladin and hand him over for trial either in the
United States or in an Arab country. In early 1998, the cabinet-level Principals
Committee apparently gave the concept its blessing.
9
On their own separate track, getting information but not direction from the
CIA, the FBI's New York Field Office and the U.S.Attorney for the Southern
District of New York were preparing to ask a grand jury to indict Bin Ladin.
The Counterterrorist Center knew that this was happening.
10
The eventual
charge, conspiring to attack U.S. defense installations, was finally issued from
the grand jury in June 1998--as a sealed indictment.The indictment was pub-
licly disclosed in November of that year.
When Bin Ladin moved to Afghanistan in May 1996, he became a subject
of interest to the State Department's South Asia bureau. At the time, as one
diplomat told us, South Asia was seen in the department and the government
generally as a low priority. In 1997, as Madeleine Albright was beginning her
tenure as secretary of state, an NSC policy review concluded that the United
States should pay more attention not just to India but also to Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
11
With regard to Afghanistan, another diplomat said, the United
States at the time had "no policy."
12
In the State Department, concerns about India-Pakistan tensions often
crowded out attention to Afghanistan or Bin Ladin. Aware of instability and
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