President: Bin Laden is dead
May 1, 2011 9:54PM
Osama bin Laden
Bush statement
Former President George W. Bush says he has congratulated President Barack Obama after hearing about the death of Osama bin Laden.
In a statement Sunday night, Bush said Obama called and said that U.S. forces had killed bin Laden. Bush said he also congratulated the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to the mission.
Bush said, “This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.”
He also said the U.S. “has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.“
Updated: May 2, 2011 6:33AM
WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden, the glowering mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed thousands of Americans, was killed in an operation led by the United States, President Barack Obama said Sunday
A small team of Americans carried out the attack and took custody of bin Laden’s remains, the president said in a dramatic late-night statement at the White House.
A jubilant crowd gathered outside the White House as word spread of bin Laden’s death after a global manhunt that lasted nearly a decade.
“Justice has been done,” the president said.
The development comes just months before the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centers and Pentagon, orchestrated by bin Laden’s al-Qaida organization, that killed more than 3,000 people.
The attacks set off a chain of events that led the United States into wars in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and America’s entire intelligence apparatus was overhauled to counter the threat of more terror attacks at home.
Al-Qaida organization was also blamed for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 231 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Americans have kept their promise after Sept. 11 to capture or kill bin Laden.
Bloomberg says the killing of the terrorist leader doesn’t lessen the suffering Americans experienced at his hands the day the World Trade Center was destroyed but is a “critically important victory” for the nation. He says it’s a tribute to the men and women in the armed forces who’ve fought so hard.
The 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is just months away.
Bloomberg says in a statement he hopes news of bin Laden’s demise will “bring some closure and comfort to all those who lost loved ones” that day.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment