John McCain? No–Osama bin Laden!
Osama bin Laden wanted to introduce himself to America with an ABC television interview months before al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa, the interviewer testified on Tuesday.
Former ABC correspondent John Miller, testifying at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, also recalled comparing bin Laden with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt as he made small talk during filming of the May 28, 1998, interview at an Afghanistan mountain hideout.
It was a rare opportunity for an American journalist, and Miller detailed a movie-thriller route to get to bin Laden, complete with multiple plane flights in Pakistan, a nighttime border crossing into Afghanistan, and muzzle flashes from automatic weapons at an al Qaeda checkpoint.
“You are like the Middle East version of Teddy Roosevelt,” Miller, who is now the chief FBI spokesman, told bin Laden in a selection of the interview tape screened for the trial of bin Laden’s driver, Salim Hamdan.
Michael Moore and Brian Williams could not be reached for comment.
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