When CIA officer Gary Schroen led a team into Afghanistan just days after the 9/11 attacks, he got a very unusual order from his boss:
[In] the days that followed the worst terror attack on U.S. soil, Schroen said his boss at the CIA also told him and his deputy in no uncertain terms to kill the al Qaeda leadership.
"What he said (was), 'I would like to see the head of bin Laden delivered back to me in a heavy cardboard box filled with dry ice, and I will take that down and show the president. And the rest of the lieutenants, you can put their heads on pikes'," Schroen told Reuters in an interview.
He was quoting Cofer Black, a prominent U.S. intelligence figure who was then the director of the CIA's counterterrorist center.
"I don't think he meant that in detail ... I think he meant to impress upon me and my deputy that this was very serious business and he wanted to get our adrenaline charged," Schroen added.
Black was not immediately available for comment.
And this magpie has no comment, either.
Via Reuters.