Holder: Bin Laden Will Never Be Captured Alive

Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress today that Osama bin Laden will never face trial in the United States because he will not be captured alive. In testy exchanges with House Republicans, the attorney general compared bin Laden to mass murderer Charles Manson and predicted that events would ensure "we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden," not to the al-Qaeda leader as a captive.

When a GOP congressman complained that the comparison to Manson showed the administration doesn't see the difference between criminal and wartime defendants, Holder rejected the arguments. "Let's deal with reality," he said. Bin Laden "will never appear in an American courtroom." Pressed further on that point, he said: "The possibility of catching him alive is infinitesimal. He will be killed by us or he will be killed by his own people so he can't be captured by us." (More Eric Holder stories.)