UNDER FIRE

Holder Backtracks on Bin Laden Comments

New York City 9/11 trial still possible, too.

Attorney General Eric Holder was on the defense Wednesday, as he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He amended his tone toward Osama bin Laden, scaling back on a previous statement that made waves and contradicted military officials. “Our hope would be to capture him, interrogate him and get useful intelligence,” Holder said Wednesday. In an attempt to prove wrong Republicans who criticized him for being soft on terrorism, last month the attorney general remarked that “we’ll be reading Miranda rights to the corpse” of bin Laden. While several media outlets applauded him, intelligence and military officials insisted that the goal was to capture the al Qaeda leader alive. Holder clarified those words Wednesday as an “assessment of the likelihood” of that outcome. Holder also went against recent White House strategy by saying that New York City wasn’t yet “off the table” for the 9/11 trial, a controversial point for many lawmakers who don’t support criminal courts to try terror suspects.