Bush rejected Taliban offers to hand over Bin Laden in October 2001 [View all]

[cowcommander]

President George Bush rejected as "non-negotiable" an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan.

Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop, unless the ruling Taliban "turn [bin Laden] over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over." He added, "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty". In Jalalabad, deputy prime minister Haji Abdul Kabir - the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime - told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, but added: "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

This article is over a decade old, but what are your thoughts? Let's say Gore won the presidency and he was in this position, would negotiating with the Taliban have been a better choice? Could this whole mess have been avoided by diplomacy?