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Governor Christie On Bin Laden’s Death

 

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie:

 

As for the killing of bin Laden, you know, so you will recall, I was nominated to United States Attorney by President Bush on September 10, 2001. And the job that I accepted that day from the President became significantly different about eighteen hours later. And for me it was also extraordinarily personal. My wife was two blocks from the Trade Center when the attack occurred. She had come through the Trade Center that morning with my brother who was working down at the New York Stock Exchange at the time. Both of them had to go through escaping from Manhattan that day, after the attacks, after the buildings had come down. And so this was not only professional for me, in terms of taking over as the state’s chief federal law enforcement officer in the immediate aftermath of that attack, but also personal as well, given the experiences, and the fortunate experiences, of both my wife and my brother being in lower Manhattan that day. And so, I think there’s an extraordinary sense of closure for a lot of people that the person who masterminded and ordered these attacks that killed 3,000 of our citizens has now been brought to justice himself. And I can’t think of anything better for Osama bin Laden than to have met his end at the hands of the American military and to be buried at sea. It’s exactly where he belongs.

 

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I don’t think  there’s any doubt in anybody’s mind that the President would get up last night and tell the world that Osama bin Laden’s dead unless Osama bin Laden’s dead. And so, I have complete confidence in the President’s statements and unless proven otherwise, complete confidence in his judgment on how they move forward with this. We’re not going to sit here behind this podium in Trenton and second-guess what the President of the United States is doing in Washington. And that’s what I said last night in my statement. I commend him and his administration. If you read the stories of the extraordinary work that went into this operation, the intelligence portion of it and then the execution of it, the President, as the Commander in Chief deserves extraordinary credit for what he was able to do here and I commend him for it. Because these decisions are never easy. They always look easy in retrospect. When you’re the person sitting in the chair having to make some of these calls, you recognize that these are really difficult decisions to make. He’s putting men and women in harm’s way and just as well as things went, they could’ve gone poorly. And then there would’ve been a whole chorus of second-guessers out there who would’ve been second-guessing the President’s judgment in every step along the way. So if they’re going to do that, when it goes real well, like it did for our country last night, then the man in charge deserves the credit. The President deserves the credit for doing really an extraordinary job.

 

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To the families and friends of those who perished on that day, you know, nothing’s going to bring their loved one back. And vengeance at times is a difficult thing. You may think that seeing bin Laden dead will make you feel better, and in some respect it gives us all  I think a sense of justice being done. But I think what the families will be left with, is the idea that their loved one is still gone. And I don’t know how they deal with that from day to day. I think only if you walk in their shoes do you know how they deal with it. And so what I’d say to those families today, is that our prayers and our thoughts are with you today in just the same way they’ve been with those families every day for nearly the last ten years. All of us, I suspect, in this room, know someone who lost someone dear to them on September 11th. I know Mary Pat and I have unfortunately a number of friends whose children are now without a father, who go to school with our children, a member of our parish who was killed that day. A number of people very close in our lives, with daily contact with some of them, those families have never been the same. The fact that Osama bin Laden is now dead will not restore to them the presence of a father or mother or sister or a brother, husband or a wife. It won’t do that. But, this is someone who deserved to meet this fate much sooner than he did. But, in this instance, justice delayed is not justice denied. Justice has been done. The President deserves great credit for that and I hope that the families today, at least for a short period of time can feel some measure of solace about the fact that the man who perpetrated these crimes is now sitting at the bottom of the sea somewhere. Hopefully that gives them some measure of solace.

 

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Posted: May 2nd, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Bin Laden, Chris Christie | Tags: , | Comments Off on Governor Christie On Bin Laden’s Death

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