Because apparently the Clinton administration wouldn’t promise to avoid torturing him

Ministers insisted that British secret agents would only be allowed to pass intelligence to the CIA to help it capture Osama bin Laden if the agency promised he would not be tortured, it has emerged

MI6 believed it was close to finding the al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan in 1998, and again the next year. The plan was for MI6 to hand the CIA vital information about Bin Laden. Ministers including Robin Cook, the then foreign secretary, gave their approval on condition that the CIA gave assurances he would be treated humanely. The plot is revealed in a 75-page report by parliament’s intelligence and security committee on rendition, the practice of flying detainees to places where they may be tortured.

But you know what’s funny?  The Guardian is apparently blaming Bush for this:

The report criticises the Bush administration’s approval of practices which would be illegal if carried out by British agents. It shows that in 1998, the year Bin Laden was indicted in the US, Britain insisted that the policy of treating prisoners humanely should include him. But the CIA never gave the assurances.

Why would this report be criticizing the Bush administration?  Bush wasn’t President in 1998.  You know who was President in 1998?  Bill Clinton.  And you know who invented the practice of extraordinary rendition?  Why, that was Bill Clinton too

Strangely, though, he isn’t mentioned in this article.  I wonder why that is?

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