The archives available for me to search at the WaPo do not bring up this quote (and the context in which it was made), and google was no help. But if the quote is true, the scorn for justice under the Constitution was there in the Clinton Administration.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/rminiter/?id=95001289

is a WSJ article from 2001, about how the Clinton administration failed to get bin Laden when Sudan offered him up on a platter in 1996. (click on signature).

Quote: (emphasis added)

The Clinton administration hoped that Saudi Arabia might agree to arrest, try and execute the terrorist. This was a mind-bogglingly shallow reading of Saudi politics. The Saudi regime is weak and fears the retaliation of the many militant groups active on its soil. "One can understand why the Saudis didn't want him--he was a hot potato--and, frankly, I would have been shocked at the time if the Saudis took him," Mr. Simon told the Post. The Clinton administration focused on buying time, not fighting terrorists. "My calculation was, 'it's going to take him a while to reconstitute, and that screws him up and buys time.,' "

Nor did the administration believe that extraditing bin Laden to America would be wise. "In the United States, we have this thing called the Constitution, so to bring him here is to bring him into the justice system," Sandy Berger, who in 1996 was deputy national security adviser, told the Post. "I don't think that was our first choice. Our first choice was to send him someplace where justice is more"--Mr. Berger paused, according to the Post--"streamlined."

Senior Clinton staffers told the Post about a "fantasy" in which the Saudis would kill bin Laden. But let's not pass too quickly over Mr. Berger's careless words. If the Clinton administration sought "streamlined" justice and saw bin Laden as a great enough threat to America's interests that they hoped another country would kill him, the president could have secretly overturned the executive order banning assassinations of terrorists and sent in a U.S. Army sniper team. Clearly what Clinton officials really wanted was for another country to take the political heat.

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There are the ideas there that trying terrorists is difficult under the Constitution, and the idea of trying to get other countries to do dirty work on our behalf (extraordinary rendition is just a step away).

Yes, capture of OBL means an end to any real rationale for war. We have too many people with a vested interest in perpetual war. Blackwater/Xe, Halliburton, the manufacturers of Predator drones, are some who immediately spring to mind.

Why would these want to stop feeding at the public trough?

I am looking forward to the complete humiliation of the western endeavour in Afghanistan. The more awful, rapid and public the collapse the better I will like it.

It also means tremendous suffering for Afghans, and Pakistanis in the northwest of that country. It is not a thing to be looking forward to.

This British behavior was typical:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_mi5terror_8.html

The Interpol red corner notice for OBL, 1998, lists arrest warrants for him not just in the US, but also Libya and Spain.

http://www.interpol.int/public/Data/Wanted/Notices/Data/1998/32/1998_20232.asp

or click on signature.

An excerpt from UNSCR 1267 (1999)

"Deploring the fact that the Taliban continues to provide safe haven to Usama bin Laden and to allow him and others associated with him to operate a network of terrorist training camps from Taliban-controlled territory and to use Afghanistan as a base from which to sponsor international terrorist operations,

Noting the indictment of Usama bin Laden and his associates by the United States of America for, inter alia, the 7 August 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and for conspiring to kill American nationals outside the United States, and noting also the request of the United States of America to the Taliban to surrender them for trial (S/1999/1021),

Determining that the failure of the Taliban authorities to respond to the demands in paragraph 13 of resolution 1214 (1998) constitutes a threat to international peace and security,

Stressing its determination to ensure respect for its resolutions,

Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,

1. Insists that the Afghan faction known as the Taliban, which also calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, comply promptly with its previous resolutions and in particular cease the provision of sanctuary and training for international terrorists and their organizations, take appropriate effective measures to ensure that the territory under its control is not used for terrorist installations and camps, or for the preparation or organization of terrorist acts against other States or their citizens, and cooperate with efforts to bring indicted terrorists to justice;

2. Demands that the Taliban turn over Usama bin Laden without further delay to appropriate authorities in a country where he has been indicted, or to appropriate authorities in a country where he will be returned to such a country, or to appropriate authorities in a country where he will be arrested and effectively brought to justice;

3. Decides that on 14 November 1999 all States shall impose the measures set out in paragraph 4 below, unless the Council has previously decided, on the basis of a report of the Secretary-General, that the Taliban has fully complied with the obligation set out in paragraph 2 above;"

....

E.g., from the above-cited document

2000:

On May 27, in Islamabad, Undersecretary Pickering gave Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister Jalil a point-by-point outline of the information tying Usama bin Laden to the 1998 embassy bombings (2000 Islamabad 2899). The Taliban subsequently rejected this evidence.

Undersecretary Pickering told Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister Zahid on September 29 that the solution to the issue of Usama bin Laden is compliance with UNSCR 1267. There was no further response by the Taliban. (2000 State 191767).

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You can find out more about UNSCR 1267 here:

http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/

or click on signature.