(Newser) – In the very last days of his presidency, George W. Bush was so desperate to locate Osama bin Laden that he reportedly invited son Omar bin Laden to the White House. This, of course, according to Omar bin Laden himself; a spokesperson for the White House refused to confirm or deny the previous administration's activities. Bin Laden tells a Spanish newspaper that White House staff visited him in Qatar in January 2009 to make the invitation.

"They invited me to accompany them to the White House, offered to defend, help, and protect me, on the condition that I helped them find my father," he says in an interview reprinted by the Telegraph. But bin Laden, 29, refused. "He is my father and I am his son, and as is the way the son must love and respect his father. Even if in many cases a man may be against the ideas of his father." Even so, the two have not spoken in almost 10 years, bin Laden says, adding that he doesn't know for sure whether his father is dead or alive. (Read more Osama bin Laden stories.)

