U.S. ‘missed chance’ to capture bin Laden in 2001
Readers will know this is hardly a new revelation. Kerry and the Foreign Relations Committee – essentially the US Senate’s franchise of the Council on Foreign Relations – are putting this out now to justify Obama’s latest troop increase and dangle the bogeyman in front of the American public yet again. But notice that the Associated Press leaves out the one minor little detail that American special forces were not allowed to advance on Bin Laden’s supposed position. Missed chance? Try, instead, that the commandos were yanked from the field. That comes straight from the commander of the mission. So the spin and manipulation continues, as expected.
Flashback: Another dubious Bin Laden tape: Obama ‘powerless’ in Afghanistan | Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years – and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror? | A Sibel Edmonds Bombshell – Bin Laden Worked for U.S. Until 9/11 | CIA: Bin Laden still in Pakistan | Delta Force Officer: We Weren’t Allowed to Kill Osama Bin Laden | Swiss scientists 95% sure that Bin Laden recording was fake
Calvin Woodward, Associated Press
November 29, 2009
Al-Qaeda leader was within reach of American troops in Afghanistan just months after 9/11, U.S. senate report says
Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.
The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture Mr. bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Mr. bin Laden’s escape laid the foundation for today’s reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.
Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Senator John Kerry, as President Barack Obama prepares to boost U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Mr. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaeda leader and top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Although limited to a review of military operations eight years old, the report could also be read as a cautionary note for those resisting an increased troop presence there now.
More pointedly, it seeks to affix a measure of blame for the state of the war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defence secretary and his top military commander, Tommy Franks.
“Removing the al-Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat,” the report says. “But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism.”
The report states categorically that Mr. bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops at least. It says that a review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants “removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.”
On or about Dec. 16, 2001, Mr. bin Laden and bodyguards “walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area,” where he is still believed to be based, the report says.
Instead of a massive attack, fewer than 100 U.S. commandos, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalize on air strikes and track down their prey.
“The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines,” the report said.
At the time, Mr. Rumsfeld expressed concern that a large U.S. troop presence might fuel a backlash and he and some others said the evidence was not conclusive about Mr. bin Laden’s location.
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