The CIA guy who was there, and wrote a book about it, said 1,500 AQ/Taliban went in and 75, including OBL, made it out. Of course when Tim Russert interviewed him every question portrayed this battle as a defeat because OBL got away. Yes, 95% of the enemy were killed but Mr. Potato Head, John F'n Kerry, and the other lefties tell us it was a defeat or blunder.
Regarding Op Anaconda (which this author brings up and lies about) the reality is hundreds and hundreds of AQ/Taliban (and their Chechen supports) died in those mountains during that Operation......They did at times put up stiff resistance while holding the high-ground in numerous areas (AQ/Chechens that is)....but they were throughly defeated over the course of the Op. And they died in the hundreds.
Did we drop a hell of a lot of ordinance from fast-movers during it? Without a doubt! Was it all effective....No.
But when one understands that region and fighting in that terrain you understand air power isn't going to have the same kill percentages as it does it most other areas. But it most assuredly keeps the enemies heads down!....And that is a victory enough.....while boots are moving on them.
Back to UBL. Is he alive? Yes (IMPO). Is killing him of great importance. Without a doubt....and the value of doing so is often under weighted.
However trying to find a man in that region of the world is an unbelievably difficult task. Most simply don't comprehend the complexities. Hell, the logistics of just running sustained operations can be a nightmare.
You are talking apprx 40,000 square miles in the NWFP alone! One is looking at roughly 1,500 miles of border between Stan and Pakistan.....A region that is mostly completely autonomous from any Gov't (and has been for centuries).....A region with every type of landscape possible from snow capped mountains, to flush valley's, to desert.
Bottom line is where UBL and Zawahiri have eked out their survival is in a sh*t part of the world and an even sh*tter area to operate in or to bring progress to....(and they know it and choose this area because of such)
Do we need the Pak Gov't to do more? Yes (where they can). But cutting the funding they need to even be adequate at the jobs we need them to do....would serve no benefit to us (in the big picture)....Which the Dem's are calling for today.
The situation sucks. Plain and simple. Though the concept of saying to hell with it....come hell or high-water we're coming in to drag UBL and Zawahiri out is a mindset at times I could really agree with....(though even that doesn't mean we'd catch the SOB in any short time period). Understand Zarqawi survived in Iraq over 3 years while we had a 140,000 + U.S. soldiers on the ground there (and the support of the majority of the people).
We wouldn't have the support of 5% of the people in these border regions of Pak