Posted on 11/02/2004 3:22:57 AM PST by Former Military Chick
With Osama Bin Laden emerging anew as an issue in the presidential election, the Bush administration has flatly denied it bungled a chance to capture the mastermind of terror at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. White House officials and retired Gen. Tommy Franks assert that there is no evidence Bin Laden was ever present inside the mountain redoubt in late November and early December of 2001. As a reporter who closely tracked Bin Laden's movements at Tora Bora in late 2001, I would like to point out some glaring contradictions. Overwhelming evidence indicates that Bin Laden, accompanied by a large entourage of Al Qaeda associates, journeyed into Tora Bora on Nov. 13, 2001, in a convoy that left the city of Jalalabad late in the evening. He had prepared for such a contingency by paying off local Afghan tribal leaders. After nearly two weeks at Tora Bora, Bin .Laden left the mountainous area for good in the direction of Pakistan on or about Dec. 1.
On Nov. 28, Gen. Franks - who has since joined the Veterans for Bush campaign and now insists that U.S. strategic planners never missed an opportunity to capture Bin Laden at Tora Bora - announced that the mountain redoubt was one of "two areas that we are paying very, very careful attention to" as possible hideouts for Bin Laden.
On Nov. 29, Vice President Cheney, ignoring the possible negative effects of signaling to Bin Laden that we knew precisely where he was, stated on ABC's "Prime Time Live" that he believed Bin Laden was hiding in .Tora Bora. "I think he was equipped to go to ground there," he said. "He's got what he believes is a fairly secure facility. He's got caves underground; it's an area he's familiar with."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has since contended that an aggressive manhunt for Bin Laden was never mounted because no one had actually proved he was present at Tora Bora. The Green Beret commander on the ground does not agree. Col. John Mulholland, the most senior Special Forces officer in country at the time, told me the CIA informed him in mid-November of Bin Laden's presence there.
In contrast to the amnesia that has descended on the Bush administration, Mulholland and his lieutenants continue to believe Bin Laden was holed up in Tora .Bora until he escaped in early December. During an interview in his office at Ft. Campbell, Ky., the colonel ran his finger on a map and said that in the first days of December 2001, "He [Bin Laden] went straight south. It was the easiest thing and it makes the most sense - the sanctuary of Pakistan was a very friendly area."
After Bin Laden's escape from the world's most powerful military, eastern Afghanistan's regional intelligence chief expressed amazement as to why Pentagon planners did not think of Bin Laden's most obvious escape routes and put down U.S. infantry to block them. "The border with Pakistan was the key, but no one paid any attention to it," said Pir Baksh Bardiwal. "And there were plenty of landing areas for helicopters, had the Americans acted decisively."
Mulholland sees it that way, too. "If you really want to seal this thing right, you have got to put a first team [of American] infantry on the ground," he told me.
It's a shame that outsiders and straight-talking military men have to remind the Pentagon and the Bush administration about the lessons of Tora Bora.
Smucker is the author of "Al Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail."
And Bush is responsbible for this-how?
You are on a roll with negative posts..what's up?
This guy seems very ideological...
The libs are trying to spin this tape against Bush. There's no question about it.
With a name like Smucker, he has to be good (not!).
It's amazing that a so-called journalist and some third rate military people know the truth and tactics better than our military...NOT!
Do you purposely seek out all of the negative news stories?
Or does it just work out that way?
If Slick Willy had done his job, this would not now be an issue.
There's a big difference between knowing that Bin Ladin was in Tora Bora and thinking he might be there. Perhaps you might explain just how we were supposed to seal the border with Pakistan? Just exactly which troops were available for this and how were they to be inserted and supplied?
?From Canada to Britain?.....or,....From Britain to Canada?
(AQ loves the UK?)
/Sarcasm?
The problem with Afghanistan is that it was fought from Florida, not from the theater. These guys had to have permission to do anything and to get it they had to talk to someone still asleep in Florida. Lots of bad guys got away because of it. And not just at Tora Bora. i remember reports of convoys and the guys couldn't get permission to fire fast enough so they got away. There were lots of complaints about that. But that fault belongs with the pentagon, not the president. Presidents don't fight wars, generals do. They know they made mistakes in Afghanistan, and a lot of those were corrected for the war in Iraq. We learn our lesson and move on. Bin Laden looked pretty defeated to me.
Maybe they are negative, but does the article contain the truth? In reality, that's what matters. If it's bunk, then lets point out the holes. If it's factual, let's suck it up and live with it.
Whether bin Laden slipped the noose in Tora Bora, he is operationally spayed and neutered.
This is why his most recent video is just that, because he is incapable at this point of pulling off a Madrid.
FMC has a real knack for negativity.
Tomorrow
Ooooh, I'm ever so impressed...
NOT.
OBL didn't "slip through our fingers". 1.) We didn't know for sure he was at Tora Bora and we still don't regrardless of what the lefties try to spin. 2.) common sense should tell you that he probably left Afghanistan before the first bomb fell. He does not practice what he preaches..if he did he would have done a suicide bomb run by now...no, he talks gulible young men into doing it, telling them that they are dying for Allah and how they are going to be blessed after they die. If that is such a great way to go, why don't the leaders of Islam take that way out? Perhaps they don't want to be convered in glory in the after life...or maybe they are just CS.
The US lost a lot of battles at the beginning of WWII, especially in the Pacific, but the media at that time encouraged, not discouraged our military. Should we have brought our soldiers home when things weren't going the way the people or reporters thought they should? Politics be damned, let the military fight the war! Our soldiers over there don't have the same reaction as the media. That should say something!
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