Senate Report Explores 2001 Escape by bin Laden From Afghan Mountains
Jack Linthicum
killing bin Laden.
November 29, 2009
Senate Report Explores 2001 Escape by bin Laden From Afghan Mountains
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON — As President Obama vows to “finish the job” in
Afghanistan by sending more troops, the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee has completed a detailed look back at a crucial failure
early in the battle against Al Qaeda: the escape of Osama bin Laden
from American forces in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora in December
2001.
“Removing the Al Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago
would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat,” the
committee’s report concludes. “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 report, based in part on a little-noticed 2007 history of the Tora
Bora episode by the military’s Special Operations Command, asserts
that the consequences of not sending American troops in 2001 to block
Mr. bin Laden’s escape into Pakistan are still being felt.
The report blames the lapse for “laying the foundation for today’s
protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now
endangering Pakistan.”
Its release comes just as the Obama administration is preparing to
announce an increase in forces in Afghanistan.
The showdown at Tora Bora, a mountainous area dotted with caves in
eastern Afghanistan, pitted a modest force of American Special
Operations and C.I.A. officers, along with allied Afghan fighters,
against a force of about 1,000 Qaeda fighters led by Mr. bin Laden.
The committee report, prepared at the request of Senator John Kerry of
Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic chairman, concludes
unequivocally that in mid-December 2001, Mr. bin Laden and his deputy,
Ayman al-Zawahri, were at the cave complex, where Mr. bin Laden had
operated previously during the fight against Soviet forces.
The new report suggests that a larger troop commitment to Afghanistan
might have resulted in the demise not only of Mr. bin Laden and his
deputy but also of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan
Taliban. Mullah Omar, who also fled to Pakistan in 2001, has overseen
the resurgence of the Taliban.
Like several previous accounts, the committee’s report blames Gen.
Tommy R. Franks, then the top American commander, and Donald H.
Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, for not putting a large number
of American troops there lest they fuel resentment among Afghans.
General Franks, who declined to comment for the committee’s report,
has at times questioned whether Mr. bin Laden was even at Tora Bora in
late 2001.
The report represents unfinished political business on the part of Mr.
Kerry. Before and during his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign,
he hammered on the failure to catch Mr. bin Laden.
The Foreign Relations Committee’s report draws on previous accounts,
including books by two C.I.A. officers, Gary Berntsen and Gary
Schroen, and by a commander in the Army’s elite Delta Force who goes
by the pen name Dalton Fury. The analysis in their books of the flawed
tactics at Tora Bora is generally echoed in the official Special
Operations Command history.
The 2007 history said that it “has been determined with reasonable
certainty” that Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001, but
that the fewer than 100 American troops committed to the area were not
enough to block his escape.
The Senate report was prepared by the Foreign Relations Committee’s
Democratic staff, whose chief investigator, Douglas Frantz, is a
former journalist who has reported extensively on the hunt for Mr. bin
Laden.
The report describes how Americans at Tora Bora intercepted Mr. bin
Laden’s voice in radio transmissions to his fighters, as well as
references to “the sheikh.”
The former Delta Force officer who uses the name Fury told staff
members that C.I.A. officers “had a guy with them called Jalal and he
was the foremost expert on bin Laden’s voice.”
“He worked on bin Laden’s voice for seven years and he knew him better
than anyone else in the West,” the former officer said. “To him, it
was very clear that bin Laden was there on the mountain.”
The report says some villagers who were paid to help in the fight were
given global positioning system devices and told to push a button
wherever they saw fighters or arms caches. The coordinates were then
sent to American military spotters to call in airstrikes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/world/asia/29torabora.html
Jeffrey Hamilton
> Rumsfeld, Franks didn't want Americans to be involved in capturing or
> killing bin Laden.
<snipped for brevity>
Good find, Jack. Tora Bora was a major WTF moment, in the fight against
terrorism, especially Al Qaeda.
I've felt for a long time the Bush-Cheney cabal, wanted bin Laden alive, he
was their *boogeyman* and the threat from his continued existence, allowed
them to pass a lot of laws, that otherwise would have been impossible to do.
cheers....Jeff
Ray O'Hara
"Jack Linthicum" <jackli...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:9827810e-69c5-4219...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/world/asia/29torabora.html
==============================================================================
Bin Laden was too useful to the Bushite as a bogeyman to actually eliminate
think about how much money it would have cost friends like KBR-Haliburtan
and Blackwater and a few other cronies if OBL were killed and we went home.
Ray O'Hara
"Jeffrey Hamilton" <bbere...@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
news:ghxQm.46690$We2....@newsfe09.iad...
not laws money.
Jeffrey Hamilton
I was refering to the laws that seemed to contravene American citizens
rights.
cheers.....Jeff
Ray O'Hara
Bush didn't ebnter office looking to delete the Bill of Rights.
His goal was to loot the treasury for the benefit of his handlers.
Deadeye Dick was out to make the "imperial" presidency, but that was at the
expense of Congressional powers.
Jeffrey Hamilton
I was refering to the laws that seemed to contravene American citizens
rights.
cheers.....Jeff
Jeffrey Hamilton
I was refering to the laws that seemed to contravene American citizens
rights.
cheers.....Jeff