Senate Report: U.S. Could Have Captured bin Laden in 2001
Nov 29th, 2009 | 20 responses
A Senate report says the Bush administration could have captured terrorist Osama bin Laden in December 2001 — three months after 911 — but that poor judgment calls by then defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then-top military commander Gen. Tommy Franks allowed him to get away.
The New York Daily News gives a good summary of the report, which comes right as President Barack Obama is about to announce an expected troop surge in Afghanistan. The report contends bin Laden’s escape contributed to the current mess in Afghanistank where terrorism is resurgent:
Osama Bin Laden was within military reach when the Bush administration allowed him to disappear into the mountains of Afghanistan rather than pursue him with a massive military force, a new Senate report says.
The report asserts that the failure to get the terrorist leader when he was at his most vulnerable in December 2001 – three months after the 9/11 attacks – led to today’s reinvigorated insurgency in Afghanistan.
Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, requested the report, which came as President Obama prepares to send as many as 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Kerry has long argued the Bush administration botched an opportunity to capture the Al Qaeda leader and his top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of Tora Bora.
The report calls then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks, the top military commander at the time, to the carpet and asserts the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault on Bin Laden with several thousand troops.
Instead, fewer than 100 commandoes, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalize on air strikes and track down the ragged band of terrorists.
At the time, Rumsfeld expressed concern over the backlash that could be created by a large U.S. troop presence, and he and others said evidence of Bin Laden’s location was inconclusive.
Some more details from the New York Times:
“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.”
This report will do little in political terms since terrorism has now become a politicized issue. Democrats will say: see this shows how the Bush administration did a shabby job on terrorism. Republicans will say: see Rumsfeld said there wasn’t enough evidence to get bin Laden, or say see Obama hasn’t caught him yet either.
But history books will focus on fact and the fact will remain: he got away and many accounts now say he slipped through the U.S. grasp at a time when he could have been caught.
If bin Laden is caught or killed it would be an interesting development in this news story “arc” — but not “closure.” There will never be “closure” for 911. But if he’s killed or captured, look for that, too to be a big political football with Democrats trumpeting it and Republicans either downplaying it or finding some aspects of the event to criticize.
But, again, history will take a deep breath and eventually put it into non-polemics-laced perspective.
So far this tidbit of history remains elusive.
20 Responses to “Senate Report: U.S. Could Have Captured bin Laden in 2001”
Standard Bush incompetence…
I don't think Rumsfeld has any credibility left, so it would be interesting to know what the true reason was for failing to pursue this lead.
Was it that once OBL was captured, his messages could no longer be used to manipulate the electorate?
Funny, I think we've heard this before. A simple Google News search from 2003 shows 218 articles dedicated to telling us how Clinton missed Bin Laden.
There is also this as well as this.
Democrats will say: see this shows how the Bush administration did a shabby job on terrorism.
So all that happened in the past 6 or so years is that the two parties switched places and a different president is now blamed?
I wonder if Rumsfeld and Franks agreed to be the fall-guys in advance or if it was foisted upon them? I remember how Ollie North's career was all but trashed unceremoniously on behalf of Bush Sr.s connections to cocaine importations from Central America. I just ironically watched a show on North busting cocaine trafficers. Could it be he's trying to redeem his image…I digress..
Meanwhile we still have the curious coincidence that the Bin Laden's are longtime friends and business associates of the Bush Empire. Interesting that this white T-Rex in the living room barely gets a passing mention in conjunction with “surprising” articles like this one..
Had bin Laden been caught or killed in '01 what would Cheney/Bush held as fear 101 over their knuckle-dragging acolytes?
Clinton wasn't fighting a war in Afghanistan were Osama was using as a refuge. What ties did Clenis have to Tora Bora and the run up to Iraq…
Osama bin Laden died of complications from Kidney failure a few weeks or months after 911. The Bush administration knew it but chose to keep him “alive” because they needed a bogey man.
The only people blaming Clinton at the time were the same people trying to excuse Bush missing the “Bin Laden determined to strike in the US” memo. This is a bit different from a he said she said since not only did he miss going after the guy he used as the total excuse for the war on terror he also changed his tune around 2003 to saying that he did not think to much about Bin Laden since the war was much larger than him. Which of course is nice to say once you realize that much like the guy you mocked that preceded you, you as well missed him and not because you did not use a missile strike that may or may not have caught him but that while in invasion mode you failed to block the exits which is battlefield freakin 101.
agreed Ron. We havent seen video of bin laden for what now, 7 years? Our government has ability to match voice timbre and cadences et al on their high tech equip. Heck, if you and I have a mac, we have the ability to check voice levels, fuzz and glottals etc by sound wave comparisons of same words.
It is odd to many isnt it, that so few people seemed to question whether the latest 'bin laden' mocked up tape recording is real or not. No doubt his kith and kin carry on, but I think it's pretty sure Bin is gone.
For one thing, he was obsessed with being filmed and being on camera. He loved to play 'you cant find me, here i am, now I disappear, ha ha.'
That kind of temper doesnt change in fact, becomes deeper as an obsessive person in power becomes older. I know, I know, not mentioning any other names. lol
I posted a link to the report several hours ago and suggested the report could be the basis of a new thread.
Those who want to read the report can find it here:
http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tora_Bo…
“He loved to play 'you cant find me, here i am, now I disappear, ha ha.'
That kind of temper doesnt change, in fact, becomes deeper as an obsessive person in power becomes older.”
But Cheney, at least, was so good at it that it was a form of entertainment in and of itself. All that was missing was a way to bet on his next appearance date (on or before XX/YY/ZZZZ) by Los Vegas oddsmakers.
Rumsfeld was so incompetent that Bush actually fired him over the advice from Cheney….now that is bad. Bush Sr. warned Jr. about Rumsfeld. Too bad he didn't listen to daddy.
By the time Osama was in Tora Bora, both the Taliban and Al Qaeda had been routed out of Afganistan and it looked like the War was almost over. As most news reports indicate, Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney already had their sights on regime change in Iraq. IMHO, I believe Osama was deliberately allowed to escape to Pakistan. If he had been killed or captured at Tora Bora then the American hunger for 9/11 revenge would be satiated and made it much more difficult for Bush to build a cause for Iraq with the American people. I suspect the Bush Administration thought they could capture or kill Osama easily after the Iraq war started so letting him live for a few more months was no big deal.
More, woulda, coulda, shoulda. So blame C and B for OBL. I'm sure the revisionists, depending on which party they shill for can go back even further. Any doubt?
“More, woulda, coulda, shoulda. So blame C and B for OBL.”
No doubt that was part of the motivation for writing the report, and for releasing it. Another cheap shot.
It's also handy (as just about anything is handy right now) as cover for Obama's sending more troops to Afghanistan. The timing couldn't have been better.
The more interesting or substantial stuff, like the question asked on this thread already, why didn't we get him when we had the chance, is still worth thinking about. (Rumsfeld — clean, remote, low-cost, push-button warfare like the Iraq occupation?)
I think Jdledell nailed it.
The Iraq War was planned BEFORE 9/11 not after it. Once 9/11 occurred Cheney and Libby tried to shape intel to point towards Sadam Hussein, even as it became more and more evident that the Saudis were behind it. They knew that there was not enough hard evidence for the March invasion. In the meantime they tried to tie OSB to Iraq, so that Iraq's oil reserves could be developed by the multinationals that Cheney was so chummy with.
I heard 911 blamed on Clinton for around 7 years so you'd be right.
It wasnt just for oil, also the oil was not for us but to be opened to the market which is a slight technicality most miss, it was also for the ME's best intel short of Israel and actually some of the best intel in the world and we now have it all.
Yes, I know that the multinationals would have put the oil on the open market, but am not sure what you mean about the ME's intel??
Was Iraq always on the table? Probably, because Cheney and Bush were oilmen and wanted a source of $$. It was long known that Iraq would be an easy win, but they flubbed on thinking that “flowers would be tossed at our feet” as Rumsfeld told us (like Paris in WW2). That part of the world has more hate for outsiders (more than 5 miles away) than the South for the North in 1864!!
As I posted elsewhere:
I can't back up all of these claims, but I talked to a soldier (lived in same house over a year) and shortly after he returned from Afgan in early 2008, he told me that they had bin Laden located in late 2007, as reported here. BUT they were not allowed to move in the get him because all the 3-letters (FBI, CIA, NASA, etc) wanted in on the capture, so the 82nd Airborne WAS NOT ALLOWED TO PROCEED. By the time the CIA etc got there, Osama was gone.
Why would you, besides each group wanting to lay claim for a capture, delay the army? Because you see a way to make money at home. Guns, bullets, missiles, drones, IR gear, etc etc etc.
SO – I know that my soldier contact was telling the truth; if the report about 2001 is also true, then it comes down to only one thing – Bush/Cheney went to war to get “high on power” and to make them and their friends rich.