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Taadieri
Rookie
Joined: 05 Nov 2002
Posts: 70
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 Posted: 10/24/04 - 19:29 Post subject: Did Bush let Bin Laden escape at Tora Bora?
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In the last presidential debate, Kerry claimed that the Bush administration allowed Bin Laden to escape by "outsourcing" the job of catching him to the Afghan warlords.
In recent days, Cheney and others in the Bush campaing have claimed that that it was not clear that Bin Laden was even there and that if he was there and escaped, it was not because we relied too heavily on the Afghan forces. Cheney has even gone farther, saying that Kerry's claims were "absolute garbage. It's just not true."
Too bad it is the Vice-president's claims that, as usual, are just not true. As Josh Marshall points out at:
Talking Points Memo
and as the Washington Post reported back in 2002:
U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight
The best intelligence available at the time indicated that Bin Laden was at Tora Bora, and after action reports included interviews with Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners captured at Tora Bora tend to confirm that. Furthermore, the article also says that after-action reviews conducted both inside and outside the Army chain of command after Tora Bora concluded that local militias played a role in allowing Bin Laden to escape.
One could make the argument that these problems couldn't have been forseen and that there were good reasons for wanting to increase cooperation between American forces and the local militias. But it is deliberately misleading to suggest substantial doubts about whether Bin Laden was at Tora Bora or to claim that everything possible was done to capture him there. It is particularly reprehensible to suggest that Kerry is lying about this issue.
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Posted: 10/24/04 - 21:21 Post subject:
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| Quote: | | The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge. |
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Confused
RealPoor Master of Posts
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
Posts: 6730
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Posted: 10/24/04 - 22:58 Post subject:
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Bin Laden is no longer a threat. We can't even tell whether or not he's alive. For all we know, he's already been killed and his remains are scattered along a mountainside. The last "communication" he made was many months ago and was audio-only.
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Taadieri
Rookie
Joined: 05 Nov 2002
Posts: 70
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Posted: 10/25/04 - 03:52 Post subject:
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You say he is no longer a threat, but we really don't know. What we do know is that poor decisions made by the Bush administration and by Gen Franks allowed him to escape from Tora Bora. We also know that they administration has not only been lying about this ever since the last presidential debate, they have had the f*****g gall to call Kerry the liar on this issue.
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Kurel
RealPoor Sensei
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 1877
Location: Cali
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Posted: 10/25/04 - 04:38 Post subject: Re: Did Bush let Bin Laden escape at Tora Bora?
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| Taadieri wrote: | In the last presidential debate, Kerry claimed that the Bush administration allowed Bin Laden to escape by "outsourcing" the job of catching him to the Afghan warlords.
In recent days, Cheney and others in the Bush campaing have claimed that that it was not clear that Bin Laden was even there and that if he was there and escaped, it was not because we relied too heavily on the Afghan forces. Cheney has even gone farther, saying that Kerry's claims were "absolute garbage. It's just not true."
Too bad it is the Vice-president's claims that, as usual, are just not true. As Josh Marshall points out at:
Talking Points Memo
and as the Washington Post reported back in 2002:
U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight
The best intelligence available at the time indicated that Bin Laden was at Tora Bora, and after action reports included interviews with Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners captured at Tora Bora tend to confirm that. Furthermore, the article also says that after-action reviews conducted both inside and outside the Army chain of command after Tora Bora concluded that local militias played a role in allowing Bin Laden to escape.
One could make the argument that these problems couldn't have been forseen and that there were good reasons for wanting to increase cooperation between American forces and the local militias. But it is deliberately misleading to suggest substantial doubts about whether Bin Laden was at Tora Bora or to claim that everything possible was done to capture him there. It is particularly reprehensible to suggest that Kerry is lying about this issue. |
I'm sorry, but what's reported in the news as "the best intelligence source" usually isn't. The NSA, CIA and NRO aren't very liberal about devulging information, or how they got it. Hence why most of that shit is classified from 99% of the world population, and why it'll stay that way.
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