Exclusive: CIA Commander: U.S. Let bin Laden Slip Away

[gman16]

Aug.15th Newsweek

During the 2004 presidential campaign, George W. Bush and John Kerry battled about whether Osama bin Laden had escaped from Tora Bora in the final days of the war in Afghanistan. Bush, Kerry charged, "didn't choose to use American forces to hunt down and kill" the leader of Al Qaeda. The president called his opponent's allegation "the worst kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking." Bush asserted that U.S. commanders on the ground did not know if bin Laden was at the mountain hideaway along the Afghan border.
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In his book—titled "Jawbreaker"—the decorated career CIA officer criticizes Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department for not providing enough support to the CIA and the Pentagon's own Special Forces teams in the final hours of Tora Bora, says Berntsen's lawyer, Roy Krieger. (Berntsen would not divulge the book's specifics, saying he's awaiting CIA clearance.) That backs up other recent accounts, including that of military author Sean Naylor, who calls Tora Bora a "strategic disaster" because the Pentagon refused to deploy a cordon of conventional forces to cut off escaping Qaeda and Taliban members. Maj. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman, says the problem at Tora Bora "was not necessarily just the number of troops."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853000/site/newsweek/

[SpiralHawk]

1. Kicked and recommended for Greatest

The truth deserves no less.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. well, duh... how can we use him later if we kill him?

he is the boogey man, the go to guy for the BFEE when they need an incident.

We know where he is. Just ask the CIA where his paychecks are sent.

[sabra]

3. Earlier post from Sunday...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1682889

[KansDem]

4. How much more of this shit are we going to take?!?!?

On top of everything else, we're now told George let OBL escape!

I've just about had it!

[MADem]

5. Kerry pointed this out a number of times

It was a key part of his stump speech. The GOP called him a whiner and second-guesser. Seems like he had more of a handle on the situation than the clowns in the Situation Room...

You have to wonder why our fearless leader was so willing to let those guys get away.

[wli]

6. I'm skeptical of this, too.

Osama bin Laden is somehow camping out in Tora Bora with a dialysis machine. Doesn't sound plausible to me.

[Moderator]

7. Duplicate from Sunday - not LBN

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1682889