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Bin Laden Eluded U.S. at Tora Bora
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| Bin Laden has not been the topic of Bush’s speeches lately |
WASHINGTON,
April 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Osama bin Laden probably
got away during the battle for Tora Bora late last year because the
U.S. military failed to commit ground troops to the mountainous region
in eastern Afghanistan, The Washington Post said Wednesday, April 17,
quoting U.S. intelligence officials.
General
Tommy Franks, top U.S. commander in the U.S. war in Afghanistan,
misjudged the interests of Afghan allies and did not perceive the
setbacks soon enough because he ran the war from Florida, some
civilian and military officials told the U.S. daily newspaper.
The
failure to capture the Al-Qaeda network leader at Tora Bora is
described in a series of after-action reviews as the gravest error in
the war and a significant defeat for the United States, the officials
said.
After
singling out Bin Laden for months as public enemy number one and the
evil mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks on the United
States, U.S. President George W. Bush has lately refrained from
mentioning him, extolling instead the success in dismantling Al-Qaeda
and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Franks'
chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, said it was important at
the Tora Bora battle to include Afghan allies to take a supporting
role.
Franks,
he added, "still thinks that the process he followed of helping
the anti-Taliban forces around Tora Bora, to make sure it was crystal
clear to them that we were not there to conquer their country...was
absolutely the right thing to do."
However,
reviews conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of
command concluded that corrupt local militias did not keep promises to
seal off the mountain redoubt, and some colluded in the escape of
fleeing Al-Qaeda fighters.
Franks
was running the war from Tampa, Florida, with no commander on the
scene above the rank of lieutenant colonel, and U.S. troops did not
arrive for three days. "No one had the big picture," one
defense official said.
Based on
intercepted communications and interviews of captured Al-Qaeda
fighters who gave consistent accounts of a bin Laden rallying speech
to his men around December 3, U.S. intelligence officials believe the
Al-Qaeda leader was inside the cave complex at Tora Bora when the
battle began November 30.
The Post
reports that without professing second thoughts about Tora Bora,
Franks has changed his approach fundamentally in subsequent battles,
using Americans on the ground as first-line combat units, as in
Operation Anaconda and the current Operation Mountain Lion with
British troops.
Despite
U.S. intelligence community reports concerning Bin Laden, U.S. Defense
officials maintain doubts that bin Laden was present at Tora Bora at
the bginning of the battle.
"We
have never seen anything that was convincing to us at all that Osama
bin Laden was present at any stage of Tora Bora - before, during or
after," said Quigley to the Post. "I know you've got voices
in the intelligence community that are taking a different view, but I
just wanted you to know our view as well."
While
there is a remote chance that he died there, the officials said, the
intelligence community is persuaded that he slipped away in the first
10 days of December.
One
senior defense official quoted by the Post said, "I don't think
you can ever say with certainty, but we did conclude he was there, and
that conclusion has strengthened with time.
"We
have high confidence that he was there, and also high confidence, but
not as high, that he got out. We have several accounts of that from
people who are in detention, Al-Qaeda people who were free at the time
and are not free now."
"We
[messed] up by not getting into Tora Bora sooner and letting the
Afghans do all the work," said another senior official with
direct responsibilities in counter terrorism.
"Clearly
a decision point came when we started bombing Tora Bora and we decided
just to bomb, because that's when he escaped. We didn't put U.S.
forces on the ground, despite all the brave talk and that is what we
have had to change since then."
Commenting
on the Post story, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said
Wednesday he has not seen enough "solid evidence" to support
claims that Bin Laden escaped.
"We
have seen repeated speculation about [Bin Laden's] possible location,
but it has obviously not been verifiable," Rumsfeld was quoted by
CNN. "Had it been verifiable, one would have thought that someone
might have done something about it."
Although he said it was "entirely
possible" that Bin Laden was in Tora Bora when the bombing began
in December but that "in terms of any solid evidence, there
wasn't any. There isn't now." 
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