"not more than 50, 60, I think"

[underpants]

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0609/10/cp.02.html
AMANPOUR: More than two weeks of bombing, solid intelligence, the U.S. had thrown its biggest bombs, its most sophisticated missiles, bunker busters, daisy cutters, at bin Laden, but somehow, some way, it wasn't enough.

BERGEN: The policy of using very limited number of U.S. Special Forces on the ground calling in airstrikes and a large number of Afghan ground troops worked brilliantly at overthrowing the Taliban, but at the battle of Tora Bora, it was a total disaster.

AMANPOUR (on camera): The plan was for Afghan and Pakistani soldiers to block any escape routes, but Osama bin Laden managed to slip away through the mountains. And the mission to capture or kill the al Qaeda leader failed. By most accounts, the main problem was not enough American soldiers on the ground.

BERGEN: By my calculation, there were more American journalists than American soldiers at the battle of Tora Bora, and that fact kind of speaks for itself.

BERNTSEN: In the first two or three days of December, I would write a message back to Washington, recommending the insertion of U.S. forces on the ground. I was looking for 600 to 800 Rangers, roughly a battalion. They never came.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Also hunting bin Laden in Tora Bora, then Afghan militia leader, General Mohamed Zahir (ph).

(on camera) Do you have any idea how many American soldiers were at the battle of Tora Bora?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was not more than 50, 60, I think. There was not more than that at that time.




From the very start, the Tora Bora operation - with 2,500 local Afghan fighters, 40 US special forces, and the mightiest air arsenal in the world against an estimated 1,000 Qaeda fighters - seemed star-crossed.

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines02/0210-05.htm

[razors edge]

1. thats all they needed

to make sure bushes business partner could get away.