Kerry Was Right — CIA Commander: We Let bin Laden Slip Away

[kerrygoddess]

Kerry Was Right — CIA Commander: We Let bin Laden Slip Away
August 7th, 2005

A Newsweek exclusive gives us yet another instance of “Kerry Was Right.” In an new book by Gary Berntsen, a CIA field commander for the agency’s Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Berntsen discloses that the CIA did know where bin Laden was. Contrary to the Bush administration’s assertions that they did not, Kerry the “worst-kind of Monday-morning quarterback” as Bush called him, obviously knew the plays better than Bush…

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.

But in a forthcoming book, the CIA field commander for the agency’s Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. “He was there,” Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK.

MORE & LINKS - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=173

[jillan]

1. Stupid people - we all knew Kerry was right!

The fact that OBL is still on the loose is the most disturbing part of this whole War on Terror. imo

[wisteria]

2. How about that! Kerry was right again!

The truth is starting to trickle out. This is another example where the Bush administration lied about it's mistakes or decisions. Why oh why did the media let this administration get away with so much manipulation of the public? Why didn't the public pay closer attention to what Kerry was trying to tell them? I feel this is a glass half full. I'm happy that Bush and his crew are being exposed, but I'm sad it comes to late to benefit Kerry and the soldiers, and the general public. It is good to see that MSM outlets are picking up stories like this and mentioning Kerry, therefore giving credit where credit is due.

[karynnj]

3. Maybe the media may feel quilty that they didn't even try to

evaluate Kerry's comment vs Buah's obnoxiuos putdown.

[whometense]

4. The Carpetbagger says:

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/4917.html

(emphasis mine)

And as long as we're talking about Kerry being right and Bush being wrong, it's worth noting that Kerry's criticism of the events at Tora Bora weren't just campaign palaver. Kerry didn't wait until the fall of 2004 to start complaining; he was one of a very small number of people highlighting the debacle when it happened.

I honestly don't know why this never became a major political embarrassment for the president. Kerry brought it up frequently, but it never gained traction with reporters covering the 2004 campaign.

Indeed, the day after the first Bush-Kerry debate, The Note reported on a focus group in Columbus, Ohio, run by ABC News' Kate Snow, that watched the event. One undecided voter said he was intrigued by Kerry's Tora Bora argument. The Note reported at the time:

(The voter) was dismayed that Bush never dismissed that and he wants to know: did the US let Bin Laden to slip out?

That's exactly what we did — and the typical American voter had no idea.

[whometense]

5. Franken's

talking about this right now.

[Roland99]

6. MUST READ

Transcript: Jane Wallace Interviews Seymour Hersh

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_hersh.html

SY HERSH: There was about a three or four nights in which I can tell you maybe six, eight, 10, maybe 12 more-- or more heavily weighted-- Pakistani military planes flew out with an estimated-- no less than 2,500 maybe 3,000, maybe mmore. I've heard as many as four or 5,000. They were not only-- Al Qaeda but they were also-- you see the Pakistani ISI was-- the military advised us to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. There were dozens of senior Pakistani military officers including two generals who flew out.

And I also learned after I wrote this story that maybe even some of Bin Laden's immediate family were flown out on the those evacuations. We allowed them to evacuate. We had an evacuation.

JANE WALLACE: How high up was that evacuation authorized?

SY HERSH: I am here to tell you it was authorized — Donald Rumsfeld who — we'll talk about what he said later — it had to be authorized at the White House. But certainly at the Secretary of Defense level.

Where's Osama?
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/04/26/schuster.column

Musharraf told the BBC that Pakistani forces had come close to bin Laden: "There was a time when the dragnet had closed, and we thought we knew roughly the area where he possibly could be," he said. "That was, I think, some time back ... maybe about eight to 10 months back."

The Pakistani government launched a military campaign in the previously autonomous border area of South Waziristan during the last two years. There were numerous clashes, 48 by the government's count, between the military and what it called al Qaeda militants.

The result? More than 250 government troops were killed, according to a Pakistani official. But that campaign is over, and the troops are largely gone from the border area.

How Bush blew it in Tora Bora
http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FJ27Ag02.html

"No one knows where bin Laden is," Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said last Sunday. So maybe we should ask the Pentagon. According to a number of leaks by Pentagon officials, bin Laden is hiding in South Waziristan, in the Pakistani tribal areas, not far from the Toba Kakar mountain range in Baluchistan province. Khan seemed to be startled by this revelation: "We are getting in touch with them to clarify this matter." Don't ask the Pakistani military. Major General Shaukat Sultan has said they have been pursuing all of the Pentagon's leads, to no avail. So maybe we should ask Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf. In a recent interview with NBC he referred to "some broad indications" to proclaim he was "reasonably sure" that bin Laden is alive and absolutely sure he would be captured or killed. But he "didn't know his location".

<...>

According to Musharraf, "there's no pressure" on him by the White House and the Pentagon to find bin Laden. "What pressure? he asked in his NBC interview. "Their leadership, a few high level, and others mid and low level have been arrested - then we have attacked them in the mountains. We have attacked three of their very big sanctuaries in the valleys in the South Waziristan agency in tribal areas - but they're on the run now. And they're in smaller groups. Maybe there are a few more concentrations, which we don't know. But they are on the run, as far as al-Qaeda is concerned, they're on their own, surely."

<...>

On November 17, 2001, as the Taliban regime was self-disintegrating, Osama bin Laden, his family and a convoy of 25 Toyota Land Cruisers left Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan headed toward the mountains of Tora Bora. In late November, surrounded by his fiercest and most loyal Yemeni mujahideen in a cold Tora Bora cave, bin Laden delivered a stirring speech. One of his fighters, Abu Bakar, later captured by Afghan mujahideen, said bin Laden exhorted them to "hold your positions firm and be ready for martyrdom. I'll be visiting you again very soon."

A few days later, around what would probably have been November 30, bin Laden, along with four Yemeni mujahideen, left Tora Bora toward the village of Parachinar, in the Pakistani tribal areas. They walked undisturbed all the way - and then disappeared forever.

[whometense]

7. Holy cow.

February, 2003.

Thanks, mainstream media.