{"id":8366,"date":"2011-05-02T08:05:02","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T12:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=8366"},"modified":"2011-05-02T08:05:02","modified_gmt":"2011-05-02T12:05:02","slug":"tora-bora-belated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/02\/tora-bora-belated\/","title":{"rendered":"tora bora belated&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"justify\">I wish I could feel joy about Bin Laden&#8217;s demise. I would have felt that in December 2001&#8230;   <\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/foreign.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf\">TORA BORA REVISITED:<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/foreign.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf\">HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY<\/a><br \/>                      <font color=\"#200020\">COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE<\/font><\/strong><br \/>                      By John F. Kerry<br \/>                      NOVEMBER 30, 2009<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mstrmnd.com\/files\/toraborafictionalfortress.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" hspace=\"4\" border=\"1\" align=\"right\" width=\"200\" vspace=\"2\" title=\"[click to enlarge]\" alt=\"[click to enlarge]\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edwardjayepstein.com\/2002image\/netherpopup.gif\" \/><\/a>Removing  the Al Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have  eliminated the worldwide extremist threat. But the decisions that  opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge  as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of  money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job  represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the  conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism,  leaving the American people more vulnerable to terrorism, laying the  foundation for today&rsquo;s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the  internal strife now endangering Pakistan&#8230;<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>This  failure and its enormous consequences were not inevitable. By early  December 2001, Bin Laden&rsquo;s world had shrunk to a complex of caves and  tunnels carved into a mountainous section of eastern Afghanistan known  as Tora Bora. Cornered in some of the most forbidding terrain <\/sup><\/em><em><sup>on earth, he and several hundred of his men, the largest concentration of <\/sup><\/em><em><sup>Al  Qaeda fighters of the war, endured relentless pounding by American  aircraft, as many as 100 air strikes a day. One 15,000-pound bomb, so  huge it had to be rolled out the back of a C-130 cargo plane, shook the  mountains for miles. It seemed only a matter of time before U.S. troops  and their Afghan allies overran the remnants of Al Qaeda hunkered down  in the thin, cold air at 14,000 feet.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>Bin  Laden expected to die. His last will and testament, written on December  14, reflected his fatalism. &lsquo;&lsquo;Allah commended to us that when death  approaches any of us that we make a bequest to parents and next of kin  and to Muslims as a whole,&rsquo;&rsquo; he wrote, according to a copy of the will  that surfaced later and is regarded as authentic. &lsquo;&lsquo;Allah bears witness  that the love of jihad and death in the cause of Allah has dominated my  life and the verses of the sword permeated every cell in my heart, &lsquo;and  fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together.&rsquo; How many  times did I wake up to find myself reciting this holy verse!&rsquo;&rsquo; He  instructed his wives not to remarry and apologized to his children for  devoting himself to jihad.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>The  decision not to deploy American forces to go after bin Laden or block  his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top  commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, the architects of the unconventional  Afghan battle plan known as Operation Enduring Freedom. Rumsfeld said at  the time that he was concerned that too many U.S. troops in Afghanistan  would create an anti-American backlash and fuel a widespread  insurgency. Reversing the recent American military orthodoxy known as  the Powell doctrine, the Afghan model emphasized minimizing the U.S.  presence by relying on small, highly mobile teams of special operations  troops and CIA paramilitary operatives working with the Afghan  opposition. Even when his own commanders and senior intelligence  officials in Afghanistan and Washington argued for dispatching more U.S.  troops, Franks refused to deviate from the plan. There were enough U.S.  troops in or near Afghanistan to execute the classic sweep-and-block  maneuver required to attack bin Laden and try to prevent his escape. It  would have been a dangerous fight across treacherous terrain, and the  injection of more U.S. troops and the resulting casualties would have  contradicted the risk-averse, &lsquo;&lsquo;light footprint&rsquo;&rsquo; model formulated by  Rumsfeld and Franks. But commanders on the scene and elsewhere in  Afghanistan argued that the risks were worth the reward.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>After  bin Laden&rsquo;s escape, some military and intelligence analysts and the  press criticized the Pentagon&rsquo;s failure to mount a full-scale attack  despite the tough rhetoric by President Bush. Franks, Vice President  Dick Cheney and others defended the decision, arguing that the  intelligence was inconclusive about the Al Qaeda leader&rsquo;s location. But  the review of existing literature, unclassified government records and  interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any  lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our  grasp at Tora Bora&#8230;<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>On  November 21, 2001, President Bush put his arm on Defense Secretary  Rumsfeld as they were leaving a National Security Council meeting at the  White House. &lsquo;&lsquo;I need to see you,&rsquo;&rsquo; the president said. It was 72 days  after the 9\/11 attacks and just a week after the fall of Kabul. But Bush  already had new plans. According  to Bob Woodward&rsquo;s book, Plan of Attack, the president said to Rumsfeld:  &lsquo;&lsquo;What kind of a war plan do you have for Iraq? How do you feel about  the war plan for Iraq?&rsquo;&rsquo; Then the president told Woodward he recalled  saying: &lsquo;&lsquo;Let&rsquo;s get started on this. And get Tommy Franks looking at  what it would take to protect America by removing Saddam Hussein if we  have to.&rsquo;&rsquo; Back at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld convened a meeting of the  Joint Chiefs of Staff to draft a message for Franks asking for a new  assessment of a war with Iraq. The existing operations plan had been  created in 1998 and it hinged on assembling the kind of massive  international coalition used in Desert Storm in 1991.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>In  his memoir, American General, Franks later described getting the  November 21 telephone call from Rumsfeld relaying the president&rsquo;s orders  while he was sitting in his office at MacDill Air Force Base in  Florida. Franks and one of his aides were working on air support for the  Afghan units being assembled to push into the mountains surrounding  Tora Bora. Rumsfeld said the president wanted options for war with Iraq.  Franks said the existing plan was out of date and that a new one should  include lessons about precision weapons and the use of special  operations forces learned in Afghanistan.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"> <em><sup>&lsquo;&lsquo;Okay,  Tom,&rsquo;&rsquo; Rumsfeld said, according to Franks. &lsquo;&lsquo;Please dust it off and get  back to me next week.&rsquo;&rsquo; Franks described his reaction to Rumsfeld&rsquo;s  orders this way: &lsquo;&lsquo;Son of a bitch. No rest for the weary<\/sup><\/em><em><sup>&rsquo;&rsquo;&#8230;<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>In his memoir, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">At the Center of the Storm<\/font><\/strong>,  former CIA Director Tenet said it was evident from the start that  aerial bombing would not be enough to get bin Laden at Tora Bora. Troops  needed to be in the caves themselves, he wrote, but the Afghan  militiamen were &lsquo;&lsquo;distinctly reluctant&rsquo;&rsquo; to put themselves in harm&rsquo;s way  and there were not enough Americans on the scene. He said that senior  CIA officials lobbied hard for inserting U.S. troops. <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Henry Crumpton<\/font><\/strong>,  the head of special operations for the CIA&rsquo;s counterterrorism operation  and chief of its Afghan strategy, made direct requests to Franks.  Crumpton had told him that the back door to Pakistan was open and urged  Franks to move more than 1,000 Marines who had set up a base near  Kandahar to Tora Bora to block escape routes.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>But  the CentCom commander rejected the idea, saying it would take weeks to  get a large enough U.S. contingent on the scene and bin Laden might  disappear in the meantime. At the end of November, Crumpton went to the  White House to brief President Bush and Vice President Cheney and  repeated the message that he had delivered to Franks. Crumpton warned  the President that the Afghan campaign&rsquo;s primary goal of capturing bin  Laden was in jeopardy because of the military&rsquo;s reliance on Afghan  militias at Tora Bora. Crumpton showed the President where Tora Bora was  located in the White Mountains and described the caves and tunnels that  riddled the region. Crumpton questioned whether the Pakistani forces  would be able to seal off the escape routes and pointed out that the  promised Pakistani troops had not arrived yet. In addition, the CIA  officer told the President that the Afghan forces at Tora Bora were  &lsquo;&lsquo;tired and cold&rsquo;&rsquo; and &lsquo;&lsquo;they&rsquo;re just not invested in getting bin  Laden.&rsquo;&rsquo;<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>According to author Ron Suskind in <strong><font color=\"#200020\">The One Percent Solution<\/font><\/strong>,  Crumpton sensed that his earlier warnings to Franks and others at the  Pentagon had not been relayed the President. So Crumpton went further,  telling Bush that &lsquo;&lsquo;we&rsquo;re going to lose our prey if we&rsquo;re not careful.&rsquo;&rsquo;  He recommended that the Marines or other U.S. troops be rushed to Tora  Bora.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<ol>\n<div align=\"justify\"><em><sup>&lsquo;&lsquo;How bad off are these Afghani forces, really?&rsquo;&rsquo; asked Bush. &lsquo;&lsquo;Are they up to the job?<br \/>        &lsquo;&lsquo;Definitely not, Mr. President,&rsquo;&rsquo; Crumpton replied. &lsquo;&lsquo;Definitely not.&rsquo;&rsquo;<\/sup><\/em><\/div>\n<\/ol>\n<p> <em><sup>       <\/sup><\/em>        <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>On December 14, the day bin Laden finished his will, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Dalton Fury<\/font><\/strong>  finally convinced Ali and his men to stay overnight in one of the  canyons that they had captured during daylight. Over the next three  days, the Afghan militia and their American advisers moved steadily  through the canyons, calling in airstrikes and taking out lingering  pockets of fighters. The resistance seemed to have vanished, prompting  Ali to declare victory on December 17. Most of the Tora Bora complex was  abandoned and many of the caves and tunnels were buried in debris. Only  about 20 stragglers were taken prisoner. The consensus was that Al  Qaeda fighters who had survived the fierce bombing had escaped into  Pakistan or melted into the local population. Bin Laden was nowhere to  be found. Two days later, Fury and his Delta Force colleagues left Tora  Bora, hoping that someone would eventually find bin Laden buried in one  of the caves.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><em><sup>There  was no body because bin Laden did not die at Tora Bora. Later U.S.  intelligence reports and accounts by journalists and others said that he  and a contingent of bodyguards departed Tora Bora on December 16. With  help from Afghans and Pakistanis who had been paid in advance, the group  made its way on foot and horseback across the mountain passes and into  Pakistan without encountering any resistance. The Special Operations  Command history noted that there were not enough U.S. troops to prevent  the escape, acknowledging that the failure to capture or kill bin Laden  made Tora Bora a controversial battle. But Franks argued that Tora was a  success and he praised both the Afghan militias and the Pakistanis who  were supposed to have protected the border. &lsquo;&lsquo;I think it was a good  operation,&rsquo;&rsquo; he said in an interview for the PBS show Frontline on the  first anniversary of the Afghan war. &lsquo;&lsquo;Many people have said, &lsquo;Well,  gosh, you know bin Laden got away.&rsquo; I have yet to see anything that  proves bin Laden or whomever was there. That&rsquo;s not to say they weren&rsquo;t,  but I&rsquo;ve not seen proof that they were there.&rsquo;&rsquo;<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><em><sup>Bin  Laden himself later acknowledged that he was at Tora Bora, boasting  about how he and Zawahiri survived the heavy bombing along with 300  fighters before escaping. &lsquo;&lsquo;The bombardment was round-the-clock and the  warplanes continued to fly over us day and night,&rsquo;&rsquo; he said in an audio  tape released on February 11, 2003. &lsquo;&lsquo;Planes poured their lava on us,  particularly after accomplishing their main missions in Afghanistan.&rsquo;&rsquo;<\/sup><\/em><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wish I could feel joy about Bin Laden&#8217;s demise. I would have felt that in December 2001&#8230; TORA BORA REVISITED: HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE By John F. Kerry NOVEMBER 30, 2009 Removing the Al Qaeda leader from the battlefield [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8366"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8377,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8366\/revisions\/8377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}