October 25, 2004
How Bin Laden Got Away
Mr. President, Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward states that you asked General Franks to start planning for Iraq just two months after 9/11. Your own Vice President told ABC News at the time that he thought Bin Laden was at Tora Bora. Can you explain the timing of this distraction from the hunt for Al Qaeda?
Feel free to copy, just provide a return link. A smaller version is available, too.
Don't miss Bob Kemper's summary of the distraction for the Atlanta Journal Constitution on 10/27.
You can also see my previous posts on this subject, here, here, and here.
UPDATED 11/1: Slowly, the story is getting out. Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times, who was at the scene near Tora Bora, has started to realize the connection to Plan of Attack. Michael Daly of the New York Daily News brings Frank's own book, American Soldier into the mix. Matthew Clark of the Christian Science Monitor is asking the right questions. Now he just needs a copy of Plan of Attack. Should have checked the Bush campaign's Suggested Reading List, I guess. Yup, there it is, Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward. Al Qaeda expert Peter Bergen, and Josh Marshall both look to be on the case. Paul Krugman has hinted at it now, too. Josh is also tying in an explosive new article from Russ Baker. Josh has also linked to my timeline now. Bob Kemper wrote a perfect summary of Bush's distraction of General Franks on Wednesday, and I missed it until now. If ever an article was worth the Atlanta Journal Constitution free registration, this is it. I've also pasted the relevant part below for those who refuse to register for news. Buzzflash is linking here now, too.
Two months after 9/11, late November 2001, Bush distracted our top military commanders from the hunt for Bin Laden with rushed plans for a new war in Iraq. This shifted their focus at a critical moment, when we had Osama cornered at Tora Bora. The facts now show that it helped Bin Laden escape. The details are all public information, but the story never got out. Until now.
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The song is "Dear Mr. President" by Fred Wreck.
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Here are the references from the video:
October 13, 2004
PRESIDENT BUSH: Gosh, I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. That's kind of one of those exaggerations.
March 13, 2002
THE PRESIDENT: And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.
BBC from Kabul: The Afghan capital Kabul remains calm, one day after troops of the Northern Alliance arrived to take over control after the withdrawal of the Taleban.
The Northern Alliance's political leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani, is expected in the capital during the day.Department of Defense: Yesterday we continued our efforts against al Qaeda and the Taliban, and continued with the Taliban who are pulling back. The Northern Alliance has continued to make gains south of Kabul, as well as Herat, and at the outskirts of Jalalabad, but this is just a snapshot, and the situation remains fluid.
TIME Magazine: An officer of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), speaking on condition of anonymity, tells TIME that bin Laden was last seen on November 17, departing the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan in anticipation of the imminent collapse of the Taliban regime. The officer says bin Laden headed for the Tora Bora area in a convoy of 25 vehicles that included four trucks carrying his family members and personal belongings.
Daily Telegraph: Several hundred of the best Arab fighters in the al-Qa'eda terrorist network have vowed to make a last stand at their Tora Bora mountain redoubt south of Jalalabad.
Two pro-Western regional commanders are arguing over who has the right and the might to attack the Arab base.Their dispute is the result of a power-sharing deal worked out at the weekend when tribal elders gave the region's senior police post to a mountain warlord Hazret Ali, who has far more military hardware than his rival, Haji Zaman Ghamsharik.
USA Today: WASHINGTON — Defense Department strategists are building a case for a massive bombing of Iraq as a new phase of President Bush's war against terrorism, congressional and Pentagon sources say. Proponents of attacking Iraq, spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, are now arguing privately that still-elusive evidence linking Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime to the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 is not necessary to trigger a military strike.
Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack: President George W. Bush clamped his arm on his secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, as a National Security Council meeting in the White House Situation Room was just finishing on Wednesday, November 21, 2001. It was the day before Thanksgiving, just 72 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the beginning of the eleventh month of Bush's presidency."I need to see you," the president said to Rumsfeld. The affectionate gesture sent a message that important presidential business needed to be discussed in the utmost privacy. Bush knew it was dramatic for him to call the secretary of defense aside. The two men went into one of the small cubbyhole offices adjacent to the Situation Room, closed the door and sat down.
"I want you..." the president began, and as is often the case he restarted his sentence. "What kind of a war plan do you have for Iraq? How do you feel about the war plan for Iraq?" (Page 1)
"Let's get started on this," Bush recalled saying. "And get Tommy Franks looking at what it would take to protect America by removing Saddam Hussein if we have to." He also asked, Could this be done on a basis that would not be terribly noticeable? (Page 2)
When he was back at the Pentagon, two miles from the White House across the Potomac River in Virginia, Rumsfeld immediately had the Joint Staff begin drafting a Top Secret message to General Franks requesting a "commander's estimate," a new take on the status of the Iraq war plan and what Franks thought could be done to improve it. The general would have about a week to make a formal presentation to Rumsfeld. (Page 5)
"Hey," Newbold said in his best take-notice voice, "I've got a real tough problem for you. The secretary's going to ask you to start looking at your Iraq planning in great detail - and give him a new commander's estimate."
"You got to be shitting me," Renuart said. "We're only kind of busy on some other things right now. Are you sure?"
"Well, yeah. It's coming. So stand by."
The current Iraq war plan, Op Plan 1003, was some 200 pages with 20-plus annexes numbering another 600 pages on logistics, intelligence, air, land and sea operations. According to this plan, it would take the United States roughly seven months to move a force of 500,000 to the Middle East before launching military operations. Renuart went to see General Franks, who had received only a vague indication there had been discussion in Washington about the Iraq war plan. Renuart now had more detail.
"Hey, boss," Renuart said, reporting that a formal request of a commander's estimate was coming. "So we'd better get on it."
Franks was incredulous. They were in the midst of one war, Afghanistan, and now they wanted detailed planning for another, Iraq? "Goddamn," Franks said, "what the fuck are they talking about?" (Page 8)
PRESIDENT BUSH: Afghanistan is just the beginning on the war against terror. There are other terrorists who threaten America and our friends, and there are other nations willing to sponsor them. We will not be secure as a nation until all of these threats are defeated. Across the world and across the years, we will fight these evil ones, and we will win.
Daily Telegraph: Osama bin Laden helped negotiate a peaceful handover of power in Jalalabad under cover of darkness 10 days ago, according to residents who have worked closely with the terrorist leader in the past.A convoy of more than 100 lorries and armoured vehicles left that same night for the al-Qa'eda base at Tora Bora in the nearby White Mountains, said two Jalalabad residents....
Babrak gave his account to the Telegraph in an interview at his house. He said that bin Laden had been wearing loose grey clothing covered by a camouflaged jacket and was holding a small "Kalakov" machinegun, a shorter version of a Kalashnikov.
Babrak did not ask for money for his information and he also volunteered to try to videotape bin Laden, who he believes is still hiding in the nearby terrorist base known as Tora Bora....
Commander Ghamsharik said in his interview: "I'm absolutely sure that Osama bin Laden was in Jalalabad and that he dined with Pakistanis from the town of Paracinar."
He added that two important Taliban officials were now acting as a liaison between the Arabs in Tora Bora and the newly-appointed, Western-backed government in Jalalabad.
He said: "I am 70 per cent sure that Osama is still there in Tora Bora, though he could have fled further south."
CNN Transcript: Well the "New York Times" has a quote that I think I want you to see. And it says, quote: "We have some people who told us that three or four days ago Osama bin Laden was in Tora Bora. I trust them like my mother or father." And that was Hazarat Ali, the law and order minister in Eastern Shura.Newsweek Magazine: And in his interview with Newsweek, President Bush for the first time declared that "Saddam is evil." In Bush's moral algebra, that would seem to mean that Saddam Hussein is a legitimate, indeed necessary, target, writes Fineman. "I think Saddam is up to no good," said Bush. "I think he's got weapons of mass destruction. And I think he needs to open up his country to let us inspect ... Show the world he's not [evil]. It's up to him to prove he's not. He is the one guy who has used weapons of mass destruction -- not only against his neighbors in Iran, but against people in his own country. He gassed them." Asked if there is a time limit for letting U.N. weapons inspectors back in, Bush replies: "I just told him."
Christian Science Monitor: The hunt for Osama bin Laden may be narrowing to a network of caves near the village of Tora Bora, in Afghanistan's eastern White Mountains.Mr. Bin Laden has been seen in the last four days, spending his days in caves and moving around on horseback by night, according to local intelligence reports.
The Daily Telegraph: Squatting in the dark cave with a glass of green tea in hand, Osama bin Laden must have felt awkward. It was late November, the 11th day of Ramadan.In a cavern high in the mountain complex, bin Laden delivered a diatribe on "holy war" to his elite al-Qa'eda fighters, telling them that unity and belief in Allah would lead to victory over the Americans.
Even as he spoke, he was planning to abandon them. Part of the audience that day were three of his most loyal Yemeni fighters.
One of them was Abu Baker, a square-faced man with a rough-hewn beard. He recalled his leader's words.
"He said, `hold your positions firm and be ready for martyrdom'," Baker later told his Afghan captors. "He said, `I'll be visiting you again, very soon'."
Between three and four days later, according to lengthy and detailed accounts gathered by The Telegraph in eastern Afghanistan, the world's most wanted man left through pine forests in the direction of Pakistan.
NBC Nightly News: MIKE TAIBBI reporting: We were searching for caves, as close as we could get to where Osama bin Laden is reportedly hiding in Tora Bora, south of Jalalabad, and we found these. The boat that would take us there was three inner tubes loosely lashed together. We crossed the river and then hiked to a 1,000-year-old complex of more than a dozen caves in the same mountain range as bin Laden's reported underground maze but some 20 miles away. Mahmahoud knows the history of Afghanistan's caves and has heard bin Laden's hideout is vast.
Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack: That morning, six days after the president's request on the Iraq war plan, Rumsfeld flew to see General Franks at CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa. After greeting everyone, he kicked Franks's staff as well as his own aides out of the room, even telling his military assistant, Vice Admiral Giambastiani, "Ed, I need you to step outside."
"Pull the Iraq planning out and let's see where we are," Rumsfeld told Franks when they were alone. (Page 36)
"Let's put together a group that can just think outside the box completely," Rumsfeld ordered. "Certainly we have traditional military planning, but let's take away the constraints a little bit and think about what might be a way to solve this problem."
After the meeting, Rumsfeld and Franks appeared before the news media to brief on the ongoing Afghanistan war called Operation Enduring Freedom. Franks, a head taller than Rumsfeld, loomed over him physically. But there was no question who was boss. The war in Afghanistan was essentially won, at least the first phase. Widespread predictions of a Vietnam-style quagmire had been demolished, at least for the time being, and Rumsfeld was in a bouyant mood. (Page 37)
General Franks: The question about Tora Bora. There are two areas that are very interesting to us, one of them for the leadership of the Taliban, and that is out in the vicinity of Kandahar, well reported and true; and the other is in the area between Kabul and Khyber, to include the Jalalabad area and down toward Tora Bora, which you mentioned.
And so these are the two areas that we're paying very, very careful attention to.
Christian Science Monitor: Between two and four days later, somewhere between Nov. 28 to Nov. 30 - according to detailed interviews with Arabs and Afghans in eastern Afghanistan afterward - the world's most-wanted man escaped the world's most-powerful military machine, walking - with four of his loyalists - in the direction of Pakistan.ABC Primetime Live: Do you believe he's in Tora Bora?
CHENEY: I think he's still in Afghanistan. I think he's probably in that general area.
SAWYER: Why do you think he's still there?
CHENEY: Because I think he was equipped to go to ground there. He's got what he believes to be fairly secure facilities, caves underground. It's an area he's familiar with. He operated there back during the war against the Soviets in the '80s. He's got a large number of fighters with him probably, a fairly secure personal security force that he has some degree of confidence in, and he'll have to he may try to leave, that is, he may depart for other territory, but that's not quite as easy as it would have been a few months ago. Anybody who contemplates providing sanctuary for bin Laden at this point has to keep in mind what happened to the Taliban when they did that.
Daily Telegraph: America is planning how best to attack the Tora Bora mountain cave complex where Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'eda leaders are believed to be hiding, it emerged yesterday.
Defence officials have met Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, the leading military commander in eastern Afghanistan, to discuss the assault.Bin Laden fled to Tora Bora more than two weeks ago with his best fighters and could still be there, Afghan and western sources said.
Christian Science Monitor: On Dec. 11, in the village of Upper Pachir - located a few miles northeast of the main complex of caves where Al Qaeda fighters were holed up - a Saudi financier and Al Qaeda operative, Abu Jaffar, was interviewed by the Monitor. Fleeing the Tora Bora redoubt, Mr. Jaffar said that bin Laden had left the cave complexes roughly 10 days earlier, heading for the Parachinar area of Pakistan.Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack: Four days later, December 1, a Saturday, Rumsfeld sent through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a Top Secret planning order to Franks asking him to come up with the commander's estimate to build the base of a new Iraq war plan. In two pages the order said Rumsfeld wanted to know how Franks would conduct military operations to remove Saddam from power, eliminate the threat of any possible weapons of mass destruction, and choke off his suspected support of terrorism. This was the formal order for thinking outside the box.
The Pentagon was supposed to give Franks 30 days to come up with his estimate - an overview and a concept for something new, a first rough cut. "He had a month and we took 27 days away," recalled Marine General Pete Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a Rumsfeld favorite. Franks was to report in person three days later. (Page 38)
Christian Science Monitor: Pir Baksh Bardiwal, the intelligence chief for the Eastern Shura, which controls eastern Afghanistan, says he was astounded that Pentagon planners didn't consider the most obvious exit routes and put down light US infantry to block them."The border with Pakistan was the key, but no one paid any attention to it," he said, leaning back in his swivel chair with a short list of the Al Qaeda fighters who were later taken prisoner. "And there were plenty of landing areas for helicopters, had the Americans acted decisively. Al Qaeda escaped right out from under their feet."
The intelligence chief contends that several thousand Pakistani troops who had been placed along the border about Dec. 10 never did their job, nor could they have been expected to, given that the exit routes were not being blocked inside Afghanistan.
Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack: December 12 he and Renuart returned to the Pentagon to give Rumsfeld their update. (Page 42)Franks got only another week before Rumsfeld summoned him back to the Pentagon on December 19 for the third iteration. (Page 43)
March 13, 2002
THE PRESIDENT: And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.
October 13, 2004
PRESIDENT BUSH: Gosh, I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. That's kind of one of those exaggerations.
Data show slips in bin Laden hunt
By BOB KEMPER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/27/04WASHINGTON — The battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan, initiated two years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to capture Osama bin Laden, is still raging this week on the presidential campaign trail.
Sen. John Kerry has accused President Bush of inept leadership for allowing bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora in December 2001.
Bush shot back Wednesday that bin Laden may not even have been at Tora Bora. He said Kerry's "wild claim" is "part of a pattern of saying almost anything to get elected."
But unlike the partisan feud over the 380 tons of explosives missing in Iraq, about which facts are still being learned, the story of Tora Bora has already been written in official after-action reports and intelligence documents.
Kerry contends bin Laden was among al-Qaida leaders holed up in the caves of Tora Bora in December 2001. Bush and Cheney now claim that the intelligence on bin Laden's location was more ambiguous.
But at the time of the battle, Bush and Cheney both said bin Laden was in Tora Bora and dismissed reports he might have been in Kashmir or Pakistan.
"He was equipped to go to ground there," Cheney told ABC News in late November 2001. "He's got what he believes to be fairly secure facilities, caves underground. It's an area he's familiar with."
Kerry contends the administration and its commanders erred in sending Afghan troops after bin Laden instead of using more extensively trained and reliable U.S. troops. The Afghans failed to secure critical areas of the mountains and may have aided bin Laden's escape, U.S. officials said at the time.
Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and a supporter of Bush's re-election, recently acknowledged that "we did rely heavily on Afghans because they knew Tora Bora." But he said U.S. Special Forces also were there "providing tactical leadership and calling in air strikes."
"The senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality," Franks wrote in The New York Times. "Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp."
But in April 2002, U.S. intelligence officials leaked to the media a report concluding that they had "high confidence" that bin Laden had been at Tora Bora. The report called the decision to rely on Afghan troops one of the gravest mistakes in the war against al-Qaida.
Franks also now disputes Kerry's claim that U.S. forces were distracted during the battle by the administration's growing focus on Iraq. But Franks had a very different view at the time, according to "Plan of Attack," a book by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, who had access to top administration officials.
The book reports that in November 2001, just as the assault on Tora Bora was beginning, Franks got a call from Washington asking him to develop a plan for the invasion of Iraq.
"[Expletive], what the [expletive] are they talking about?" Franks is quoted as saying.
Posted by Mike at October 25, 2004 01:56 AM | TrackBack