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May 10, 2005

Please just admit the answer already

Why is everyone still asking why? Is it so damn hard to figure out?

The reason CENTCOM was not paying enough attention to Tora Bora in late 2001 is that Rumsfeld considered the war over once Kabul fell on November 13th and told Franks to focus on Iraq instead November 21st!

Gary Schroen on Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: In December of 2001, the battle of Tora Bora. This is what you write. "In early 2002, in the immediate aftermath of the battle of Tora Bora and the subsequent escape of Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahari, CIA and specially trained U.S. military Special Operations units began to organize teams in the provincial areas east and south of Kabul, along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan."

You have no doubt that bin Laden escaped at Tora Bora?

MR. SCHROEN: No doubt at all. When the first film--videotape that was made--that he made afterwards shows him that he was holding his left side and was probably wounded there in the battle, but every bit of information we had at the time indicated that he had escaped and moved into the Waziristan area which is south of Peshawar.

MR. RUSSERT: How did he get away?

MR. SCHROEN: We had done--followed the same lead we had taken since September of '01 in defeating the Taliban. We were attacking with U.S. military forces against the al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, and we hired local tribal leaders to guard the escape routes into Pakistan. Unfortunately, many of those people proved to be loyal to bin Laden and sympathizers with the Taliban and they allowed the key guys to escape.

MR. RUSSERT: In the heat of the presidential campaign in 2004, John Kerry as part of his stump speech in effect would say things like this. Let's watch.

(Videotape, October 30, 2004):

SEN. JOHN KERRY, (D-MA): As I have said for two years now, when Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Should we have had more U.S. troops in Afghanistan circling Tora Bora to prevent his escape?

MR. SCHROEN: In hindsight that would have been ideal. We fought a special operations war. It was CIA and Army Green Berets on the ground directing the bombing campaign. It was only late in the campaign that U.S. ground forces came in, and the evolution, I think, simply we didn't take it far enough. If we'd have had one more battle after Tora Bora, we probably would have gotten it right.

MR. RUSSERT: Again, in October of 2004, in the presidential campaign, after John Kerry made those charges, General Tommy Franks offered this observation. "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. ...Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp."

You just disagree with that?

MR. SCHROEN: I absolutely do, yes.

MR. RUSSERT: And President Bush and Vice President Cheney all quoted General Franks, saying: "We don't know if bin Laden was at Tora Bora." You have no doubt.

MR. SCHROEN: I have no doubt that he was there.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn again to your book. "The United States is continuing to pour billions of dollars and sacrifice the lives of American soldiers in order to bring peace and democracy to Iraq. This is being done at the expense of Afghanistan. ... Given the total preoccupation with Iraq, I am not confident that the U.S. government will make the policy adjustments necessary to improve conditions for the success of the democratic experiment in Afghanistan, or refocus diplomatic and military efforts back to the South Asia region in order to capture Osama bin Laden and defeat al-Qa'ida. The opportunity to make these changes exists now; if we fail in these efforts, we do so at our peril."

Are you suggesting--do you believe that Iraq is a distraction, a preoccupation, and it is really limiting our ability to capture Osama bin Laden and secure Afghanistan?

MR. SCHROEN: I absolutely do. Afghanistan gets a distant second on all aspects, whether it's going to be military or aid that's going to be given to the country. Afghanistan is--the elections were successful. There is a beginning of democracy there. It's very fragile. The--but I think the entire population wants peace. It's a matter of how they share the pie. And we could do a lot more to bring that democracy to full birth if we would focus more attention, more money on that country.

MR. RUSSERT: Which is more important, do you believe, to the war on terrorism, Afghanistan or Iraq?

MR. SCHROEN: At this point, unfortunately, the Iraqi situation has gotten so large that it's become a major issue that has to be dealt with. I think, though, that ultimately we owe it to Afghanistan and to ourselves to end this al-Qaeda threat there and defeat the Taliban completely and let that country move forward so it doesn't become a safe haven for terrorism again.

Posted by Mike at May 10, 2005 11:37 PM

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