One of the things that always pissed me off about the invasion of Afghanistan was that we seemed to go about it afraid to commit to the job. Job number one was getting bin Laden. However, rather than putting people on the ground ASAP, we spent a long time dropping daisy cutters.
A lesser part of my reservations of this strategy was that if it were successful, then someone out there would miss out on the opportunity to be the one with a boot to bin Laden’s neck and a fully loaded weapon in hand.
A larger part of my reservation was that such a strategy would have less likelihood for success, would be more likely result in a situation where we couldn’t know for sure if he had really been in the smoking crater before it was a smoking crater, and just seemed like we were too afraid to risk lives to get the guy who attacked us on 9/11.
Even when we did have people on the ground and apparently did have an opportunity to capture or kill him, we farmed out the job to Afghans.
Now it turns out that Bush actually did know that bin Laden was in Tora Bora. Bush let him get away, and lied about it later.
I feel very strongly that Bush must be held accountable for this failure. Bin Laden attacked us on Bush’s watch, escaped on Bush’s watch, and remains at large and in operation four years later. Rather than capture bin Laden and dismantle al Queda, we have weakened our own military, created a hotbed for terrorists in the middle east, and appear poised to cut and run from Iraq.
Not at all, depending on your point of view. If Bush had actually captured bin Laden back when he had the chance, it would have been much harder to convince the country we needed to fight terrorism by invading Iraq. Letting bin Laden go was a win win situation; the president got his invasion, and bin Laden got his freedom.
I’ll somewhat agree with you, but I understand the mission as that “job number one” was to eliminate the Taliban, which provided training camps and a supply line to those existing-but-haven’t-struck-yet terrorists that are still out there. For all intents and purposes (save a few small enclaves), we’ve done that.
Catching Bin Laden would be a side benefit–aka the “icing on the cake”. Destroying his organization and its links would be much more beneficial: “cut the body off the head of the snake”.
I will say though, that after reading that article, if the CIA had as much knowledge as the article claims, they didn’t make enough noise to get as much support as required as to capture the SOB. This story continues to strike me as typical Capitol Hill mudslinging.
Tripler
Unfortunately sometimes, the politics gets too involved with the military job at hand.
No. It couldn’t have been, because we gave the Taliban the opportunity to give bin Laden up. That just doesn’t square with the idea that we were going after the Taliban.
Apart from that, how could “job number one” for America in the fall of 2001 have been anything other than getting Osama bin Laden?
No offense, but are you confusing the Taliban with al Queda?
Again, I’m not sure how much more noise would have been needed to go after bin Laden than the noise of 9/11. Perhaps, given the choices Bush has made since, you are right. I mean, there is that quote out there from Bush saying that bin Laden wasn’t really on his mind.
I doubt it. I just can’t see it as plausible. GeeDubya would have sacrificed either of his daughters to be Bride of Cthulhu if it would mean he could mount ObL’s head on a pike outside the White House.
Well, since this isn’t in GD I’ll just go from memory of the military situation prior to the invasion of Afghanistan. IIRC a large scale invasion of Afghanistan was never in the cards due to its remote location and rugged terrain. Looking at a map would show how difficult it would be to get large bodies of troops into Afghanistan AND support and sustain them once they were there…beans and bullets and all that.
It would essentially have been impossible to put enough forces in and around Tora Bora to seal it off effectively (i.e. it would have required a VERY large US/allied ground force with a huge logistics tail)…and much easier to use local forces augemented by our own special OPs folks to provide support in the form of liason and directed air strikes. The reality of the situation precluded using a large contingent of US ground forces in Afghanistan. I don’t blame Bush for this, nor for ObL’s escape, as its just how things had to be there.
Where I start blaming Bush myself is that after the conflict it was appearent that the focus was shifted rapidly to our Iraqi adventure. This shift in emphasis I think more than the initial strategy of US using local ground forces coordinated with US air and special forces was I think where Bush fucked up royally. Had we followed up after the country was mostly subdued I think we would have been much more successful in getting Afghanistan back on its feet (such as thats ever going to happen given the realities of Afghanistans access to resources and such) and I don’t think the Taliban would have been given the breathing room to stage any kind of come back at all. Plus we wouldn’t be hip deep in the shit that is Iraq, wouldn’t have a large percentage of our available military tied down, wouldn’t be strapped logistically…and would have saved something on the order of a hundred billion dollars. Oh, Afghanistan would have cost us money too, no doubt, and we’d have had to tie down troops there…but not as many troops nor as much money IMO.
Yes. You are right. The failings of the Bush administration did begin with their complete lack of interest in the warnings of the outgoing Clinton administration and of Richard Clark. I’m surprised that you feel that way, though. Welcome aboard.
But we did eventually establish a base in Bagram, no? How are we supporting that?
Well, you are at odds with the CIA guy who was on the ground then, who said that we could very well have gotten him.
But that failed. Are you suggesting that all bin Laden needs to do to avoid capture is go into some mountains? Perhaps we could have sent in a force of, oh I don’t know, something like 130,000 troops? We may have had them at the ready.
It sounds like perhaps, after all, bin Laden can run and he can hide, and he can also make videos, direct terrorist strikes, play soccer, have parties…
I see no reason why we would have been prevented from doing anything we chose. Didn’t we, after all, topple the Taliban government? Couldn’t Brown and Root service us just as well there as anywhere else?
I’m inclined to withold judgement regarding this “definitive intelligence”, pending some informed setting of context.
Fog of war. Within a couple of days of 9/11, GWB was pushing his minions to find some sort of BL-Iraqi connection.
W had the political capital to commit the necessary resources to Afghanistan. But a high body count might have given Americans cold feet regarding Iraq, which, oddly enough, apparently remained a higher priority to Bush Cheney etc.
Higher priority: Look at the resources devoted to both, the larger scope of the Iraqi mission notwithstanding.
Directing his troops to define their mission narrowly permitted subsequent foreign adventures. It was a saavy political decision, IMHO, given W’s goals.
It’s not supporting an invading army…its smaller scale than what would have been required to put enough boots on the ground and support them in and around Tora Bora…it was done essentially after hostilities had ceased not as part of a major invasion and search and destroy mission.
Maybe he’s right and I’m wrong then. I got my position from reading a few different officers accounts on what we could and couldn’t do in Afghanistan. Also, I’m going from memory here so I could be completely wrong (though looking at a map and understanding HOW the US fights wars I don’t think I am in this case).
No, we didn’t. We built up our logistics and troop concentrations (troops, planes, tanks, supplies, etc) in Saudi prior to our invasion…and we did it over the course of months. In addition Iraq and Afghanistan are worlds apart as far as the terrain goes. Iraq is nearly tailor made for an armored invasion…Afghanistan is mountainous and some of the most desolate territory on earth with a reputation of eating armies and spitting out corpses since Alexander’s day. In addition look at a map…what country is next to Afghanistan that we could have staged our invasion out of?
If I were on friendly terms with the tribes in the area (like, if I had given them millions of dollars and the odd bulldozer to help build their well or a new meeting hut or something), if I spoke the language, etc I can’t think of a better place on earth for someone to hide out in than the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The border is extremely porous, the tribes are unfriendly and clannish to outsiders, and the terrain is such that it mitigates a lot of the advantages that a modern army has. Look what the Afghani’s did to the Soviets for example…or the British earlier.
We knocked off the Taliban because we had the support of anti-Taliban forces (i.e. Northern Alliance). We (wisely) used these local forces to provide the majority of the heavy lifting on the ground while using our special forces to provide liaison and forward observation for air and missile support. Toppling the Taliban was easy compared to trying to hunt down one man in that region.
You’re quoting a story from Newsweek, which we all know is a bastion of journalistic integrity. Why am I not surprised by that?
If you’re that upset about bin Laden getting away, how about Clinton’s being handed bin Laden on a silver platter and refusing to do anything about him because he couldn’t be “disturbed” at the time? If he had acted, we wouldn’t have had 9/11 and we wouldn’t be in Iraq today? Why aren’t you bitching about that instead?