Bin Laden trail has gone ‘stone cold’

September 11, 2006

Six months after the 9/11 attacks, the president who once vowed to get Osama [tag]bin Laden[/tag] “[tag]dead or alive[/tag]” suddenly found the terrorist passé. Far from a commitment to bringing bin Laden to justice, [tag]Bush[/tag] announced, “I truly am not that [tag]concerned[/tag] about him.”

Were it just another rhetorical misstep for the president, it would have been merely disconcerting. The more serious problem is that the administration’s policy mirrored Bush’s lackadaisical attitude about the man who orchestrated the murder of 3,000 Americans.

The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years. Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world — no tips from informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image — has led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

“The handful of assets we have have given us nothing close to real-time intelligence” that could have led to his capture, said one counterterrorism official, who said the trail, despite the most extensive manhunt in U.S. history, has gone “stone cold.”

In a stunning example of allowing politics to dictate national security policy, Bush ordered the CIA just three months ago — just in time for the midterm elections — to “flood the zone” and sharply increase the number of intelligence resources devoted to pursuing bin Laden.

Of course, as the WaPo noted, after years of ignoring the terrorist mastermind, “no one is certain where the ‘zone’ is.” It is, in other words, too late.

As the preparations for a war with Iraq began, special operations troops were directed away from the hunt for bin Laden. But even before much of the shift, the WaPo noted that “bureaucratic battles slowed down the hunt for bin Laden for the first two or three years.”

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s sense of territoriality has become legendary, according to these officials.

In early November 2002, for example, a CIA drone armed with a Hellfire missile killed a top al-Qaeda leader traveling through the Yemeni desert. About a week later, Rumsfeld expressed anger that it was the CIA, not the Defense Department, that had carried out the successful strike.

“How did they get the intel?” he demanded of the intelligence and other military personnel in a high-level meeting, recalled one person knowledgeable about the meeting.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then director of the National Security Agency and technically part of the Defense Department, said he had given it to them.

“Why aren’t you giving it to us?” Rumsfeld wanted to know.

Hayden, according to this source, told Rumsfeld that the information-sharing mechanism with the CIA was working well. [tag]Rumsfeld[/tag] said it would have to stop.

Now, five years after 9/11, even if the trail had not gone completely cold, there is no one leading the search for bin Laden at all. “There’s nobody in the United States government whose job it is to find Osama bin Laden!” one frustrated counterterrorism official shouted. “Nobody!”

Bush recently expressed some regret for his “dead or alive” rhetoric, suggesting it was somehow inappropriate. Frankly, so long as it reflects a real, productive policy, I’ll talk Bush’s pseudo-cowboy talk over careless disregard any day.

“Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then director of the National Security Agency and technically part of the Defense Department, said he had given it to them. ‘Why aren’t you giving it to us?’ Rumsfeld wanted to know. Hayden, according to this source, told Rumsfeld that the information-sharing mechanism with the CIA was working well. Rumsfeld said it would have to stop.” – WaPo

This just gives me a cold shiver up my spine. Remember that Hayden went on to be John Negroponte’s deputy at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Rumsfeld set up Stephan Cambone to be his counterweight at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, funneling all ODNI directives through Cambone to the Defense Support Agencies that report to the OSD (NSA, DIA, NGA) along with the Service Intelligence staff heads. Since the bulk of Intelligence spending is actually spent through the DoD, that means Rumsfeld could be messing up everything in his fit of spite.

Now, Hayden is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is the only real agency outside of the DoD (the State Departments directorate is only an analysis shop). And Hayden retired as an active duty officer to take up the post.

Frankly, I think that we are in deep shit.

  • I think the reason that Bush said that “I truly am not that concerned about him” is because bin Laden is dead. And Bush knows he is dead.

    Of course, he can’t admit that Osama is dead because his politics are based on keeping people fearful. If people knew that Osama was dead that would undercut his War on Terror. As long as people are afraid that Osama will attack us again, he can maintain his fear mongering long enough to keep a Republican majority in Congress for another two years. That is the ultimate purpose of this administration.

  • This is just another piece in the puzzle; the maze of fabrications created by Herr Bush and his minions to further enable the aura of fear that keeps them in power.

    If you—or I—or any other “real” American had so interfered with the search for a mass murderer, we would have been drug before the court in chains. The charges would clearly have included obstruction of justice, impeding a federal law enforcement investigation, accessory to 3,000 counts of premeditated murder, aiding and abetting an enemy of the State—which, by the way, fits the Constitutional definition of High Treason—and any number of additionally-equal and/or lesser offenses.

    But—Herr Bush is not a “real” American. He wraps himself up in the Flag, and seeks to apply it as a shield. Herr Bush is—no less than Osama bin Laden himself—an enemy of the People; an enemy of the Constitution, and an enemy of the Republic.

    And, it is time for the People, the Constitution as represented by the Congress and the Courts, and the very Republic itself to show the “cowardly little filth-of-a-man” and his minions just what these United States of America are capable of doing to her enemies….

  • Perhaps Bush’s lackadaisical attitude toward the capture of Osama bin Laden is due to the fact that he knows the Saudi bogeyman is not really responsible for having “orchestrated the murder of 3,000 Americans.” It was fine for him to pound his chest and talk his cowboy talk of vengeance when he had his bullhorn moment and the dust was still settling from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

    But now that the immediacy of the moment has passed and he has his little vanity wars underway and has successfully watered down the Constitution, it’s Mission Accomplished. Osama was useful in selling his his proto-fascist program. Now he’s no longer needed as a shibboleth because Bush and his posse know who really is responsible for the deaths of that day.

    If we want to honor the memory of those who died on the day that is currently being flogged in the media for all the attention and ratings that it’s worth, the least we can do is identify the real perpetra(i)tors.

  • Sheridan, There have been new Bin Laden videos since Bush made his “not that concerned about him” statement. For example, he resurfaced before the elections in 2004.Here is the BBC story. So, if Bush “knew” Bin Laden was dead it was in the same sense that Cheney “knows” that there was an Iraq-Al Qeada connection.

  • If Bush is not that concerned with ObL, it’s the unconcern of the spoiled child who has been thwarted. “I didn’t want that smelly ol’ Osama anyway,” he pouts as he stamps his little cowboy boot.

    “In a stunning example of allowing politics to dictate national security policy, Bush ordered the CIA just three months ago — just in time for the midterm elections — to “flood the zone” and sharply increase the number of intelligence resources devoted to pursuing bin Laden.”

    Oh goody, we’re invading Pakistan.

    I wonder how long it takes to “flood a zone.” And if any logistics are involved. But I’m forgetting. In BushWorld ™ the US equivalent of James Bond is supposed to leap out of a plane, parachute into the area, seduce the woman who knows where bin Laden is hiding and in the last 15 minutes of the film, push ObL into a tank of rabid camels and seduce a few more babes.

  • Steve: i totally agree w/everything you posted apart from ‘And, it is time for the People, the Constitution as represented by the Congress and the Courts, and the very Republic itself to show the “cowardly little filth-of-a-man” and his minions just what these United States of America are capable of doing to her enemies….’

    long past time. *tapping foot impatiently*

  • rimone,

    Now that our beloved simian-in-chief has inextricably indicted himself on countless occasions—all in the public domain, of course, so it’s all admissable in the courts as “uncoerced evidence”—the only thing that’s left is the mere formalities—and how barbarous the form of punishment should be….

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