Osama bin Laden is on the administration’s radar again

January 2, 2007

As recently as September, the president told the Weekly Standard that capturing Osama bin Laden is “not a top priority use of American resources.” I thought about the comment after watching a CNN segment today about bin Laden’s suspected whereabouts, and whether the 9/11 mastermind might be in Pakistan or not. CNN reported:

There is more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. Last week, Bush’s homeland security advisor Fran Townsend told CNN, there is, in her words, “increased activity” on the part of the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the hunt for bin Laden.

And, as she termed it, “unbelievable” cooperation from the Pakistanis.

I’m, of course, glad to hear there’s “increased activity.” Maybe satellites picked up on something, or maybe an informant offered some valuable intelligence, but whatever the reason, it’s encouraging to know the Bush administration hasn’t completely forgotten about the man the president pledged to get “dead or alive.”

The information is no doubt classified, but if the hunt has picked up of late, it would certainly be a dramatic change in the status quo.

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.”

Bush ordered the CIA over the summer to “flood the zone” and sharply increase the number of intelligence resources devoted to pursuing bin Laden. Of course, after years of ignoring the terrorist mastermind, “no one is certain where the ‘zone’ is.”

The CNN report offers a glimmer or hope, but I’m inclined to believe that when Bush, just six months after 9/11, said, “I truly am not that concerned about [bin Laden],” he probably meant it.

Bush has suppressed Osama Bin Laden’s memory so much he confuses him with Obama. If I were Barack I would keep an eye out for armed drones.

  • Bin Laden’s probably kickin’ it at Camp David with his feet up in a Lazy-Boy, puffin’ on a Philly Blunt with a brandy snifter in one hand and the TV Remote in the other. That would be my best guess.

  • This from the same Fran Townsend who claimed the capture of Osama is “a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure.”

    Heck of a job, Franie.

  • Definition: “Increased Activity.” Dear Leader passes gas and mutters the word Osama once during each bout of self-inflicted narcosis….

  • I’m curious: is it okay to drop the “bin” before “bin Laden”? We often drop the “von” before “Beethoven” as well as the “de” before “Montesquieu”, and I have seen the 14th century precursor of today’s social sciences “ibn Khaldun” referred to simply as “Khaldun”, but I’m not sure what protocol applies here.

  • George is looking for the one thing that might get his ratings up a bit.

    Hey George, please get Osama, but don’t delude yourself that it will help you more than a couple points. Your legacy went down the toilet a couple years ago.

    Hmm. Telling GWB to not delude himself… I guess I need help.

  • Getting bin Laden would be hard. Setting up a neo-con-inspired “democracy” in Iraq, on the other hand, would be a cake-walk. Now, watch this drive.

  • Thank you, Ed, for the best suggestion so far in 2007! Come to that, I don’t like having to type “Al Qaeda.” Could we go for Laden and Q?

    That said, there was an interesting report (audio here) on going after Laden and Q this morning on NPR. Should Pakistan emulate our efforts and build a border fence? Where are those guys hiding, anyway? And are they still a threat?

  • If they “get” Laden, one of his lieutenants would simply take over. But I think it’s pretty clear who has to be “gotten.”

  • The CNN report offers a glimmer or hope, but I’m inclined to believe that when Bush, just six months after 9/11, said, “I truly am not that concerned about [bin Laden],” he probably meant it.

    I’m with Racerx. W is looking for something, anything, that will distract from the Iraq debacle (and the rest). This is all he has left. Five years on, he’s decided that he really ought to be “concerned” about bin Laden. Except he’s concerned for the usual self-serving reasons: get bin Laden, and maybe he can hold off the Democratic Congress for just long enough to get out of town in Jan. ’09….

  • With a satalite system that can photograph your license plate from thousands of miles in the air, a google map that shows your car in the driveway from above….and they can’t find a 7 foot Arab name Osama Bin Laden?

    Remember 911? Bush sent private jets around the USA to pick up members of the Bin Laden family and got them out of the country while holding our citizens on the ground everywhere.

    That was treason. If we had kept them, and demanded Bin Laden in return, the Iraq war could not have been started and fought. The Halliburton contractors and oil people would not have profited in the billions…..oh well, you all understand, don’t you?

  • We can use all the troops left over after ramping up for the “surge” to get bin Laden.

    I agree with focality, even if we get the figurehead of a decentralized organization of independent cells fueled by anger over our actions in the Middle East, the capture will be more symbolic that an effective move to decapitate an organization that will live on after his passing.

  • NOW that Saddam is finally dead, Boy George II can think about Osama bin Laden again.

    Wow! Only took more than four years.

    Thus the joy America receives from the fact that we have a dry drunk for President. Richard Clarke wrote a wonderful commentary on this same point a couple of days ago, noting the Bushites inability to deal with any other major pending crisis in the world because of their distraction over Iraq.

  • “increased activity”

    Ya the guy got a free RAZOR with Verizon. Since we don’t care about him and in no way is Pakistan letting us in, so why not save a couple bucks, get some free phones, and get the Al-Qaeda family plan from Verizon.

  • “Bin Laden’s probably kickin’ it at Camp David with his feet up in a Lazy-Boy, puffin’ on a Philly Blunt with a brandy snifter in one hand balanced on Cheney’s pate and the TV Remote in the other.”

    Could well be. OT: Over the xmas weekend I noticed that local reporters were referring to the President’s Retreat in Maryland. Maybe they had to get another retreat because ObL took over Camp David.

  • I’m curious: is it okay to drop the “bin” before “bin Laden”?

    You can now use the term “been” Laden, or even “gone” Laden.

    Alternatively, you can drop both parts of the name and just call him The Winner:

    Americans have learned that the Iraq war was a disastrous mistake. But they have yet to be able even to imagine the truth about the war on terror more generally. As long as politicians and pundits justify alternatives to the present course in Iraq by invoking the need to fight the war on terror more effectively, the United States will remain, as Osama bin Laden observed in his November 2004 videotape, trapped in a maelstrom of waste, worry, and witch hunt that “bleeds America to the point of bankruptcy.”

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