The Place of Dead Roads

Now, let's see...I am remembering back to last fall, maybe in October. Kerry was trying to tell people how Bush wasn't really making us any safer. During the debates, he keep bringing up how Bin Laden had been in Tora Bora, but got away. From ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer, Document: Bin Laden Evaded U.S. Forces (my emphasis)

A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a commander for Osama bin Lade during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and helped the al-Qaida leader escape his mountain hide-out at Tora Bora in 2001, according to a U.S. government document.

We set up the evil that is Gitmo to get info, and what do we learn for our effort? That we were too pre-occupied with planning for Iraq to catch the real danger. If you recall the timeline, during the period under consideration, Franks was at CentCom. Over one long weekend, he was planning the invasion of Iraq. A task in and of itself worthly of a month's labor (Frontline).

To continue the article,

The document, provided to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information request, says the unidentified detainee "assisted in the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora." It is the first definitive statement from the Pentagon that bin Laden was at Tora Bora and evaded U.S. pursuers.

The newly revealed statement is contained in a document the Pentagon calls a "summary of evidence" against one of 558 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It was provided to the AP this week.

The evidence was summarized last December 14 for a Guantanamo Bay hearing to determine whether the prisoner was correctly held as an "enemy combatant."

If they had it ready by 12/14 for a hearing, when was this information first known? Which is it? Bush and Cheney knew this information and lied during the campain. or they didn't think getting daily briefings on Bin Laden was important. Actually, the second option isn't too likely. Already Porter Goss is complaining about the workload. So maybe they did know. They lied? I am shocked, shocked I tell you!

These idiots were not even trying to fight a war on terrorism. I remember how quickly McVeigh and company were rounded up. Yet, after so much worse an attack and including getting to restart airline traffic safety from a standstill, we now learn

Among documents stating the U.S. government's evidence against other detainees at Guantanamo Bay is a September 2004 assertion that an unidentified detainee, described as a member of al-Qaida, had traveled from the United States to Afghanistan in November 2001 — two months after the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

The detainee also was arrested by Saudi authorities for questioning in the 1996 terrorist bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 members of the U.S. Air Force, the document says.

I like that the reporter does point out that "Kerry lambasted Bush during the campaign for having missed a chance to capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora". I like the idea of spending the next four years pointing all the ways Kerry was right and Bush was wrong (Not that that being right compared to Bush is such a big deal). I want to make sure, in years to come, Bush never finds himself in predicaments like the second debate and this one:

"I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't...you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one" - Bush, 4/14/04