A new Senate report blasts the Bush administration’s December 2001 effort to capture or kill Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the Afghanistan mountains of Tora Bora.
The report, written by the Senate Foreign Relations, says bin Laden was within reach on Dec. 16, but he and his “entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area.” The report says most analysts believe he is still there.
The report, requested by the committee’s chairman, Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, blames the failure to catch or kill bin Laden on then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s decision to use a force of untrained, mostly Afghani fighters to seal his escape routes.
The report says more than 100 American commandos were on the scene during the battle, but their calls for reinforcements were denied. Bin Laden, according to the report was so shaken by U.S. air strikes that he prepared a will that indicated he thought he was moments from death.
The report also slams then-Afghanistan-theater commander Gen. Tommy Franks for refusing to deviate from a plan to use mostly indigenous forces on the ground to ease the risk of an anti-U.S. backlash in the country.
The report’s release comes two days before the Obama administration is expected to announce the deployment of more troops to Afghanistan.
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