POLITICS-US: Bush Had No Plan to Catch Bin Laden after 9/11

[babsbunny]

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44054

By Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Sep 29 (IPS) - New evidence from former U.S. officials reveals that the George W. Bush administration failed to adopt any plan to block the retreat of Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders from Afghanistan to Pakistan in the first weeks after 9/11.

That failure was directly related to the fact that top administration officials gave priority to planning for war with Iraq over military action against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

As a result, the United States had far too few troops and strategic airlift capacity in the theatre to cover the large number of possible exit routes through the border area when bin Laden escaped in late 2001.

Because it had not been directed to plan for that contingency, the U.S. military had to turn down an offer by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in late November 2001 to send 60,000 troops to the border passes to intercept them, according to accounts provided by former U.S. officials involved in the issue.

[Sheets of Easter]

1. This just in: DUH!

Not to you, but to the original article.

If I rememeber correctly, the WH was trying to spin this into an Iraq thing mere days after 9/11. bin Laden was never on the agenda.

[diane in sf]

2. Bin Laden is the relative of Bush's family trading partners, why would they go after him?