‘Rumsfeld decision allowed Osama to escape from Tora Bora’: US Senate report

[Naveed Yaseen]

WASHINGTON: Osama Bin Laden was “within the grasp” of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements, a US Senate report says.

Dated for release on Monday, the hard-hitting study points the finger directly at Rumsfeld for turning down requests for reinforcements as Bin Laden was trapped in December 2001 in caves and tunnels in a mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan known as Tora Bora.

“The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the marine corps and the army, was kept on the sidelines,” the report says.

“Instead, the US command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack Bin Laden and on Pakistan’s loosely organised Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes.”

Entitled “Tora Bora revisited: how we failed to get Bin Laden and why it matters today”, the report commissioned by Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says Bin Laden expected to die and had even written a will.

“But the Al Qaeda leader would live to fight another day.” afp

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...2009_pg7_3