Missed opportunities for Osama (US had one chance, and blew it)

[sabra]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-usosam...

Missed opportunities for Osama

WASHINGTON -- In the four years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has had only one precious opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. It blew it, according to the Long Island native who led the CIA's efforts.

Weeks after the attacks, American troops and Afghan fighters had bin Laden and a large number of al-Qaida and Taliban guerrillas trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora near the Pakistani border. The U.S. military then made the fateful decision to let the Afghans shoulder the offensive, and the tribesmen quietly allowed bin Laden and his followers to slip to safety over the border, retired terrorism and security officials said.

"That's the only time since 9/11 where the United States had a shot at it," Gary Berntsen, a Smithtown native and graduate of Hauppauge High School in 1975, complained in an interview last week. He directed the CIA teams dedicated to bin Laden's capture and is now working on a book on his CIA years.

The White House and the Pentagon have insisted the U.S. had no knowledge that bin Laden was holed up in the mountains. But now Berntsen and a number of other CIA officials who were involved in the attempts to nab the al-Qaida leader and his lieutenants are challenging the administration's account, saying the United States knew and simply erred in having Afghans conduct the hunt.

Add this to the list of things Kerry was right about...