Senate Report Claims Bin Laden Was 'in Our Grasp' in 2001

The report echoes charges made by committee Chairman John Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign when he hammered away at the Bush administration for "outsourcing" the actual job on the ground to Afghan warlords and thus letting bin Laden escape. Gen. Tommy Franks, former head of the U.S. Central Command and one of those criticized in the report, has disputed that U.S. officials knew for sure where bin Laden was and said Kerry's "understanding of events doesn't square with reality."

The Senate report says that while bin Laden was writing his last will and testament on December 14, "Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected."

"Requests were also turned down for U.S. troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan," the report continued. "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. Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on air strikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack bin Laden and on Pakistan's loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes."

The report asserts that, on or around December 16, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today."

The Senate's account says that U.S. special operations forces were relying for support from the Afghans on two "relatively minor warlords," one of whom had a fourth-grade education as was regarded as a bully, and the other a wealthy drug smuggler. The two distrusted each other and , all told, had about 2,000 men.

"The decision not to deploy American forces to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, the architects of the unconventional Afghan battle plan known as Operation Enduring Freedom," the report said, citing fears by Rumsfeld that too many U.S. troops in Afghanistan would fuel an anti-American backlash.

The report said, "Removing the al-Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat. But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide."

In an opinion page piece for the New York Times in 2004, Franks, who was responsible for the Tora Bora operation, said, "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir. Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp."

He also took issue with Kerry's criticism of an over-reliance on Afghan soldiers, saying "Special forces from the United States and several other countries were there, providing tactical leadership and calling in air strikes. Pakistani troops also provided significant help -- as many as 100,000 sealed the border and rounded up hundreds of Qaeda and Taliban fighters."