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Blunders that let bin Laden slip away
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: November 29th, 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1...
In retrospect, and with the benefit of dozens of accounts from the participants, the battle for Tora Bora looks more like a grand charade, a deliberate ploy to cover bin Laden's quiet escape. The US strategy bore little logic for those suffering the brunt of the attacks. "When we round up a pack of stray sheep, we send in shepherds from four sides, not just one," said Malik Osman Khan, a one-eyed tribal chief whose 16-year-old son Wahid Ullah was one of more than 100 Afghan civilians killed in the intense US bombing. "At first, we thought that the US military was trying to frighten the Arabs out, since they were only bombing on one side." Haji Zahir, one of the three Afghan commanders whose ill-prepared fighters led the charge up the southern slopes of Tora Bora, agreed that the US bombing worked against his efforts on the ground. "They started the bombing before they surrounded the area." Bin Laden had left some days previously, and even as the US military's proxy war got under way, the rush of his fighters out of Tora Bora, which had been a trickle and then a stream, now became a mad dash for freedom. The eastern Afghanistan intelligence chief for the country's new government, Pir Baksh Bardiwal, was astounded that the Pentagon planners of the battle for Tora Bora had failed to even consider the most obvious exit routes. He said: "The border with Pakistan was the key, but no one paid any attention to it. Al-Qa'eda escaped right out from under their feet."
Note: For many questions raised about the official account of 9/11 by highly respected individuals, click here and here.
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