In testimony before the 9/11 Commission on March 23, 2004, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen said, regarding sending a specialized force to pursue Bin Ladin: ” ‘We have 13,500 troops in Afghanistan right now, not to mention [how many] the Pakistanis [have there], and we can’t find Bin Ladin to date. So, the notion that you are going to put a small unit, however good, on the ground, or a large unit, and put them into Afghanistan and track down Bin Ladin, I think is folly.’ ”
– Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent, Page 160