“On December 15 [2001], bin Laden got on his shortwave radio. He praised his ‘most loyal fighters’–about 800 strong, at that point, tucked throughout the complex of caves [in Tora Bora, Afghanistan]–and said ‘forgive me’ for drawing them into a defeat. He said the battle against the ‘crusaders’ would continue ‘on new fronts.’ Then, he […]
Category: quotes
12/15/2001
“The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora [Afghanistan] late last year [December 2001] and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge. Intelligence officials […]
12/15/2001
Then-CIA Director George Tenet wrote: “In December 2001 a sharp WMD analyst at CIA found the initial lead on which we would pull and, ultimately, unravel the al-Qa’ida anthrax networks. But of all al-Qa’ida’s efforts to obtain other forms of WMD, the main threat is the nuclear one. I am convinced that this is where […]
12/15/2001
Though the Bush Administration had recently announced that bin Laden was present in the battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in December 2001, Central Command (CENTCOM) leader General Tommy “Franks continues to dissent from that analysis. Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, his chief spokesman, acknowledged the dominant view outside Tampa [Florida, CENTCOM headquarters] but said the general […]
12/15/2001
“After a few weeks, in December 2001, they [David Wurmser and Mike Maloof of the Policy Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group] produced a fat set of PowerPoint slides, each crammed with information on financial, operational, ideological, or other connections among terrorist groups and their state and nonstate supporters. This information had been developed through a careful […]
12/15/2001
U.S. military Commander Dalton Fury (pseudonym) spoke about his pursuit of Osama bin Laden in December 2001 at Tora Bora, Afghanistan. “At one point, he said, his forces were closing in on Bin Laden’s men–but he decided to abort the mission because he did not have support from Afghan troops. And in another incident Delta […]
12/15/2001
The capture of potential 20th hijacker Mohammed al-Qahtani in December 2001 was “the immediate cause for ratcheting up the military’s [enhanced interrogation] techniques. …top Pentagon officials were increasingly desperate for actionable intelligence on pending Al Qaeda attacks. …U.S. officials believed the suspect was hiding more, and that tougher measures were called for to make him […]
12/15/2001
U.S. military Commander Dalton Fury (pseudonym) spoke about his pursuit of Osama bin Laden in December 2001 at Tora Bora, Afghanistan. “One night–alone without his Afghan allies–Fury said he was told Bin Laden was two kilometres away. Faced with overwhelming odds, he elected to stay away. But the decision always nagged him. He wrote in […]
12/15/2001
In December 2001, “The Taliban was on the run, and bin Laden and the hard core of al Qaeda were cornered in the White Mountains at Tora Bora [Afghanistan], against the Pakistani border. But the Pentagon did not deploy enough American troops to seal off the area, on either side of the border. Army Gen. […]
12/15/2001
U.S. military Commander Dalton Fury (pseudonym) spoke about his pursuit of Osama bin Laden in December 2001 at Tora Bora, Afghanistan. “[A] Delta force named Jackal radioed they had Bin Laden in sight. He wrote: ‘The operation Jackal team observed 50 men moving into a cave that they hadn’t seen before. The mujahideen said they […]