IAP Political Forum

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/US_officials_stopped_plans_to_kill_1006.html

I'm curious as to what viewers think of this video....why were executive orders placed to stop the capture of OBL?  what is the credibility of the speaker?  why does he decide to come forward now?...a change of conscious after 7 years?

Do you believe him?

Can you think of different motives for coming forward or making these statements?

From the Delta story:


No. The CIA has NEVER "came up with his exact location".

I am very familiar with the particulars of this story from the CIA's viewpoint and they're full of crap. Oh sure -- the one time the "higher ups" decided not to rely on their information and they try and tell us they were certain of his exact location. They are simply disgruntled and pouting. The CIA wanted this to be their show and not the US forces/coalitions. They have claimed to know his "exact" locations many times, during Clinton etc., and have been wrong every single time; through cruise missle attacks and earlier special forces attacks they have been wrong every single time they have tried to get his exact location.

This entire story and it's resulting conspiricy theory rests completely on the assumption that the CIA was right this time, which they insist, but it looks like the higher ups decided not to go for it...they wanted to play it safe and use armed forces, also the proximity of Pakistan was a concerrn at the time too. Since then there never has been any way to confirm his whereabouts at this time.

I would remind the resaonable reader that while all the kings men and all the cia available and all the satellites focused on Iraq and the entire country occupied and they still never found Saddam. Who found saddam? The immortal all-seeing CIA? No. Foot recce using HUMINT that's who. So the CIA pouts now because they were so 'certain' of Osama's whereabouts but there is little or nothing in their years of track record looking for Osama to support that claim.



Ahk

This is not the first time this information has come to light. The only new details are those from Delta Force, but the rest of the story is old news.......
 
U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight
Failure to Send Troops in Pursuit Termed Major Error

By Barton Gellman and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 17, 2002; Page A01

Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the first 10 days of December.

//////

FROM 2005

NY Times

One of them was Brig. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of some 4,000 marines who had arrived in the Afghan theater by now. Mattis, along with another officer with whom I spoke, was convinced that with these numbers he could have surrounded and sealed off bin Laden's lair, as well as deployed troops to the most sensitive portions of the largely unpatrolled border with Pakistan. He argued strongly that he should be permitted to proceed to the Tora Bora caves. The general was turned down. An American intelligence official told me that the Bush administration later concluded that the refusal of Centcom to dispatch the marines - along with their failure to commit U.S. ground forces to Afghanistan generally - was the gravest error of the war.

A week or so after General Mattis's request was denied, the turning point in the battle of Tora Bora came. It was Dec. 12. Hajji Zaman had by now realized that the Qaeda fighters were better armed than his men and that they were also prepared to die rather than surrender to him. He was also becoming increasingly irritated with Hazarat Ali and with the snow. And in a few days the feast of Eid al-Fitr, which ends Ramadan, would begin. The stalemate, the Americans' surrogate commander decided, simply had to end. So, through a series of intermediaries and then directly, Hajji Zaman made radio contact with some of bin Laden's commanders and offered a cease-fire. The Americans were furious. The negotiations - to which Hazarat Ali acquiesced since he, too, was now holding secret talks with Al Qaeda - continued for hours. By the time they came to an end, Hajji Zaman's interlocutor, hidden somewhere in the caves above, was probably bin Laden's son Salah Uddin. If the Qaeda forces surrendered, Hajji Zaman's contact said, it would be only to the United Nations. Then he requested additional time to meet with other commanders. He would be back in touch by 8 the following morning, the younger bin Laden said.

American intelligence officials now believe that some 800 Qaeda fighters escaped Tora Bora that night. Others had already left; still others stayed behind, including bin Laden. "You've got to give him credit," Gary Schroen, a former C.I.A. officer who led the first American paramilitary team into Afghanistan in 2001, told me. "He stayed in Tora Bora until the bitter end." By the time the Afghan militias advanced to the last of the Tora Bora caves, no one of any significance remained: about 20 bedraggled young men were taken prisoner that day, Dec. 17.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/magazine/11TORABORA.html?pagewanted=print

I have been trying to think of what other motivations there could be for this admission now.

If Bush was running for re-election it would make more sense, but he is not.

While this is damaging to the Republican party, I don't believe it is enough to really hurt MCcAIN.

To be honest, I have been unable to come up with a plausible ulterior motive.

possibly a motive to engage Pakistans sovereignty?....see where I'm going with this? 

"Admission"

What admission? This info has been available for a while now.


Keep trying though eh? I'm sure you'll "come up with something" sooner or later.

Why not consider that the "timing" of the information may have nothing to do with any behind the scenes planning or ulterior motives?

The world does run like that.

Ahk

I WAS  ONCE LIKE YOU.

I actually believed in the goodness of people.

No. You were never like me.

Your response has nothing to do with what I said, and my post has zero to do with the "goodness of people". I have no idea where you get that from.

I am simply pointing out that this entire "they let Osama go" story is based on the CIA's claim that "they knew for certain" his exact location. I simply ask why is this a given after all the times they were wrong about it. If this simple question is too threatening to you then ok.

The world is chaotic Pond. If you need to make sense of it by making everything connected to everything else you will never 'get it'.



Ahk

So, never in the past has this type of information been released for political reasons, or for ulterior motives?

Is that what I said? The majority of world events come about mainly because of chaos rather than clandestine planning.

How come this simple question elludes you? Why must you avoid it, just like you avoided the point aabout all the airplane wreakage coming out of the Pentagon? Please just awknowledge and answer the simple question.

I ASK IT AGAIN, and if you can't answer then your point is pretty weak because it's a simple question:

If, after all the times the CIA said they were certain of a terrorists location -- including Osama's -- and they send out a cruise missile or special forces (I know you don't remember this but this kind of thing was rampant '97-99) just to find out later they were completely wrong, why is it then that we can take it as a given - no proof whatsoever--  that this time they absolutely knew where he was?

Please answer this instead of coming back with something that has nothing to do with anything I said and without asking another question. If you can't address this simple question then not only do you have no hope of ever being taken seriously but you have no hope of learning how to debate. A simple, "I don't know why it should be taken as a given this time", will do. It doesn't destroy your contention -- it doesn't make you 'wrong' -- but it will show that you can accept a simple plain common-sense factor instead of having to squirm away from it.

Seriously Pond, if a contention can't survive this simplest of questions -- you know questions: those things you say people don't ask enough of? -- then why promote it?


Ahk

Sorry, I didn't understand. So, you are asking how can we believe that they were "right" this time about his location?

To be honest, we can't know if Bin Laden was there or not.

We also don't know who the hijackers were.

We also don't know if Osama was even involved.

If all of the 9/11 hijackers were who the government claims, then why won't they release all the airport videos?

Anyways, it appeared to me, as well as others, that we didn't really want to get Osama.

Was he really in Tora Bora?

How can I ever know for sure?

This is all I'm saying. The CIA says they were certain, and the article seems to take them for their word without questioning all the times they were wrong. If the delta forces wasn't told to stop and they went in and found no binladen (which would've been par for th course up till this point) then there wouldn't be a story. Now after the fact they can stamp their feet on and on claiming he was there but there's really no good reason i can see for them having more than 25% chance of being correct and statistically that's being kind. Osama had "forever" to get out of Afghanistan.


So at the end of the day it wasn't so much "executive orders [were] placed to stop the capture of OBL" because we don't know that. What we do know is a descision had to be made whether or not to go full bore militarily into Tora Bora or to leave it to the CIA (who were in love with pretending to be soldiers durintg their time in Afghanistan -- remember the jail break they screwed up?), some special forces (who were also needed everywhere) and northern alliance allies. For better or for worse it was decided to go with the full bore military option. The conclusion in the story was that the whitehouse said "Oh we can catch Bin Landin? Hmm better not. Nope we don't approve." is deceptive, or wrong take your pick because there was no way of knowing for sure if he was there and Tora was turning out to be a big question mark -- how many fighters? How many cave retreats? -- we didn't know so it was decided to go full bore military. That's the way I see it but today the CIA feels like a jilted lover and tells a different story.


That's all Im saying.

Ahk