You know god-damned-well your White House war criminal – not to
mention the McOld campaign – would love to “produce” the alleged
author of the 9/11 attacks in time to have an impact on the election
November 4.
You recall the 9/11 attacks … that just happened to happen on G.W.’s
watch?
Well, he and his fellow outlaws want bin Laden, even if it would mean
killing a BL lookalike and parading “it” before the media.
And, no question, they’d DO it!
So the Bushies are resuming the "search" for Mr. Evil, who has not
enjoyed a confirmed sighting since late 2001.
But oh, what a boost a reasonable facsimile could give to the “legacy”
of your Nincompoop-In-Chief!
Not to mention to all those fear-filled fat old racist bags who say
they intend to abandon their Democratic Party roots to vote for Sarah
“It’s Mine!” Palin and her great-grandfatherly running mate.
So look for a “story” on or before Nov.3.
But that’s not to say there won’t be other October surprises sprung by
the Repubs. They have NO INTENTION of giving up the White House.
And of course you know they’ll do ANYTHING to keep it.
(Cue Supreme Court)
----------------------------------
"In Hunt for Bin Laden, a New Approach"
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 10, 2008; A01
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Frustrated by repeated dead ends in the search
for Osama bin Laden, U.S. and Pakistani officials said they are
questioning long-held assumptions about their strategy and are
shifting tactics to intensify the use of the unmanned but lethal
Predator drone spy plane in the mountains of western Pakistan.
The number of Hellfire missile attacks by Predators in Pakistan has
more than tripled, with 11 strikes reported by Pakistani officials
this year, compared with three in 2007. The attacks are part of a
renewed effort to cripple al-Qaeda's central command that began early
last year and has picked up speed as President Bush's term in office
winds down, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials involved in the
operations.
There has been no confirmed trace of bin Laden since he narrowly
escaped from the CIA and the U.S. military after the battle near Tora
Bora, Afghanistan, in December 2001, according to U.S., Pakistani and
European officials. They said they are now concentrating on a short
list of other al-Qaeda leaders who have been sighted more recently, in
hopes that their footprints could lead to bin Laden.
In interviews, the officials attributed their failure to find bin
Laden to an overreliance on military force, disruptions posed by the
war in Iraq and a pattern of underestimating the enemy. Above all,
they said, the search has been handicapped by an inability to develop
informants in Pakistan's isolated tribal regions, where bin Laden is
believed to be hiding.
With CIA officers and U.S. Special Forces prevented from operating
freely in Pakistan, the search for bin Laden and his lieutenants is
taking place mostly from the air. The Predators, equipped with
multiple cameras that transmit live video via satellite, have launched
their Hellfire missiles against four targets in the past month alone.
Since January, the reconnaissance drones have killed two senior al-
Qaeda leaders with $5 million bounties on their heads.
Still, debate persists among both U.S. and Pakistani officials over
the merits of this aggressive approach, which has resulted in higher
civilian casualties and strained diplomatic relations. "Making more
effort and flailing are different things," said a senior Pakistani
security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid
alienating U.S. authorities.
Bin Laden, a 51-year-old Saudi, has thwarted the U.S. government's
attempts to catch him since 1998, when he signed a fatwa calling for
attacks on Americans and ordered the bombings of two U.S. embassies in
East Africa.
Today, seven years after he masterminded the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001, bin Laden is believed to wear disguises routinely and takes
extreme care to avoid electronic communications, relying on human
couriers to pass messages, officials said. Pakistani officials said
the CIA and the U.S. military have played into bin Laden's hands by
pursuing al-Qaeda with bombs and missiles. Pashtun tribes along the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border, angry at the number of civilian
casualties, see the United States as the enemy, the officials said.
Despite a $25 million reward posted by the U.S. government, no one has
been willing to turn in the al-Qaeda leader.
"Unless you have people who support you, human intelligence will never
work," said Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, a retired Pakistani general who
oversaw efforts to track bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders after
2001. "You have to have friendly people."
Another major obstacle has been the war in Iraq.
Officials with the CIA and the U.S. military said they began shifting
resources out of Afghanistan in early 2002 and still haven't recovered
from that mistake.
"Iraq was a fundamental wrong turn. That was the most strategically
negative action that was taken," said John O. Brennan, a former deputy
executive director of the CIA and a former chief of the National
Counterterrorism Center. "The collective effort in the government
required to go after an individual like bin Laden -- the Iraq campaign
consumed that."
The Bush administration tried to reinvigorate the flagging hunt for
bin Laden early last year by redeploying Predator drones, intelligence
officers and Special Forces units to Pakistan and Afghanistan. But by
then, U.S. counterterrorism officials said, the war in Iraq had
already given bin Laden and his core command precious time to regroup
and solidify their new base of operations in northwestern Pakistan.
More recently, the search has been hobbled by a tattered relationship
between the United States and Pakistan. CIA and U.S. military
officials said cooperation is so bad that they now withhold
intelligence about the suspected whereabouts of al-Qaeda commanders
out of fear that the Pakistanis might tip them off. Leaders in
Pakistan respond that they are committed to fighting al-Qaeda. But
they also persistently deny that bin Laden is in their country.
Although they lack hard evidence, U.S. officials said it is only
logical that bin Laden is in Pakistan, where he has roamed the
mountains along the Afghan border for two decades and enjoyed the
protection of Taliban leaders.
"In many ways, it's a perfect place," said Bruce Riedel, a former
South Asia analyst for the CIA and National Security Council. "But
there's not a scintilla of evidence that we have any idea where he
is."
U.S. intelligence officials said bin Laden's fear of being caught
prevents him from overseeing al-Qaeda's day-to-day operations. But
they said there is no doubt he remains in charge of the network.
Bin Laden "remains al-Qaeda's authoritative source for strategic and
tactical guidance," Ted Gistaro, the U.S. government's top
intelligence analyst for al-Qaeda, said in a speech last month. He
added that bin Laden, along with his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-
Zawahiri, "continue to maintain al-Qaeda's unity and its focus on
their strategic vision and operational priorities."
Bin Laden is believed to depend on a small circle of fellow Saudis for
his personal security. But officials said the Taliban provides him and
his lieutenants with a network of safe houses.
According to an internal Taliban memo viewed by The Washington Post,
Taliban security operatives have a code name for bin Laden -- Taqwa,
an Arabic term that means fear of or reverence for God.
A Hamstrung Hunt
In late 2005, the CIA disbanded Alec Station, its special unit
dedicated to tracking bin Laden. The search was going nowhere.
The CIA concluded that bin Laden's importance had diminished compared
with other terrorist threats, such as al-Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq.
Analysts who had specialized in tracking the terrorist leader were
reassigned.
A year later, however, many intelligence officials were beginning to
change their minds. After the disruption of the airliner plot in
London in August 2006, it became clear that al-Qaeda's core command --
previously thought to have been knocked out -- had made a comeback.
The CIA later dispatched scores of additional officers to Pakistan's
ungoverned tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province, where al-
Qaeda had taken root.
The environment, however, had become more hostile than ever. Resurgent
Taliban fighters had forced the Pakistani government to sign cease-
fire agreements in the lawless tribal border areas of North and South
Waziristan. Surveys showed that bin Laden's popularity had soared
among Pakistanis and that animosity toward the United States was
pervasive.
Most CIA case officers were restricted to Pakistani military bases in
remote areas. Arthur Keller, a retired CIA officer who served in the
tribal areas in 2006, said he had little freedom of movement.
Pakistani liaison officers, he said, were more interested in keeping
an eye on their CIA counterparts than in providing assistance.
"I couldn't go out myself -- blond-haired, blue-eyed me. I could do it
in Austria, but not in Pakistan," Keller said. "It's all done at two
removes. That's typical of how it works in a region where the
Pakistanis aren't interested in helping out, which they definitely
weren't."
Since then, the hunt for bin Laden and his deputies has also been
hamstrung by a running dispute among U.S. officials over whether to
send Special Forces units into Pakistan, despite an order from the
Pakistani government prohibiting such operations.
U.S. officials said they have drafted several covert missions since
2005 that would have dispatched teams of Navy SEALs and the Army's
Delta Force into Pakistan after receiving intelligence on individual
al-Qaeda leaders, though not bin Laden. But most of the raids were
canceled or failed to receive high-level approval because of doubts
that they would work and concern over the fallout if U.S. commandos
were killed or captured, the officials said.
"There were some really heated debates between the CIA and Special
Forces about who should have authority to do what, and under what
circumstances," said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official involved
in the discussions. "Don't underestimate the friction that was caused
by that."
The disagreements appear to have been resolved, at least for now.
Last week, in a covert raid, U.S. commandos crossed from Afghanistan
into Pakistan in helicopters and killed about 20 people in a suspected
Taliban compound in South Waziristan.
Although it formally protests such actions as a violation of its
sovereignty, the Pakistani government has generally looked the other
way when the CIA has conducted Predator missions or U.S. troops
respond to cross-border attacks by the Taliban. But some officials
said ground incursions deep into Pakistani territory could provoke
political upheaval.
"This has become incredibly complicated and messy," said a former
senior British intelligence official who spoke on the condition of
anonymity. "The Americans have been talking about inserting themselves
militarily into the tribal areas since 2005, at least. But I think it
would just complicate the whole issue by a very significant factor."
Michael Scheuer, a retired CIA officer and former chief of the
agency's bin Laden unit, said there weren't many alternatives. "Our
options are terrible," he said. "The new president will inherit a fish
that is really starting to smell."
Ignoring Hearts and Minds
Pakistani officials said that if the U.S. government had really wanted
to rout al-Qaeda, it should have tried harder to modernize Pakistan's
impoverished tribal belt, instead of targeting it with missiles.
"We thought, and we still think so, that the American strategy should
have been to stabilize the area rather than look for a needle in a
haystack," said Mahmood Shah, a retired civilian security chief for
the tribal regions.
"If you find him now, the problem still won't be resolved," he said of
bin Laden. "Maybe you'll get the fish, but you'll poison the pond
around him."
Since 2002, the United States has given more than $10.5 billion in aid
to Pakistan, not including funds for covert operations. Much of the
money, however, has gone to Pakistan's military or has been spent with
little oversight, according to U.S. government audits. Only a tiny
fraction has gone for building schools and hospitals in western
Pakistan.
"The Americans didn't believe in that," said the senior Pakistani
security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They just
said, 'Bang, bang, bang.' A man who has a sledgehammer in his hand,
all problems look like nails."
J. Cofer Black, director of the CIA's counterterrorism center from
1999 to 2002, was a key player in the hunt for al-Qaeda and well known
in Washington for his give-no-quarter approach. "When we're through
with them, they will have flies walking across their eyeballs," he
told Bush shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In an interview last month, however, Black echoed concerns expressed
by other officials that the U.S. government had paid too little
attention to the "hearts and minds" of people living along the Afghan-
Pakistani border, many of whom have reinforced their allegiance to the
Taliban and al-Qaeda.
"This may sound strange coming from a flies-on-the-eyeballs guy, but
the most important thing is support and aid to local leaders and the
population," Black said. "If you don't have that, you can put in all
the divisions you want, and it won't matter."
A Double Game
For seven years, the hunt for bin Laden hinged on the proposition that
the U.S. government had a reliable partner in Pakistan's president,
Pervez Musharraf, who resigned under pressure last month.
But even some Pakistanis said the U.S. government was naive to think
that Musharraf or his generals would do much to find bin Laden. They
noted that Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency
had cultivated ties with the al-Qaeda leader for two decades and that
many officers remained sympathetic to his cause.
Afrasiab Khattak, a Pashtun politician based here in the northwestern
city of Peshawar, said Pakistani forces would occasionally help the
CIA capture second-string al-Qaeda figures, but only to keep the aid
money flowing from Washington.
"The Bush administration deceived itself," he said. "From the very
beginning, the Pakistani generals were playing a double game. It was
an open secret."
Khattak said he has warned U.S. officials since 2000 of bin Laden's
close relations with Pakistan's spymasters, adding that he tried to
alert Washington after 2002 that al-Qaeda was rebuilding in the tribal
areas.
"We kept telling the Americans, 'They are here.' They said: 'No, no.
This cannot be true. General Musharraf is very committed, he's with
us,' " recalled Khattak, president of the Awami National Party in
North-West Frontier Province.
Musharraf and other Pakistani officials have repeatedly dismissed
assertions that bin Laden is in their country, pointing the finger at
Afghanistan instead.
Retired Lt. Gen. Dan K. McNeill, former commander of the NATO-led
military coalition in Afghanistan, said that whenever he raised the
subject of bin Laden with his Pakistani counterparts, the answer was
the same.
"They'd say: 'If he's around here, he's on your side of the border. If
you think you know where he is, tell us,' " said McNeill, who stepped
down as commander in June. "That's always their comeback. My response
is: 'If I knew, I don't believe I'd tell you. We'd go after him
first.' "
Pakistani generals, in turn, blame U.S. officials for not trusting
them. They point out that more than 1,000 Pakistani troops have been
killed while fighting insurgents in the tribal regions.
Aurakzai, who was appointed after Sept. 11, 2001, to oversee military
operations in northwestern Pakistan and later served for almost two
years as governor of North-West Frontier Province, said the United
States doesn't want to accept the possibility that bin Laden could be
hiding elsewhere.
"We've been imprisoned by this idea that he's either on the Afghan or
Pakistani side of the border," he said. "Why aren't we looking
anywhere else? I think we need to change this mind-set."
So where to start?
"How the hell do I know?" the general replied.
[Special correspondent Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar and staff researcher
Robert E. Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903404....
