John Kerry was right about BinLaden

[FreedomAngel82]

Of course.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853000/site/newsweek/

<Aug. 15, 2005 issue - During the 2004 presidential campaign, George W. Bush and John Kerry battled about whether Osama bin Laden had escaped from Tora Bora in the final days of the war in Afghanistan. Bush, Kerry charged, "didn't choose to use American forces to hunt down and kill" the leader of Al Qaeda. The president called his opponent's allegation "the worst kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking." Bush asserted that U.S. commanders on the ground did not know if bin Laden was at the mountain hideaway along the Afghan border. But in a forthcoming book, the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. "He was there," Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK. Asked to comment on Berntsen's remarks, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones passed on 2004 statements from former CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks. "We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001," Franks wrote in an Oct. 19 New York Times op-ed. "Bin Laden was never within our grasp." Berntsen says Franks is "a great American. But he was not on the ground out there. I was.">

[Noisy Democrat]

1. Thanks!

I'm glad to know about that. I'm not exactly surprised Kerry was right; he usually is. :)

[newyawker99]

9. Hi Noisy Democrat!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[wakeme2008]

2. Drip Drip Drip Drip

Besides * friends in the UK (DSM) and in the CIA-- he does not need any enemies.

[Inland]

3. But does being right on the facts count for shit in today's America?

In the Bushworld, where the only importance to an assertion is whether it wins or loses votes, how does being right on bin Laden count?

It didn't to Bush, of course, but things like not killing an enemy of the US leads to deaths by encouraged terrorists, just as surely as tax cuts cause budget deficits and lower pollution standards cause more pollution.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. And it's sad

I think Kerry should do a press conference and show all that he's been right about. Of course Kerry isn't that type of politician so I don't know if he'd do that, but it would be fun to watch. :) And it really pisses me off how they smear him around like crazy when he was right. Especially about BinLaden. Hmm I wonder what Rhandi's Usama clock says.

[globalvillage]

4. There should be lots of noise about this.

But there won't be.
If Kerry knew where Bin Laden was, then bush* sure as hell did. Where's the outrage?

[FreedomAngel82]

6. I'm sure Bush knew

He knew about everything else. To think Bush didn't know, I think, is to underestimate Bush.

[dogman]

7. This is really nothing new.

Wes Clark wrote about this in his 2003 book "Winning Modern Wars". Richard Clarke also related this to the media during the campaign.

[OneBlueSky]

8. bin Laden is -- and always has been -- and "American asset" . . .

the reason he hasn't been caught is that BushCo may well need him in the future . . . if not for a terrorist attack, then as a target following an attack . . . just like last time . . .

[Lannes]

11. I agree

[ovidsen]

10. Too little, too late

Too bad, so sad.

This revelation that BushCo knew that bin Laden was holed up in Tora Bora isn't exactly new, but it will still be ignored by those who insist that Iraq really had WMDs, and really was behind 9-11.

I can be sooooo cynical on Mondays.