Yet again we put General Musharaff’s hide above fighting terrorism at its root.
I don’t want to hear another wingnut whine again about terrorism or blame us,
because at every turn the Republicans have abdicated their responsibility to
keep the focus on what’s important. It was never Saddam. It was always Al Qaeda,
Afghanistan and beyond, into the badlands between that country and Pakistan.
This latest news is just more evidence that Bush has gotten us into a worse
jam than most people have begun to unwind.
A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al
Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after
top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize
relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.The target was a meeting of Al Qaeda’s leaders that intelligence officials
thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and
the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense
secretary, rejected the 11th-hour appeal of Porter J. Goss, then the director
of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals
unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan
when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official
involved in the planning. … ..The decision to halt the planned “snatch and grab” operation
frustrated some top intelligence officials and members of the military’s
secret Special Operations units, who say the United States missed a significant
opportunity to try to capture senior members of Al Qaeda.Their frustration has only grown over the past two years, they said, as Al
Qaeda has improved its abilities to plan global attacks and build new training
compounds in Pakistan’s tribal areas, which have become virtual havens
for the terrorist network. … ..
It’s obvious that Musharaff thinks he has Mr. Bush and the entire United States
by the short hairs, if you’ll pardon the expression, because he’s not doing
near what he needs to do to combat the Taliban in Pakistan as they rearm, retrain
and reinvigorate themselves inside Afghanistan. No wonder. He thinks,
no, Musharaff knows Bush isn’t going to do anything. After
all, A.Q. Khan is even walking around again.
But missing a chance to get bin Laden’s top deputy after all these years?
“The whole thing turned into the invasion of Pakistan,” said
the former senior intelligence official involved in the planning. Still, he
said he thought the mission was worth the risk. “We were frustrated
because we wanted to take a shot,” he said.(snip)
That criticism has echoes of the risk aversion that the officials said pervaded
efforts against Al Qaeda during the Clinton administration, when missions
to use American troops to capture or kill Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan were
never executed because they were considered too perilous, risked killing civilians
or were based on inadequate intelligence. Rather than sending in ground troops,
the Clinton White House instead chose to fire cruise missiles in what became
failed attempts to kill Mr. bin Laden and his deputies — a tactic Mr.
Bush criticized shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
As an aside, the above paragraph is typical hack pack analysis of Clinton’s efforts, frankly.
Remember that when Clinton did try to do something the Republicans accused him
of “wagging the dog.” But at least Clinton had a terrorism team in place, something
Bush senior seemed to ignore completely, even after the Marine barracks bombing.
Clinton walked into office without a warning, with the first 1993 World Trade
Center happening shortly after he arrived. Richard Clarke was Clinton’s terrorism
czar right up until Bush junior demoted him and the position to below cabinet
level post and this was after the Bushies coming in were warned that al Qaeda
was Job One. Could Clinton have done more? Every president since Reagan, after
the Marine barracks bombing, as well as other warnings world wide could have (especially if we’d ignored the danger of hitting a Saudi in a strike), but there were serious efforts being made during Clinton’s administration, which
were ignored by Mr. Bush until Septeber 12th. Then what did Bush do? He set his sights on Saddam, a spider hole dictator that couldn’t have hit the U.S. with a bomb except in his fantasies.
Now, all these years after 9/11 and after losing bin Laden at Tora Bora, we still find him on the loose with so many taking his place that the myth is set even if we’d catch him now. But now we learn Bush also let Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations, slip through his fingers too. It’s incredible, if only that were all. Meanwhile the
Taliban is resurfacing, with Musharaff more comfortable than ever, while people
in his country train terrorists and export them to Iraq, with Pakistani trained Taliban fighters going to Afghanistan.
Then there’s Iraq (with 150 killed in yet another mass slaughter today, plus 8 more U.S. soldiers), which has been a complete distraction from fighting global
terrorism from the start, depleted our military and stretched them thin, while
ruining U.S. credibility. Just look at Lebanon or what’s happening between Hezbollah
– Hamas – Israel and Iran, which now has people pimping for Iran war parties to begin. Bush could not have made a worse mess out of this
if he’d stayed on his ranch and phoned in his presidency between brush clearings.
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