Over Tora Bora

"The plan was to send the Afghan forces into the Tora Bora Mountains to assault AQ positions located in well-protected canyons, with the ODA in observation posts. The latest intelligence placed senior AQ leaders, including UBL, squarely in Tora Bora. Directing joint fires and various groups of Afghans toward AQ positions, COBRA 25 hoped to either capture or destroy UBL and his AQ followers..."

-- United States Special Operations Command History, 1987-2007

A shocking headline in the New York Daily News: Bush adminstration could've captured terrorist Osama Bin Laden in December 2001: Senate report.

Osama Bin Laden was within military reach when the Bush administration allowed him to disappear into the mountains of Afghanistan rather than pursue him with a massive military force, a new Senate report says.

The report asserts that the failure to get the terrorist leader when he was at his most vulnerable in December 2001 - three months after the 9/11 attacks - led to today's reinvigorated insurgency in Afghanistan.

Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, requested the report, which came as President Obama prepares to send as many as 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

The committee report, prepared at the request of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee's Democratic chairman, concludes unequivocally that in mid-December 2001, Mr. bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, were at the cave complex, where Mr. bin Laden had operated previously during the fight against Soviet forces.

Its release also comes at the eighth anniversary of the events described - and the fifth anniversary of John Kerry's failed run for President of the United States. During his campaign one of the centerpiece slogans of his foreign policy position was "outsourcing the war on terror" - and Tora Bora was the example.

"I would not take my eye off of the goal: Osama bin Laden," Kerry boasted during his first debate with President George Bush in September, 2004:

"Unfortunately, he escaped in the mountains of Tora Bora. We had him surrounded. But we didn't use American forces, the best trained in the world, to go kill him. The president relied on Afghan warlords and he outsourced that job too. That's wrong."

"When the president had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, he took his focus off of them, outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, and Osama bin Laden escaped." Kerry reminded Americans during the third debate two weeks later. And he rarely missed an opportunity to assure Americans that only he could keep them safe from the constant threat of imminent danger posed by the terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

So perhaps Senator Kerry's newly commissioned, taxpayer-funded report isn't that new or surprising after all. "The Foreign Relations Committee's report draws on previous accounts, including books by two C.I.A. officers, Gary Berntsen and Gary Schroen, and by a commander in the Army's elite Delta Force who goes by the pen name Dalton Fury," reports the Times - which means it probably reads a lot like the Wikipedia article on Tora Bora, too.

But back to the NY Times for another source:

The report, based in part on a little-noticed 2007 history of the Tora Bora episode by the military's Special Operations Command, asserts that the consequences of not sending American troops in 2001 to block Mr. bin Laden's escape into Pakistan are still being felt.

As are the consequences of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Treaty of Versailles, and John Kerry's rejection by American voters. (That last, perhaps, most dramatically in the mind of John Kerry.)

Folks might debate Tora Bora for years to come. Certainly for the rest of his life John Kerry will never miss an opportunity to explain at length to all who will listen how Bush lost the war on terror. But it's undeniably a shame if the military account of the battle included in the United States Special Operations Command History is indeed little-noticed, and here in Mudville we believe we should do our bit to correct that - starting here.

A quick background from the same book (more to follow later). The story begins with the fall of Kabul: "When the Northern Alliance soldiers attacked on 13 November, the enemy defenses crumbled, and on the next day, to the surprise of the world press, General Fahim Khan's ground forces liberated Kabul without incident. The Taliban and al Qaeda forces had fled in disarray toward Kandahar in the south and into the sanctuary of the Tora Bora Mountains to the east near Jalalabad..."

Tora Bora

In mid-November 2001, the CIA began receiving reports that a large contingent of AQ, to include UBL, had fled from the area around Kabul to Nangahar Province. Subsequent reporting corroborated AQ presence in the vicinity of Jalalabad and to its south along the Spin Ghar Mountain Range. Analysts within both the CIA and CENTCOM correctly speculated that UBL would make a stand along the northern peaks of the Spin Ghar Mountains at a place then called Tora Gora. Tora Bora, as it was redubbed in December, had been a major stronghold of AQ for years and provided routes into Pakistan. The mountainous complex sat between the Wazir and Agam valleys and amidst 12,000 foot peaks, roughly 15 kilometers north of the Pakistan border. AQ had developed fortifications, stockpiled with weapon systems, ammunition and food within the jagged, steep terrain. The terrorists had improved their positions over many years, digging hundreds of caves and refuges and establishing training camps. UBL knew the terrain from the time of the Soviet invasion and chose it, undoubtedly, as a place to make a stand prior to the onset of winter and to defeat American attempts both to capture senior leaders and destroy the organization. Estimates of AQ troop strength ranged widely from 250 to 2000 personnel. With large numbers of well-supplied, fanatical AQ troops dug into extensive fortified positions, Tora Bora appeared to be an extremely tough target.

Moreover, the local anti-Taliban forces of the Eastern Alliance (also dubbed Opposition Group--OG--forces), under the command of Generals Hazarat Ali and Haji Zaman, were even more disorganized than those of the NA. Not only were OG forces divided into mutually hostile factions competing for control of Nangahar Province, but each group was also deeply distrustful of American aims. Ali was especially reluctant to ally himself overtly to U.S. forces, given his fears that he would be blamed for introducing foreign occupying troops into eastern Afghanistan. Based on estimates, Ali and Zaman may have had up to 2000 men, but whether this force would prove adequate to both assault fortifications and encircle the enemy remained to be seen. Given AQ's orientation, surrounding and cutting off the terrorists' egress routes would also prove a tremendous challenge, especially given uncertain force ratios. Added to these challenges were the advent of Ramadan in December and the fact that AQ was known to have a sympathetic following in Nangahar Province, particularly in the vicinity of Tora Bora. The likelihood of successfully repeating combined operations that had worked so well in the Shomali Plains, Konduz, and Mazar-e Sharif seemed remote.

American troop levels in Afghanistan were far from robust in late November 2001. In mid-November, the CIA had deployed one of its "Jawbreaker" teams to Jalalabad to encourage General Ali's pursuit of UBL and to call air strikes against the AQ forces. The Jawbreaker element, however, was very small and the operatives needed assistance. Few conventional forces were available. At the time, the U.S. Marines had established a small forward base at Rhino, south of Kandahar, and only a reinforced company of the 10th Mountain Division was at Bagram and Mazar-e Sharif.

TF DAGGER had already committed most of its forces elsewhere in Afghanistan. When approached by the CIA, the Dagger commander, COL John F. Mulholland, agreed to commit an ODA and potentially a few others once the "Jawbreaker" team had established a presence and developed a feasible plan. Even if TF DAGGER -- or even CENTCOM -- ad the forces to commit, the existing logistics infrastructure would likely have proven insufficient to sustain a long fight. Few MEDEVAC and resupply platforms were currently in country.

Thus, a general consensus emerged within CENTCOM that despite its obvious limitations, the only feasible option remained the existing template: employment of small SOF teams to coordinate airpower in support of Afghan militia. On 2 December, ODA 572, using the codename COBRA 25, convoyed to Jalalabad both to prod General Ali to attack and coordinate air support.

The forces of Hazarat Ali were a heterogeneous mixture of Eastern Alliance soldiers whose fighting qualities proved remarkably poor. Given its resource constraints, TF DAGGER would permit COBRA 25 only to provide the Afghans advice and assistance with air support, not to lead them into battle or venture toward the forward lines. The plan was to send the Afghan forces into the Tora Bora Mountains to assault AQ positions located in well-protected canyons, with the ODA in observation posts. The latest intelligence placed senior AQ leaders, including UBL, squarely in Tora Bora. Directing joint fires and various groups of Afghans toward AQ positions, COBRA 25 hoped to either capture or destroy UBL and his AQ followers.

The story continues here.