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| Terror Networks & Islam |
| Little progress in hunt for Binny |
| 2005-03-04 |
| More than three years after President Bush declared his intention to capture Osama bin Laden "dead or alive," the terrorist chieftain remains free to taunt his pursuers and plan more attacks. Bush offered assurances Thursday that the search is still on, but there are few signs of progress in the hunt for America's most wanted fugitive. A $25 million bounty, an international ad campaign seeking tips and the deployment of thousands of troops have failed to flush out the man behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In the latest reminder of bin Laden's status as a terrorist on the loose, the federal Homeland Security Department warned state security officials last weekend that intelligence reports indicate that bin Laden has urged Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the top al-Qaida operative in Iraq, to plan attacks in the United States. "We're on a constant hunt for bin Laden," the president said at a swearing-in ceremony for Michael Chertoff, the new head of the Homeland Security Department. "We're keeping the pressure on him, keeping him in hiding." As for al-Qaida, Bush said: "Stopping them is the greatest challenge of our day." Critics charge that the manhunt has lost steam because of a lack of coordination within the U.S. government and insufficient cooperation from Pakistan. Bin Laden is thought to have slipped back and forth across the isolated border between Afghanistan and Pakistan since a U.S.-led coalition in 2001 toppled the Taliban regime, which had given him sanctuary in Afghanistan. A number of al-Qaida leaders, possibly including bin Laden and his top associate, Ayman al Zawahri, slipped through two American dragnets in eastern Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002. Two U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the matters are classified, said that since then the administration had twice temporarily diverted unmanned spy planes and other intelligence assets from the Afghan-Pakistani border to Iraq, once to support the U.S.-led invasion and more recently to help find terrorist leaders there and protect Iraq's Jan. 30 elections. "There really hasn't been any significant progress," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent who also served as a State Department counterterrorism specialist. "This has to be a fully integrated, coordinated effort." Johnson, who said he'd spoken recently with someone who's directly involved in the search, also criticized Pakistani officials. Although Pakistan has sent 70,000 troops to the border region to assist in the search, some terrorism experts suspect that Pakistani intelligence officials are aiding the fugitive. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said last week that he had no idea where bin Laden was. "The big problem remains that the Pakistanis aren't cooperating," Johnson said. A State Department ad campaign in Pakistan soliciting tips didn't produce any solid leads. Radio, television and newspaper ads in the Urdu and Pashto languages dangled the promise of $25 million rewards for information leading to the arrest of bin Laden or al Zawahiri. Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, R-Ill., a staunch supporter of the rewards program, said the ads had helped produce about a dozen tips a day. "A thousand bad tips could come in, but if one good one comes in, we're a success," Kirk said at a recent congressional hearing. Bush and his aides say the focus on bin Laden obscures other progress in the war on terrorism. By the administration's count, more than 75 percent of the al-Qaida leadership at the time of the Sept. 11 attack has been killed or captured. "If al-Qaida was structured like corporate America, you'd have a chairman of the board still in office, but many of the key operators would no longer be around," the president said later Thursday during a visit to CIA headquarters. Administration officials acknowledge that the threat from al-Qaida is in some ways even more troubling now because the group has inspired spin-off terrorist organizations around the world. "Al-Qaida and the groups that support it are still the most lethal threat we face today," FBI director Robert Mueller told the Senate Intelligence Committee last month. Bush said he remained confident that bin Laden would be captured eventually. "We spend every day gathering information to locate Osama bin Laden and Zawahri," he said during his CIA visit. "As far as I'm concerned and as far as the CIA is concerned, it's a matter of time before we bring these people to justice." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #5 It'd certainly be gratifying to have his head on a pike in the Oval Office, but we've done something much better than catching Binny: we've made him irrelevant. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-03-04 4:16:25 PM |
| #4 I thought it said little progress in hunt for bunny - which is the same since runs and hides in holes from the mighty Eagle |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-03-04 3:58:31 PM |
| #3 Witcha? Kansas? Do they even know what's going on east of the Mississippi? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-03-04 3:13:50 PM |
| #2 Damn! If only ALL UAVs and "other intelligence" assets had not been TEMPORARILY sent elsewhere for vital work, then CERTAINLY we'd have found Bin Loser. Of all the pathetic, illogical, counter-factual nonsense that constitutes about 95% of the arguments of "critics," the "distraction" idiocy may be the most egregious. Let's see -- the US couldn't possibly afford to build and operate, say, MORE UAVs if it so chose. And all those Pashto and Dari speakers we moved to Iraq ... wait .... |
| Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq 2005-03-04 4:35:34 AM |
| #1 the terrorist chieftain remains free to taunt his pursuers and plan more attacks. But so far, that's all he CAN do. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2005-03-04 12:53:41 AM |