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Journalism of Courage
Osama bin Laden was within reach of US troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force,a Senate report says.
The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Ladens escape laid the foundation for todays reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan,it says.
Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committees Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman,Sen. John Kerry,as President Barack Obama prepares to boost US troops in Afghanistan. Kerry has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaeda leaders when they were holed up in Tora Bora.
Removing the al-Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat, the report says. But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure …. and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism.
