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Mon. Sep 30, 2002

Checkin' in with Elvis bin Laden

Back in December and again in July, I reviewed the state of Elvis bin Laden. Being October, I guess it’s time again.

First, we have the New York Times, once again confirming my year end lament: "The frustrations for American troops have not been helped by the suspicion that here at Tora Bora, where Mr. bin Laden was all but trapped, indecisiveness on the part of American commanders, or perhaps reluctance to risk casualties, may have helped him escape. If he fled to Pakistan, he did so over snow-choked mountain trails that were not blocked by American or other allied troops until after the bombing an oversight that some of the allies point to as having squandered the best opportunity of the war to snare America’s most wanted man."

"Within weeks, high-ranking British officers were saying privately that American commanders had vetoed a proposal to guard the high-altitude trails, arguing that the risks of a firefight, in deep snow, gusting winds and low-slung clouds, were too high…."

"....An Afghan commander who held part of the front line at Tora Bora, Alim Shah Qaderi, said he had been told of one last sighting of Mr. bin Laden, at the village of Tangi, close to the Pakistan border, on Dec. 8, shortly before the bombing ended. Villagers there, Mr. Qaderi said, had told him that a man who looked like the Qaeda leader, along with a group of about 20 other Arabs, had ridden into Tangi on horseback late that day, paused for water and to buy supplies, and then ridden on toward Pakistan."

"Mr. Qaderi, now back to a civilian life in Jalalabad as chief of the city’s creaky telephone service, said he had remained at Tora Bora for weeks after the bombing, working with American search teams. But those teams, he said, had left many collapsed caves unsearched, had photographed but not DNA-tested bodies still lying on the mountains, and had not dug up many of the Arab graves that were left on the higher ridges, marked by white flags that were an Islamic banner for Al Qaeda and the Taliban."

" ‘So my final word is this,’ the commander said. ‘If Osama is dead, somebody has to prove it, and they haven’t. And if he’s alive, he won’t stay out of sight forever. So what can the Americans do but to keep on searching?’ "

Sounds like a bit more of the “nobody knows for sure, but….” the general consensus leans towards “chronically immobile.”

Rowan Scarborough, of The Washington Times, reports similar rumblings in DC: "An increasing number of government analysts believe Osama bin Laden is dead, but the assessment is based on rational deduction, not hard evidence. Interviews with Bush administration officials in recent weeks show an increasing shift in opinion to the ”’o longer with us’ column when it comes to Washington’s No. 1 guessing game, ‘Dead or Alive?’ "

"The arguments that bin Laden is dead:

· Al Qaeda supporters have put out videotapes of anti-Western speeches by bin Laden, claiming that they are new. U.S. analysts say all tapes since December are old. Some surmise that al Qaeda is putting out phony tapes to cover up bin Laden’s death."

I would simply note we are coming up on Oct. 7, the one year anniversary of the launch of our campaign in Afghanistan, a year during which bin Laden was only been heard from in the first two months. That ten month silence should be a fair indicator on the day of that anniversary; though fragments of Al Qaeda remain, the campaign against them in Afghnistan was successful, and for all practical purposes, bin Laden is dead.