Rumsfeld order allowed bin Laden's escape

A new Senate report says that American military leadership refused reinforcements to block al-Qaida leader's path

By Gabriel Winant

When Osama bin Laden gave American troops the slip in the early days of the Afghanistan war, it seemed reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt to American military leadership. Tora Bora, the cave complex where the al-Qaida chief had been hiding, is situated in some of the most impassable mountain terrain on the planet. American troops had little experience in the region or local connections, and it was winter to boot. Though they won the battle, catching one particular guy in that kind of scenario was never going to be an easy job.

But a new report commissioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee shows that, in fact, the U.S. military may have had bin Laden in its grasp, and decided that dropping the net was too risky a proposition. The study, released Monday, is titled “Tora Bora revisited: how we failed to get Bin Laden and why it matters today.” According to the report, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld turned down requests for a larger American troop presence to block escape routes from Tora Bora.

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