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Originally posted by Tobiasly
But it also seems like some rather high-ranking sources in the past week or so have said there's credible evidence that he's alive and in the Pakistan border region.
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With so much al Qaeda trapped in Tora Bora and with so much ability to strike on moments notice from the sky, it would appear, at first glance that US Central Command made a gross tactical error in not committing the Marine Expeditionary Force to Tora Bora. Literally dispatching platoons to observation posts in all valleys into the region could have made it difficult for bin Laden, et al to escape to Pakistan. Observers could have quickly obtained air attacks and, if necessary, got immediate transport out of hot regions.
But the US was short of troops. We had stalled sending in the Army or addtional Marines from CA. Maybe that too was a mistake. Apparently Central Command wanted to save the Marines for a backup force. That meant Tora Bora was porous.
However getting into Pakistan was not easy either. The Pakistanis had assembled massive troop formations that are rumored to have trapped al Qaeda in the Afganistan side of the border. It may have been a beautiful flanking maneuver by al Qaeda. Some quick terrorism in Kashmir forced Pakistan to move most of their military to the Indian border. That opened the border for al Qaeda (and probably bin Laden) to escape to either cities or tribal regions of Pakistan.
Even the Japanese are involved in a search. They are supplying the British navy off the Pakistan coast where so far tens of thousands of ships and boats have been inspected for al Qaeda suspects. First two suspects were apprehended yesterday after a one hour high speed chase.
Where is he? Who knows. In hindsight, the US did error in Tora Bora. But then at the time, their overly conservative approach was typical of a general, Tommy Franks, who also commands too far away from FL and from George Jr's TX ranch (where he was at the time).