Their statements were a typical "cover your rear and admit nothing.
The political pressure is evident in how General DeLong changed his assessment of the Tora Bora campaign after his own book was published in September of 2004, where he described his belief bin Laden was in Tora Bora at the time. Two months later (November 1, 2004) he stated, "It was possible bin Laden was never in Tora Bora to begin with. Later, in front of the Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee DeLong stated "we didn't go after bin Laden because we didn't have an election yet to install Harmid Karzai. We didn't want to have US forces fighting before Karzai was in power. Note the similarity to the political excuse Rumsfeld provided about not creating an anti-US backlash among the local populace.
The inconsistency in the explanations for why troops were not provided to "block and sweep Tora Bora when bin Laden was there is typical when excuses are made for mistakes no one wants to admit. The inconsistency was because no one wanted to admit making the obvious error "believing bin Laden was not a serious threat. Almost from the beginning, Bush believed Iraq was the true threat. Bush searched for possible links between Saddam and al Qaeda to justify going into Iraq. Bush requested Tenet provide him information about any Iraq-al Qaeda connection shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Tenet responded with his Presidential Briefing on September 21, 2001 that stated there was no known connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. This was only five days after Vice President Cheney was asked by Tim Russert on Meet the Press (September 16, 2001) about an Iraq-al Qaeda connection and Cheney stated, "I didn't think there was one.
On October 7, 2001 the war in Afghanistan began, and things were going so well with the Taliban and al Qaeda in full retreat that on November 21, 2001 (just 1.5 months into that war) Bush told Rumsfeld he wanted a war plan for Iraq. Rumsfeld called General Franks and requested he get together a war plan for Iraq. Thereafter, Franks saw Omar and bin Laden as an afterthought and Iraq as the primary military target. Later that same day Bush stated: "Afghanistan is just the beginning on the war against terror. There are other terrorists who threaten America and our friends, and there are other nations willing to sponsor them. We will not be secure as a nation until all these threats are defeated. Across the world and across the years, we will fight these evil ones and we will win.
Rumsfeld asked Franks on December 1, 2001 how he was going to choke off Hussein's support of terrorism. The focus was no longer on bin Laden but squarely on a new source of terrorism " Saddam Hussein. During Cheney's Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert on December 9, 2001 Cheney acknowledged bin Laden was in the Tora Bora area and stated, "They (Omar and bin Laden) send young men into battle but they appear to be holding up in caves. "In the final analysis they are running and hiding. -- The Afghan people blame Omar and bin Laden for the outrage. By this point in time the Administration clearly felt the Afghanistan war was wrapping up, bin Laden was not really the issue, Afghans wouldn't want the Taliban or al Qaeda back and the need was to go after other sources of terror. In that same Meet the Press interview Cheney stated cryptically, "we have some other mission to accomplish.
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