Senate Report: US Allowed Osama Bin Laden to Escape Afghanistan in 2001

March 1st, 2010

Byron Ruffin

osama bin laden

A new senate report acknowledges for the first time that Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was within the grasp of U.S. troops in December of 2001 but military leaders made the decision not to pursue and detain him. It's troubling news to hear 8 years after 2 illegal wars have cost more that five thousand U.S. serviceman's live and thousands of innocent civilian's lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants "removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama Bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora," reads the 49-page report authored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff for Chairman John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.

(more...)