Delta Force officer: US officials stopped plans to kill bin Laden
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Monday October 6, 2008


After September 11, 2001, a team of elite Delta Force commandos was sent into Afghanistan with an assignment to find and kill Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora -- but that mission failed.

The commander of the Delta Force team has now written a book which tells what he says is the true story of what went wrong. He appeared anonymously on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday to summarize that story.

Bin Laden was known to be holed up at Tora Bora on a ridge with an elevation of 14,000 feet. The Delta Force team's initial plan was to come at him from the direction he'd least expect, climbing over the mountains at his back, but that plan wasn't approved by the higher-ups. Their second idea, to drop hundreds of landmines along the mountain passes to Pakistan to impede bin Laden's retreat and then bring in helicopters, was also turned down.

"How often does Delta come up with a tactical plan that's disapproved by higher headquarters?" CBS's Scott Pelley asked the commando leader.

"In my experience, in my five years at Delta, never before," he replied.

The only remaining option was a frontal assault by 50 US Delta Force members plus their Afghan guides -- and the Afghan warlord accompanying the commandos frankly told them, "I don't think you guys can handle it." A few million dollars from the CIA quickly secured his cooperation, but only to a degree.

The Delta Force leader told CBS that the Afghan fighters went home every night, abandoning whatever territory had been gained that day. "It was almost like it was an agreement, an understanding between the two forces fighting each other," he stated When the CIA did come up with an exact location on bin Laden, it was nighttime, and the Afghan support was nowhere to be found.

"It wasn't worth the risk at that particular moment to go up there and play cowboy," the leader told CBS. "It was better to be cautious, refit, go up there with the entire force the next day and play the battle out as we had planned." But when he attempted to move on bin Laden the next day, his Afghan allies balked, saying they had negotiated a cease fire with al Qaeda, and even drew their weapons on the Delta force team to prevent it from acting alone.

Shortly thereafter, intercepted radio communications showed that bin Laden was on the move. A cave which al Qaeda members had been seen entering was bombed for several hours, and it was thought that bin Laden had died there. But when US forces checked the cave six months later, bin Laden's body was not found. The Delta Force leader believes he received medical treatment in a local village and then got away safely into Pakistan.

CBS News had more details here.

This video is from CBS' 60 Minutes, broadcast October 5, 2008.
The Raw Story | Delta Force officer: US officials stopped plans to kill bin Laden

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- Robertson Davies

Clinton had a few of those as well.

But it seems like an OP that had a high failure rate.

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"If you are looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror"- V

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. Mencken

come on you know you wanna play football..

Beagán agus a rá go maith.

Economic Left/Right: 3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.87

It seemed from this that it was the afgans that prevented the mission of succeeding.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

Agreed - after the two best options were taken off the board by DC, the Afghans refused to participate in a suicidal lunge. My question is why did those options get taken off the board?

__________________
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
- Robertson Davies

Probably because they didn't feel that they were safe enough, treking over mountians and climbing up a ridge to attack from behind is a do or die mission, with no way to get back out once you are in. The helicopter one, I don't know why. But I doubt that the frontal attack was considered "suicidal" and it seemed more like the afgans were just going lazily half assed, rather being scared that it was a suicide mission.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

You have to remember these guys are Delta. That is their WHOLE job is to execute Do or Die missions. Read the story of Roughneck 91.

I think it bears repeating that we have had chances prior to this to take bin Laden out but did not follow through.

hint: find out where Binladen recieves dialysis.

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No party holds the privilege of dictating to me how I shall vote. If loyalty to party is a form of patriotism, I am no patriot. If there is any valuable difference between a monarchist and an American, it lies in the theory that the American can decide for himself what is patriotic and what isn't. I claim that difference. I am the only person in the sixty millions that is privileged to dictate my patriotism.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

Because if we killed Bin Laden there would be no reason to continue funding the War on Terror at such high levels as now and it is all about transferring money from the nation's Treasury to the military-industrial complex. It is about politics, not justice.

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"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

So, what was his evidence that it WAS bin Laden? Seemed rather slim.

Really? So, you say that killing Bin Laden would end terrorism?