Did Saudi kid confirm Bush let bin Laden escape at Tora Bora?
It was a throw-away line at best in the middle of a story on NBC Nightly News last Tuesday night that no one seemed to notice.
The story was about “a rehab center for young Saudi Arabian boys” that had once been lured into joining al Qaeda. After serving time in a juvenile detention facility, the boys were now being trained to reenter the world as productive members of society. NBC reporter Jake Tapper spoke to one young man about how he came to be where he is now, when he casually dropped the following bombshell:
(video)
I stopped dead in my tracks:
“What the hell did he just say???”In case you didn’t catch it, this young Saudi boy seems to confirm that
Osama bin Laden was indeed at Tora Bora with him when President Bush failed to send in American ground troops to try and capture him in December of 2001.
(...)
While there has been a multitude of evidence from
the CIA,
TV news
reports,
magazine articles, and
online investigations all concluding that there is little or no doubt that bin Laden was indeed there at Tora Bora that day, Bush supporters have
NEVER conceded that as being “fact”.
(...)
President Bush countered on his next campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio:
Unfortunately — unfortunately, my opponent, tonight, continued to say things he knows are not true — accusing our military of passing up a chance to get Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora. As the Commander in charge of that operation, Tommy Franks had said, it’s simply not the case. It’s the worst kind of Monday morning quarterbacking. It is especially shameful in the light of a new tape from America’s enemy. Our Commander in Afghanistan, Tommy Franks, recently said — quote — “The Senator’s understanding of events does not square with reality.” General Franks said — General Franks said America’s Special Forces were actively involved in the search for the terrorists in Tora Bora. And intelligence reports at the time placed bin Laden in any of several different countries. As General Franks said, “If we’d ever known where bin Laden was, we would have gotten him.” (Applause.)
President Bush was merely parroting what numerous Right Wing supporters had been saying since Kerry first made the outlandish claim at the first Presidential debate:
Tora Bora BaloneyBY MELANIE KIRKPATRICK
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The Tora Bora slanderPower Line
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Tora Bora BullRick Lowry
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And suddenly, here was this clip on the NBC Nightly News. A young Saudi man in his twenties just happens to mention that “he fought with bin Laden at Tora Bora”,
".