In Kürze wird US-Präsident Barack Obama seine neuen Afghanistanstrategien erläutern. Passend dazu schildert der heute (beziehungsweise eigentlich erst morgen am 30. November 2009) vom US-Senatsausschuss für Auswärtige Beziehungen unter Leitung des demokratischen Senators und ehemaligen Präsidentschaftskandidaten John F. Kerry veröffentlichter Bericht , warum im Dezember 2001 Osama bin Laden sowie weiteren Al-Qaida-Führungspersonen ihre Flucht aus dem Tora Bora-Höhlenkomplex gelingen konnte.
Der Senats-Bericht versucht, die Ursachen und Folgen dessen zu interpretieren, wobei er den Handlungsweisen der Bush-Administration und den verantwortlichen Militärs des Centcom-Regionalkommandos die Hauptschuld zuweist.
Ein paar Auszüge aus dem Report "TORA BORA REVISITED: HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY":
"Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected. Requests were also turned down for U.S. troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan. The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines. Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack bin Laden and on Pakistan's loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes. On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area." (Seite 2)
"The CIA’s Berntsen had requested a battalion of Rangers, about 800 soldiers, and been turned down by CentCom. A battalion would have been a substantial increase in the U.S. presence, but it probably would not have been enough to both assault the stronghold from the north and block the exits on the south. Krause estimated that as few as 500 troops could have carried out the initial northern assault, with reinforcements arriving over the course of the battle. At least twice as many troops would have been required to execute the blocking mission on the southern, eastern and western reaches of Tora Bora. Krause proposed spreading about 1,500 troops to capture or kill anyone trying to flee. O’Hanlon estimated that closing off escape routes to Pakistan would have required 1,000 to 3,000 American troops. In all, an initial force of roughly 2,000 to 3,000 troops would have been sufficient to begin the blockand-sweep mission, with reinforcements following as time and circumstances allowed." (Seite 16f)
"Ironically, one of the guiding principles of the Afghan model was to avoid immersing the United States in a protracted insurgency by sending in too many troops and stirring up anti-American sentiment. In the end, the unwillingness to bend the operational plan to deploy the troops required to take advantage of solid intelligence and unique circumstances to kill or capture bin Laden paved the way for exactly what we had hoped to avoid-a protracted insurgency that has cost more lives than anyone estimates would have been lost in a full-blown assault on Tora Bora. Further, the dangerous contagion of rising violence and instability in Afghanistan has spread to Pakistan, a nuclear-armed ally of the United States which is now wracked by deadly terrorist bombings as it conducts ts own costly military campaign against a domestic, Taliban-related insurgency." (Seite 19)
