As we remember this day, think about what might have been accomplished world-wide, especially in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine, if we hadn’t pissed away our blood, time, money and respect on Iraq. mjh
The New Al-Qaeda Central
Far From Declining, the Network Has Rebuilt, With Fresh Faces and a Vigorous Media Arm
By Craig Whitlock,Washington Post Foreign Service
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — When Osama bin Laden resurfaced Friday in a 26-minute videotaped speech, his most important message was one left unsaid: We have survived.
The last time bin Laden showed his face to the world was three years ago, in October 2004. Since then, al-Qaeda’s core leadership — dubbed al-Qaeda Central by intelligence analysts — has grown stronger, rebuilding the organizational framework that was badly damaged after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, according to counterterrorism officials in Pakistan, the United States and Europe.
It has accomplished this revival, the officials said in interviews, by drawing on lessons learned during 15 years of failed campaigns to destroy it. In that period, bin Laden and his followers have outfoxed powerful enemies from the Soviet army to the Saudi royal family to the CIA. …
On June 24, 2003, President Bush declared al-Qaeda’s leadership largely defunct. At a Camp David summit, Bush praised Pakistan’s Gen. Pervez Musharraf, crediting his country with apprehending more than 500 members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
“Thanks to President Musharraf’s leadership, on the al-Qaeda front we’ve dismantled the chief operators,” Bush said. Although bin Laden was still at large, his lieutenants were “no longer a threat to the United States or Pakistan,” Bush added. …
Many U.S., Pakistani and European intelligence officials now agree that al-Qaeda’s ability to launch operations around the globe didn’t diminish after the invasion of Afghanistan as much as previously thought. …
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Al-Qaeda’s Return – washingtonpost.com
The terrorists have a sanctuary once again.
MANY FACTORS contributed to the awful success that al-Qaeda achieved six years ago today: tactical and policy mistakes by the United States, the diabolical skill of the terrorists, even the clear, cobalt-blue sky on that initially beautiful morning. But probably nothing was more important than the haven in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan that gave al-Qaeda the time and space it needed to train, recruit and plan for highly complex operations. Accordingly, the greatest victory the United States and its allies have yet recorded against the terrorist network was the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul and the scattering of al-Qaeda’s depleted ranks across Southwest Asia.
Yet as the United States mourns and commemorates the worst act of terrorism ever carried out on U.S. soil, and reflects thankfully on the fact that it has not been repeated, there are ominous signs that al-Qaeda is back as a coherent, global force capable of inflicting damage on the United States. Al-Qaeda never really went away, of course, as grieving families of its victims from London to Baghdad can attest. But the emergence of the first authentic Osama bin Laden video in three years, the arrest of German-based al-Qaeda operatives near Frankfurt, and the reinfiltration of hundreds of al-Qaeda-aligned Taliban fighters and intended suicide bombers into Afghanistan point toward one alarming conclusion: Al-Qaeda is once again able to operate from a consistent haven. According to the latest National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaeda, the organization “has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability” inside Pakistan.