Its possible that the USA could have gotten Osama eearlier, apparently.

[the_future_modernes]

Osama Bin Laden's Obituary

With his long grey beard and wistful expression, bin Laden became one of the most instantly recognisable people on the planet. His gaunt face stared out from propaganda videos and framed a US website offering a $25 million bounty. In 2007, that bounty was doubled.

Born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, one of more than 50 children of millionaire businessman Mohamed bin Laden, he lost his father while still a boy.

Osama's first marriage, to a Syrian cousin, came at the age of 17, and he is reported to have at least 23 children from at least five wives. Part of a family that made its fortune in the oil-funded Saudi construction boom, bin Laden was a shy boy and an average student, who took a degree in civil engineering. MORE

via Daily Kos:


Oct 15, 2001 Bush rejected Taliban offer to surrender Osama

Oct. 15, 2001....After a week of debilitating strikes at targets across Afghanistan, the Taliban repeated an offer to hand over Osama bin Laden, only to be rejected by President Bush.

The offer yesterday from Haji Abdul Kabir, the Taliban's deputy prime minister, to surrender Mr bin Laden if America would halt its bombing and provide evidence against the Saudi-born dissident was not new but it suggested the Taliban are increasingly weary of the air strikes, which have crippled much of their military and communications assets.

The move came as the Taliban granted foreign journalists unprecedented access to the interior for the first time. Reporters were escorted to the village of Karam in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban said up to 200 civilians were killed in an American bombardment last Wednesday.

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How many Americans were aware of this, I wonder?


Bush, March 2002: 'I really just don't spend that much time' on bin Laden

What was Bush spending time on in March, 2002, and if fact just a month after the 9/11 attacks? Surely you remember:

October 18, 2001 – The CIA writes a report titled, Iraq: Nuclear-Related Procurement Efforts. It quotes many of the Italian report's claims, but adds that the report of a completed deal is not corroborated by any other sources. (Senate Intelligence Cmte., Iraq 36-37, July 2004).

February 5, 2002 – The CIA's Directorate of Operations – the clandestine branch that employed Valerie Wilson – issues a second report including "verbatim text"of an agreement, supposedly signed July 5-6, 2000 for the sale of 500 tons of uranium yellowcake per year. (Senate Intelligence Cmte., Iraq 37, July 2004).MORE

IF CANTOR [and RUMSFELD] REALLY WANTS TO GO THERE

In July 2006, we learned that the Bush administration closed its unit that had been hunting bin Laden.
In September 2006, Bush told Fred Barnes, one of his most sycophantic media allies, that an "emphasis on bin Laden doesn't fit with the administration's strategy for combating terrorism."
And don't even get me started on Bush's failed strategy that allowed bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora.MORE

However I firmly disagree with the thrust of this postJohn McCain said he wouldn't go after Bin Laden in Pakistan

His reason was that Pakistan is a sovereign nation. And so it is, actually and just because we are the world's only superpower, doesn't mean we get to trample all over other people's sovereignty. When we finally lose that prestige years down the road, and some other superpower proceeds to violate our sovereignty, we are going to be selectively historically ignorant, aren't we?

Meantime they buried Mr. Osama's body at sea, supposedly in accordance with Islamic traditions. The reasoning given was to prevent enshrining of his remains.

Some Muslim clerics are disputing that characterization of the burial.