Why did Bush fail to fulfill his pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive?

Question

Wasn't he the one who said he was going to smoke him out of his cave? So why did he later say "Frankly, I don't really think of Osama that much"?

Answer 1

His Neocon administration went after Iraq leaving too little forces to deal with al quaida.

The CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught...
In his book—titled "Jawbreaker"—the decorated career CIA officer criticizes Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department for not providing enough support to the CIA and the Pentagon's own Special Forces teams in the final hours of Tora Bora, says Berntsen's lawyer, Roy Krieger. (Berntsen would not divulge the book's specifics, saying he's awaiting CIA clearance.) That backs up other recent accounts, including that of military author Sean Naylor, who calls Tora Bora a "strategic disaster" because the Pentagon refused to deploy a cordon of conventional forces to cut off escaping Qaeda and Taliban members. Maj. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman, says the problem at Tora Bora "was not necessarily just the number of troops."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853000/site/newsweek
It's like this.Neocons get into the white house with an agenda to attack Iraq
http://zfacts.com/p/775.html
The threat of Alquaida and OBL is ignored until he attacks on 9/11.After that the Neocons did everything in their power to convince Bush to attack Iraq even before Afghanistan
By the afternoon on Wednesday [after Sept. 11], Secretary Rumsfeld was talking about broadening the objectives of our response and "getting Iraq." Secretary Powell pushed back, urging a focus on al Qaeda. Relieved to have some support, I thanked Colin Powell. "I thought I was missing something here," I vented. "Having been attacked by al Qaeda, for us now to go bombing Iraq in response would be like our invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor."
Powell shook his head. "It's not over yet." Indeed, it was not. Later in the day, Secy. Rumsfeld complained that there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq, which, he said, had better targets. At first I thought Rumsfeld was joking. But he was serious and the President did not reject out of hand the idea of attacking Iraq. Instead, he noted that what we needed to do with Iraq was to change the government, not just hit it with more cruise missiles, as Rumsfeld had implied.
Source: Against All Enemies, by Richard Clarke, chapter 1
http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/Against_All_Enemies_War_+_Peace.htm

Bush attacked Afghanistan anyway,he couldn't really do anything else with the eyes of the world on him but forces inside the administration were and are still focused on their PNAC agenda and in that agenda OBL isn't important.It's about states,think Iran.It also benefits them having him out there to keep people afraid and more willing to go along with war retoric.

When he said that dead or alive it was just cowboy talk without sunstance.If he wanted he could have gotten him long ago.He and his administration have set different priorities.

Answer 2

Great question! It's been said that within 5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld ordered his staff to find as much "evidence" as possible linking the attacks to Iraq. It's obvious that Bush & Co. wanted to invade Iraq from the very beginning and that they saw the attacks as their golden opportunity to do so. After all, if Bush really cared about getting justice for the 3,000 who died in the attacks, he would have focused on capturing bin Laden instead of invading a country that was in no way involved in the attacks.

Answer 3

By all accounts Osama is in Pakistan and we cannot take military action in Pakistan without their approval which they have not given. So if we did go into Pakistan to get Osama that would be another country we invaded and I'm sure the left would have a field day with all the Bush bashing they could come up with.

Answer 4

Because the Saudis told him to back off.
75% of 9/11 attackers were Saudi's, and their funding came from Bin Laden Bank, which is in Saudi Arabi, but we went to war with Afganistan and Iraq. Go figure.

Answer 5

Getting Osama is mostly a symbolic gesture at this point. He has been greatly marginalized, and is rarely heard from. He cant leave his hideout, makes a tape every year or so, has little access to funds, and most of his inner circle have been killed or captured. al Qaeda is more of a brand name for regionalized extremists than it is a movement.

Answer 6

He failed to fulfill his pledge to defend and uphold the Constitution. Why are you so worried about Bin Laden?
Get back to the real issues!!!

Answer 7

Because:

A. Bin Laden may not have initiated the attacks. Yes, he praises them, but there has never been one bit of evidence offered that he was the mastermind behind them.

B: Whether he did it or not, he is far too wealthy to be caught. For all we know, he lives among us, or in Saudi Arabia. If he is in the mountains of Pakistan, well, why aren't we there looking for him.

C. He is too valuable as a boogy man. Read 1984: Bin Laden=Goldberg.

Answer 8

Well technically hes got 495 Days
11 Hrs 37 Min left. So he hasn't failed yet. I doubt he will succeed but stranger things have happened.

Answer 9

Yep, Osama is looking pretty relaxed in his latest propaganda address.

New clothes, dyed beard and hair.....almost like a man who has nothing to worry about.

Answer 10

Bush found a new place to send the troops.