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Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Franks on Tora Bora

Gen. Tommy Franks attacks Kerry's assertion that we took our focus off Bin Laden or 'outsourced' Tora Bora.

As commander of the allied forces in the Middle East, I was responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality.

4 Comments:

Blogger Andrew said...

So the guy who deserves the blame (short of his boss) defends himself by saying:

"Golly, we didn't really know if bin Laden was there, and we sent in a few hundred special ops to manage the 100,000 Pakistani and unnumbered Afghan troops.. so you can't say we outsourced our chance to get bin Laden. Maybe he wasn't there!"

While relevant, the defense is pretty weak.

And then he makes it sound like bin Laden might have run off to Iraq, and that's why we went there...

But worst of all, he says only 9,500 troops were in Afghanistan when the Iraqi invasion commenced. Forgetting to mention that just few months earlier, when Operation Enduring Freedom was instituted, over 20,000 American military personnel had been committed to Afghanistan. He quoted the troop count from after he refactored the troops for Iraq, and then compared it to the troop count after the invasion. But I don't think anyone really cares about that. They care about the military commitment in Afghanistan before and after any refactoring for Iraq. He produced a red herring, and I won't be surprised if uncritical partisans eat it right up.

10/19/2004 02:57:00 PM  
Blogger Dave Justus said...

We don't know he was there any more than we know that Iraq had WMDs before we invaded.

Second, we did Tora Bora in the only way we could have. The logistical capabilities to bring in massive numbers of troops to that isolated region did not exist. So it was either work with our allies or not do it at all.

Is working with allies in Iraq outsourcing our military action? If France and Germany and the rest of the U.N. security council had signed up for Iraq would that have been 'outsourcing' or military?

I suppose if you think that Tommy Franks is a crappy general and did a crappy job in Afghanistan and Iraq you would be likely to dismiss his comments. I believe the opposite and thus feel his comments to be relevant and persuasive.

10/19/2004 07:31:00 PM  
Blogger Andrew said...

Apparently, Kerry's story goes along with what everyone, including the White House said at the time in 2002. Why Franks or Scott McLellan wouldn't have mentioned this in passing then is a little curious, don't you think? Lots of coverage here.

10/23/2004 06:47:00 PM  
Blogger Dave Justus said...

Let me be clear, I do believe that Bin Laden was at Tora Bora. I believe that Pashtun militias allowed him to escape. They were probably either bribed or they had greater sympathy to Bin Laden than we estimated at the time.

I am far from sure that we would have been able to get sufficient U.S. forces into that region to prevent Bin Laden from escaping even if we had correctly deduced the nature of the Pashtun militias.

Further, I think giving them a chance, even though there was a risk that by doing so BIn Laden might escape wasn't necessarily the wrong thing to do, even though with the benefit of hindsight it didn't turn out quite the way we have wanted. Part of war and diplomacy is taking risks and making gambles.

Afghanistan belongs to the Afghani people. Letting them take the lead at Tora Bora was the right thing to do (I also contend that it was the only real choice we had).

I think that the Bush administration did make a mistake, both before and after Tora Bora in the focus that was put on Bin Laden himself. The problem is, and was far bigger than Bin Laden the person or even Al Qaeda. The problem is the general Islamist movement and it's allies of which Al Qaeda is only a part, although a signifigant portion.

It is always possible to second guess and armchair general specific decisions made in a war. While interesting, these hindsight views are not generally very relevant as they ignore the 'fog of war' and ussually only take into account the failures that resulted in the chosen action rather than the failures that were avoided by the chosen action.

We don't know what would have happened if we had not 'outsourced' Tora Bora to the Pashtun militias. Perhaps they would have chosen to throw in fully with Bin Laden feeling that the U.S. did not respect them. Perhaps Bin Laden would have been killed or captured. Perhaps he would have escaped anyway. Perhaps Afghanistan would not have had it's first ever election.

Gen. Franks, who I believe to be one of our all time great Generals made the call on what he believed, given what he knew then, to be the best decision at the time. President Bush supported him fully in making that call. John Kerry is not bringing anything useful to the debate by second guessing this issue.

It is a cheap political exercise. Further, the idea that the President should be second guessing his top General, one who had already put together a brilliant war plan and succeeded in Afghanistan far more quickly and with far less cost than any of the 'armchair generals' had believed possible is a very dangerous idea. I certainly hope that Kerry does not believe that this is the proper role of a President.

10/23/2004 07:43:00 PM  

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