US shifting focus, agents from Kabul to Baghdad

Boston Globe ^ | 8/18/2003 | Bryan Bender

[RJCogburn]

As the hunt for Saddam Hussein grows more urgent and the guerrilla war in Iraq shows little sign of abating, the Bush administration is continuing to shift highly specialized intelligence officers from the hunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to the Iraq crisis, according to intelligence officials who have been involved in the redeployments.

[goldstategop]

We're still on the job in Afghanistan. We need to finish off the ghost of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and quickly.

[LS]

That's because OBL is DUST in Tora Bora, and increasingly people know it. Today a "new" tape doesn't even purport to come from him, or even contain his image, but from one of his low-level flunkies who "assures" us that he and Mullah Omar are alive.

Uh huh. I'll believe that when I see him with today's USA Today.

Moreover, the nabbing of this Hambali guy was HUGE, and he apparently has provided a new wealth of information.

[hotpotato]

Another senior defense official, who asked not to be identified, pointed out that the Army's Fifth Special Forces Group -- which consists of more than 300 Green Beret commandos -- was shipped from Afghanistan to Iraq in the early days of the Iraq war.

Another "senior defense official" like the "unnamed senior official" quoted recently by the NYT that turned out to be a private no one could locate? I don't believe the BBC, CNN, NYT, Times, Newsweek, (have canceled both subscriptions) LAT, or Boston Globe (to name a few) any longer. *Especially* when the source is unnamed. Why in the world would our military divulge what Special Forces is doing to the Boston Globe?

[Cronos]

I kinda doubt that. alQ is a bigger threat to US security and we must put in more efforts in Afghanistn.

[LS]

Read closely. I didn't say AQ wasn't a threat. I said OBL is dead, and we have seriously damaged the top organization guys, both in the Middle East and Asia.

[rageaholic]

If OBL ain't dead, and the Americans hunting him in Trashcanistan leave for Iraq, and he don't show himself, more of his many followers will question his manhood or his body tempurature. Word of his demise would spread until he either risked rearing his ugly head or it was generally accepted that he died. Either outcome is bad for Al Kaida.