The B-52s are based out of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and have been since the Cold War. Give the foot based movement of most of the Terrorists in Afghanistan it would be entirely possible to call in a strike from there to Afghanistan in time to interdict the retreat routes or hit terrorists heavy weapon sites supporting the assault. A Russian .51 cal Dishka or the terrorists mortar support etc would be set up well outside the danger close range for the Buffs to hit.
OK.
I checked for a rough guesstimate HERE to see how far Diego Garcia was from Kabul.
We get 2888 miles (2510 nautical miles).
Now, given that the BUFF is subsonic, at a good clip she'll cruise at 600 MPH.
Do the math folks. From alert time (I am going to give them credit for having fully loaded BUFFs on a Ready-5 alert status) to take-off to refuel to target acquire is still over 4 hours (Closer to 5 by my best guestimate)...and that's just to Kabul. Since I have no idea how far Camp Tilman is from Kabul, I'm just going to use the Kabul locale to frame my point!
So the attack continued for enough time for BUFFs to get from Diego Garcia to the zone? And A-10's, Apaches and F-15E's (of which I'm fairly certain there are some "in theater") weren't enough?
I'm sorry...I still think the B-52 part is B.S., unless they have BUFFs in a "forward area"....hmmm.....