Membranophonist’s Ramblings

In the second half of March 2002, as the Bush administration mapped its next steps against al Qaeda, Deputy CIA Director John E. McLaughlin brought an unexpected message to the White House Situation Room. According to two people with firsthand knowledge, he told senior members of the president’s national security team that the CIA was scaling back operations in Afghanistan.

That announcement marked a year-long drawdown of specialized military and intelligence resources from the geographic center of combat with Osama bin Laden. As jihadist enemies reorganized, slipping back and forth from Pakistan and Iran, the CIA closed forward bases in the cities of Herat, Mazar-e Sharif and Kandahar. The agency put off an $80 million plan to train and equip a friendly intelligence service for the new U.S.-installed Afghan government. Replacements did not keep pace with departures as case officers finished six-week tours. And Task Force 5 — a covert commando team that led the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants in the border region — lost more than two-thirds of its fighting strength.

The commandos, their high-tech surveillance equipment and other assets would instead surge toward Iraq through 2002 and early 2003, as President Bush prepared for the March invasion that would extend the field of battle in the nation’s response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Afghanistan, Iraq: Two Wars Collide

But we absolutely had to disarm Saddam of his Weapons O’ Mass Destruction, so it is okay. That he didn’t have any isn’t important.

On a related note, Josh Marshall has presented the evidence contradicting the administration’s denial of reality with regards to Tora Bora and their delegation of the pursuit of bin Laden to Afghanis of questionable allegiance.