The Bush administration has
concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora
Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to
hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according
to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.

Intelligence officials have assembled what they
believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent
interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the
battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan’s
mountainous eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that
he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden
slipped away in the first 10 days of December.

After-action reviews,
conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of command,
describe the episode as a significant defeat for the United States. A
common view among those interviewed outside the U.S. Central Command is
that Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war’s operational commander,
misjudged the interests of putative Afghan allies and let pass the best
chance to capture or kill al Qaeda’s leader. Without professing second
thoughts about Tora Bora, Franks has changed his approach fundamentally
in subsequent battles, using Americans on the ground as first-line
combat units.

In the fight for Tora Bora, corrupt local militias did
not live up to promises to seal off the mountain redoubt, and some
colluded in the escape of fleeing al Qaeda fighters. Franks did not
perceive the setbacks soon enough, some officials said, because he ran
the war from Tampa with no commander on the scene above the rank of
lieutenant colonel. The first Americans did not arrive until three days
into the fighting. “No one had the big picture,” one defense official
said.

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