Going After Bin Laden

What happened after that?
The afternoon of Dec. 11, 2001, elements of both Ali and his subordinate warlord attacked hilltop 2685, the strongpoint for Al Qaeda's defenses where we believe bin Laden was held up. They overran Al Qaeda up there and when it was over that evening the subordinate was up there, not Ali. That night, negotiations began with an Al Qaeda lieutenant about surrendering. When my guys showed up the next morning, they learned that the mujahedin were not going to move forward or let us move forward because they had told Al Qaeda that they would negotiate for a ceasefire and surrender. [The ceasefire] basically allowed, if not bin Laden himself, certainly his fighters the ability to reload and reposition.

When did you catch up with him again?
On Dec. 14, we heard a real-time voice from bin Laden. He apologized to his fighters for getting them into this mess and allowed them to surrender. The next day, our guys up in the mountains spotted roughly 50 Al Qaeda fighters moving into a cave. The mujahedin allies up there said they spotted a tall man in a camouflage jacket. We put two and two together. There were five cave openings in the mountain they went into, and we struck all openings for about two and a half hours.

Months later, a group of American and Canadian forces returned to Afghanistan to figure out what happened to bin Laden. What did they find?
That was later in July of 2002. A team of the 101st Airborne, some Canadian engineers and a U.S. forensic team moved in the mountains with some mujahedin. They went to specific locations that were targeted from the air and tried to dig through the rubble to do DNA sampling on the various bodies. They went to the location where we bombed for two and a half hours, but the terrain is so daunting that it was hard to bring heavy equipment or enough explosives to open those caves. They made an attempt but had to give up and never entered the caves in question. What they did do was move around the battlefield to all the [Al Qaeda] graves. They removed the remains, took DNA samplings, reburied them and departed. They found no evidence that he was buried there.

What do you think happened to him?
I think after the night of the 11th he started to see the writing on the wall, and his own personal survival became more important than the jihad. We think he started moving to the east toward the main valley that goes into Pakistan. At some point, we're pretty sure he was wounded through bomb shrapnel in his shoulder, which has been discussed in custodial interviews at Guantánamo Bay by other fighters that were at Tora Bora. We think he received medical attention at a local village and we're pretty sure he was put into a vehicle and moved south across the border into Pakistan somewhere between the 17th and 19th of December 2001.

How do you think the world would have been different if your team had killed him?
I personally think that had we gotten bin Laden, early widespread extremist ideology would not have taken root as it has. The fact that he was able to dodge the only remaining superpower in the world and get out of there gave him a lot of credence and increased his ability to motivate any fence sitters that might want to support him. It was a significant loss that we didn't get him.

What would happen if the United States takes him out now?
I think it could potentially stop Al Qaeda Central. I think it will stop any desires to plan and execute another 9/11. I don't think it will end terrorism by Islamic extremists.