Here's a
birthday present for ya America, courtesy of the White House I'm sure:
The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.
The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.
The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice "dead or alive."
Yes, OBL, the guy President Bush said we were going to 'smoke out' 'dead or alive' is no longer deemed a threat--or at least not enough of a threat to actually you know, pursue vigorously from within the CIA. After all, the President is 'truly not that concerned about him,' even though bin Laden and his pal Aymen killed 3000 Americans and are threatening in every new Al Qaeda video production to kill some more.
What the fuck kind of President is George Bush anyway?
Update by kos: I was working on my own post on this when DS beat me to the punch. So I'll append my remarks to this one...
It is probably true that Bin Laden is not operationally critical to Al Qaida's success. It is too decentralized an organization for that. But Bin Laden is still a symbol of the organization and, let's not forget (since the Bush Administration and its allies apparently did), the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
The Bush Administration botched its efforts to capture him in Afghanistan. And now, it appears they have completely thrown in the towel.
Update by DS: Excellent suggestion here to uprate the story on MSNBC.
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