Democrats like to say that the invasion of Iraq was a diversion from the hunt for bin-Laden. They're not kidding. This is from Newsweek's cover story on the history of the hunt for bin-Laden:
When Franks refused to send Army Rangers into the mountains at Tora Bora, he was already in the early stages of planning for the next war. By early 2002, new Predators—aerial drones that might have helped the search for bin Laden—were instead being diverted off the assembly line for possible use in Iraq. The military's most elite commando unit, Delta Force, was transferred from Afghanistan to prep for the invasion of Iraq. The Fifth Special Forces Group, including the best Arabic speakers, was sent home to retool for Iraq, replaced by the Seventh Special Forces Group—Spanish speakers with mostly Latin American experience. The most knowledgeable CIA case officers, the ones with tribal contacts, were rotated out. Replacing a fluent Arabic speaker and intellectual, the new CIA station chief in Kabul was a stickler for starting meetings on time (his own watch was always seven minutes fast) but allowed that he had read only one book on Afghanistan.
People forget this, but in 2002 Bush was already trying to deemphasize the hunt for bin-Laden. "I don't know where he is," he said. "Nor — you know, I just don’t spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. I....I truly am not that concerned about him." At the time, the statement was taken as a lie, a way to play down a failed -- but still intense -- manhunt. Turns out it was the truth.
Incidentally, I always thought this should have been the moment that lost Bush the 2004 election. During one of the debates, Kerry brought this comment up, and Bush said, "Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations." This was the sort of gaffe the media loves: Both statements were on tape, they could be played next to each other a thousand times, they were about terrorism, they were crucial to the election, they were high drama, they could be used to spark conflict between talking heads, and so on. Instead, in the most impressive diversion campaign I've ever seen in American politics, the rightwing noise machine managed to make that debate about whether or not Kerry had crossed the line by mentioning that Dick Cheney's openly gay daughter was a lesbian. In a functioning nation, this is what we'd have spent the next week seeing:
You know, sometimes I forget just how much the press has done to harm this country.
