Can Obama catch Osama?
By Lynda Hurst Six days after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, U.S. president George W. Bush demanded the capture, “dead or alive,” of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden CIA counter-terrorism head Cofer Black duly dispatched a specialist team of manhunters to Afghanistan with the stark instruction: “Get bin Laden. Find him. I want his head in a box.” For medieval good measure, Black also wanted the heads of al Qaeda lieutenants “up on pikes.” Capture was a done deal. Or so the world thought. The last time the U.S. had a confirmed fix on bin Laden’s location was Dec. 14, 2001, when he was using a walkie-talkie inside a Tora Bora cave. By the time Special Forces got there, he had disappeared into the night. Despite the most extensive manhunt in history – albeit one that’s peaked and dipped and peaked again – the “highest-value” target of them all remains on the loose. Or tucked up inside a safe bolt-hole with his mujahideen. Or lies, for all anybody really knows, dead and buried. Does it even matt
