1998 Missile Strikes on Bin Laden May Have Backfired

[Jedburgh]

GWU's National Security Archive, 20 Aug 08: 1998 Missile Strikes on Bin Laden May Have Backfired (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB253/index.htm)
On the tenth anniversary of U.S. cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda in response to deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, newly-declassified government documents posted today by the National Security Archive suggest the strikes not only failed to hurt Osama bin Laden but ultimately may have brought al-Qaeda and the Taliban closer politically and ideologically.

A 400-page Sandia National Laboratories report (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB253/sandia.pdf) on bin Ladin, compiled in 1999, includes a warning about political damage for the U.S. from bombing two impoverished states without regard for international agreement, since such action "mirror imaged aspects of al-Qaeda's own attacks" (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB253/sandia_18-22.pdf). A State Department cable (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB253/19981022.pdf) argues that although the August missile strikes were designed to provide the Taliban with overwhelming reason to surrender bin Laden, the military action may have sharpened Afghan animosity towards Washington and even strengthened the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance.....

[Tom Odom]

Ted,

Great find. I just wonder how much money it cost for that secret Sandia report. Aside from using OBL's name and pic, I could have written the conclusions in 1989-1990 when I was on terrorism watch.

Best

Tom

[wm]

Ted,

Great find. I just wonder how much money it cost for that secret Sandia report. Aside from using OBL's name and pic, I could have written the conclusions in 1989-1990 when I was on terrorism watch.

Best

Tom

My thoughts almost exactly (except I think I could have written the conclusion as part of the research paper I had to submit to get out of MI Officer Basic Course)--I did the Homer Simpson headslap when I read the title of the post. Particularly instructive was the declassified report from the Embassy in Pakistan. But then since when has anyone in the Washington power elite deigned to trust the insights of those on the ground close to the action?

[Ken White]

I also wonder how much said Sandia Report cost...

Lessee. Ineffective swat a Yellow Jacket makes him angry and draws allies. Novel discovery, that. :mad:

[Danny]

I agree with Tom's conclusions. But additionally, once again it goes to show that the high value individual / high value target program can only have a finite and limited success, and I would argue that too much emphasis has been placed on sending SF operators after specific individuals. A very costly, very expensive, very consuming strategy that has yielded only marginal benefits.

There are no buttons to push, no magic incantations to utter. COIN takes a commitment of resources, including troops to build the security necessary to win the population and weed out the insurgents.

Almost every MSM report I see now on "Taliban commander killed in [such-and-such] province ...," I ignore and close within tenths of a second without so much as reading it. These reports don't matter.