Where's Bin Laden?

233 weeks since 9-11-2001

References in the news to the hunt for OBL by the Bush Administration this week: 3

A reporter finally asked Bush about it...in Afghanistan:

Terence Hunt of the Associated Press: I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, there was a time when you talked about getting Osama bin Laden dead or alive. Why is he still on the loose five years later? And are you still confident that you'll get him?

Bush: I am confident he will be brought to justice. What's happening is, is that we got U.S. forces on the hunt for not only bin Laden, but anybody who plots and plans with bin Laden. . .We're making progress of dismantling al Qaeda. Slowly but surely, we're bringing the people to justice, and the world is better for it, as a result of our steady progress.

Elizabeth Vargas also asked him this in her interview on ABC:

VARGAS: If when you leave the Oval Office, the White House, Osama bin Laden is still at large, will you consider that a failure?

BUSH: What I'm looking at is management structure, operators, and whether or not we're doing everything we can to protect the American people. Of course, we'd like to bring him to justice, and we'll stay up -- you know, the only thing I can tell the American people, so long as I'm the president, we'll stay on the hunt and we'll use resources and power and influence to convince others to join us on the hunt as well...

Incidentally, this week, we learned exactly how much a promise from George W. Bush is worth:

I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property.

Also, last Sunday the Washington Post published an article headlined A Guide To The Hunt:

There doesn't seem to be much intelligence about bin Laden's exact whereabouts. The conventional wisdom is that he is somewhere in the tribal belt along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but it is clear from the most recent videotapes of bin Laden and Zawahiri that they are not living in caves. Both men's clothes are clean and well-pressed, and the tapes that they have released are well-shot productions suggesting access either to electrical outlets or generators to run lights.