Bush's Bin Laden Craving

There are new signs today that President Bush is pulling out all the stops to capture or kill Osama bin Laden before his term is up -- or better yet, before the November election.

That the terrorist leader remains a free man is the most visceral example of the failure of Bush's so-called "war on terror," and a personal humiliation as well. It's been seven long years since Bush's blustery promise that he would bring bin Laden in, " dead or alive."

Back in June, Sarah Baxter wrote in the Times of London about Bush's "final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House.

"Defense and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. 'If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place,' said a US intelligence source."

A few days later, Bush dismissed the report as "a little bit of press hyperventilating."

But just last week, Sara A. Carter wrote in the Washington Times: "U.S. ground forces crossed the border from Afghanistan and attacked suspected al Qaeda targets in Pakistan on Wednesday as part of an aggressive new strategy to kill or capture Osama bin Laden before President Bush leaves office, U.S. officials said."

Bob Woodward writes in his new book about "groundbreaking" new covert techniques that enabled U.S. military and intelligence officials "to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. The operations incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the U.S. government."

Speaking to Larry King on CNN Monday night, Woodward speculated on a possible next target: "Maybe they can use it on bin Laden," Woodward said, "and, all of a sudden, the September or the October surprise is going to be the apprehension or the death of bin Laden."

And in a major article in The Washington Post today, Craig Whitlock writes about a new spate of Hellfire missile attacks by Predator drone spy planes in Pakistan.

"The attacks are part of a renewed effort to cripple al-Qaeda's central command that began early last year and has picked up speed as President Bush's term in office winds down, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials involved in the operations," Whitlock writes.

"There has been no confirmed trace of bin Laden since he narrowly escaped from the CIA and the U.S. military after the battle near Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in December 2001, according to U.S., Pakistani and European officials. They said they are now concentrating on a short list of other al-Qaeda leaders who have been sighted more recently, in hopes that their footprints could lead to bin Laden."

But no account of the hunt for bin Laden should overlook why he remains on the loose. And there, Bush gets the lion's share of the blame for taking the military's eye off the ball.