Letter: Reminded of our failure to catch bin Laden

Friday, Sept. 14, 2007 | 7:36 a.m.

After listening to the report from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, I felt as if my intelligence was being insulted with the same rhetoric as before: Have patience. Give the surge more time (all this after "mission accomplished," "bring 'em on," "stay the course," "we're making progress"). This surge was to stabilize and reconcile the political agenda in Iraq. According to the Government Accountability Office, this has not materialized .

How sad that the Petraeus report was launched on the anniversary of 9/11. How sad that the video of Osama bin Laden was also released in approximation to 9/11. President Bush said in regard to the bin Laden video (since Iraq was mentioned) that it's a remembrance about the dangerous world in which we live and a remembrance that we must work together to protect our people. Unfortunately the thing I remember most is that we took our eye off the ball of the capture of bin Laden and instead invaded Iraq, and created a haven for al-Qaida and the extremist movement.

I can't help but wonder how the families of the victims from 9/11 feel when they see the image and hear the voice of the man responsible for their devastating loss. This is the man President Bush said we would get "dead or alive," yet it was under his administration that the hunt for bin Laden was called off (Tora Bora). Is this not like putting salt in the wound? I ask, after six years, why is this man even alive to make these tapes?

LaRue S. Boenig, Henderson