Bush let Bin Laden escape.

John Kerry pointed out during the campaign that Bin Laden was at Tora Bora when the US attacked the place, and was allowed to escape by a very, very stupid decision: the decision to turn the hunt for him over to Afghan warlords just when we might have actually had him. Bush and Cheney pooh-poohed the idea.

Turns out that Kerry was right.

A commander for Osama bin Laden during Afghanistan's war with the Soviet Union who helped the Al Qaeda leader escape American forces at Tora Bora is being held by US authorities, a government document says.

The document represents the first definitive statement from the Pentagon that bin Laden, the mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was at Tora Bora and evaded his pursuers.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney asserted during the presidential election that commanders did not know whether bin Laden was at Tora Bora when US and allied Afghan forces attacked there in December 2001. They dismissed assertions by Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, that the military had missed a chance to capture or kill bin Laden while Al Qaeda made a last stand in the mountainous area along the Pakistan border.

I'd like to know if Bush and Cheney knew this when they swore that they didn't.

The man who staged the most successful attack on America in history is still free, and, no doubt, plotting another attack.

Because Bush went after him half-heartedly, and wanted to occupy Iraq instead.