July 30, 2007 - On March 13, 2002 President Bush had a press conference in which he claimed victory over Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network.  He said this about his nemesis:

Q   “ Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden.  Why is that?  Also, can you tell the American people if you have any more information, if you know if he is dead or alive?  Final part -- deep in your heart, don't you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won't really eliminate the threat of –“

THE PRESIDENT:  “Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all.  Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not; we haven't heard from him in a long time.  And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.

“Terror is bigger than one person.  And he's just -- he’s a person who's now been marginalized.  His network, his host government has been destroyed.  He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match.  He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.

“So I don't know where he is.  You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.  I'm more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well-supplied; that the strategy is clear; that the coalition is strong; that when we find enemy bunched up like we did in Shahikot Mountains that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did.

“And there will be other battles in Afghanistan.  There's going to be other struggles like Shahikot, and I'm just as confident about the outcome of those future battles as I was about Shahikot, where our soldiers are performing brilliantly.  We're tough, we're strong, they're well-equipped. We have a good strategy.  We are showing the world we know how to fight a guerrilla war with conventional means.”

            http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html

Five years have passed.    Previously classified intelligence estimates have been declassified so that the President can use the information to sell his Iraq adventure to the American people.  Five years have passed and the President tells us that Osama Bin Laden is directing the depredations of Al Qaeda in Iraq; that from some cave in the mountain fastness of Waziristan he is plotting, planning, and directing attacks on America.  We, says the President have to fight him in Baghdad so we won’t have to fight him in Boston. 

There is a problem with that logic.  Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is just one of the tentacles of the many armed beast.  Chop that one off and another, just as lethal tentacle will emerge somewhere else.  We won’t defeat Al Qaeda by killing every foreign fighter lurking in Iraq.  We can only defeat Al Qaeda by bringing its head to justice and we can’t do that by deploying brigades to Baghdad to referee the Iraqis’ civil war.  Waziristan is where the central battle against Bin Laden will be fought, if it ever is fought.  Waziristan is where Mr. Bush must seek his nemesis.