CIA Closes Bin Laden Unit

The headline reads "CIA Closes Unit Focused on Capture of Bin Laden." The unit known as "Alec Station" was disbanded in late 2005. The reasons reported were that al Qaeda has changed its organizational structure and the nature of terrorist threats has also changed. The staff of Alec Station were reassigned to other tasks within the CIA. The first head of the special unit, Michael Scheuer, felt that disbanding the unit was not a good idea: "This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."

"The realignment reflects a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was, intelligence officials said, and a growing concern about Qaeda-inspired groups that have begun carrying out attacks independent of Mr. bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals. "

There is a significant omission in the article. After 9/11, President Bush swore to capture bin Laden for the attack against the United States on September 11, 2001. We have been told repeatedly that the hunt was on to bring him to justice or to kill him outright. There is no mention of bin Laden in this connection, and the disbanding of the unit to capture him looks to be a retreat from Bush's strident "wanted dead or alive."

For many in the U.S., it is likely that this abandonment of mission is a betrayal. After all, we invaded, and are still on the ground in Afghanistan. Was the purpose of that to "get" bin Laden, or was it to overthrow the Taliban, or perhaps to run the Caspian Pipeline?

It is clear that bin Laden has been falling on the charts for some time. First, resources were withdrawn from Afghanistan in preparation to invade Iraq. Since the invasion of Iraq, less and less has been reported about Afghanistan - or the search for bin Laden. Then we had President Bush remark that he really didn't spend a lot of time thinking about bin Laden. Now the special unit focused on bin Laden has been disbanded.

Perhaps the Sauds and the rest of the bin Laden family finally greased enough wheels to take bin Laden totally out of the focus of the United States. Or perhaps Osama bin Laden has returned (or never left) the employ of the CIA.