WHY WE HAVEN’T FOUND OSAMA

One of the most frequently asked questions we get at To The Point is: Where’s Osama? Why haven’t we found and killed him?

We’ve gotten another flurry because of the recent claims that “mercs” or mercenaries, “professional soldiers for paramilitary corporations that attend the annual Soldier of Fortune convention in Las Vegas” know where he is – a hidden valley called Dir in northwest Pakistan.

I’ve known Col. Bob Brown, the publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine for almost 30 years. We almost got ourselves blown up together in Afghanistan with the Mujahaddin back in the 1980s. I told Bob about this claim and he laughed his head off.

“The last Soldier of Fortune convention we had was back in 2000,” he told me. “You should know, Wheeler, you were our keynote speaker! No one in the world is in touch with “mercs” more than me. They would have one simple word for these Elvis sightings of Osama: (expletive). The guy making this claim, Paul Williams, is an (expletive).” Bob doesn’t mince words.

The claim that OBL has been in Dir “since he escaped from Tora Bora in December 2001” is laughable. Williams has, of course, never been remotely close to the place. I’ve been all over the area, from Peshawar through Dir to Chitral in the Hindu Kush, and know it would be easy to get him if he’s there. He’s not in Dir.

Osama is in Iran.

I verified this once again at a lunch with some Pentagon friends yesterday (8/11). There is a reason why OBL’s whereabouts can’t be publicly acknowledged. It would necessitate military action against Iran. If the Mullahs have got him and won’t admit it and won’t give him up, the pressure for a military strike to kill or capture him would be irresistible.

The White House refuses to follow this course. It will not attack Iran. The country is a tinderbox, ready to blow with an anti-Mullah revolution. The Iranian people are amazingly pro-American right now. If the Mullahs hate America, that means they love America. A military attack could change that and fast. At least that’s the rationale.

This is also why GW won’t order an attack on Iran’s nuke facilities.

Not that the CIA is helping to organize or precipitate such a revolution, has the capacity to do so, and is doing anything beyond crossing its fingers and hoping. Nonetheless, you wanted to know what the deal is with Osama – and there it is. He’s safe and sound in eastern Iran, perhaps in the vicinity of the town of Mashad, but they move him around. And we’re not doing anything about it.