SIGINT was a carry-over from the Reagan days, and while they had
HUMINT at the same time, I doubt that someone who could blend in at
St Petersburg would blend in at Tora Bora. Since 1989 there's been
a huge shift in the requirements placed on both the military and
intelligence services, and they're still struggling to catch up
with it - I don't see any significant changes in HUMINT now that
we're in GWB's second term - do you?
You are aware of what
hawala is, aren't you? Perhaps now that we know that the $30
million was moved around by a bunch of labourers under the pretext
of taking money home to their families, the FBI might be able to do
something about it, but even so I doubt it. As it is, stopping
OBL's inheritance of $300 million from the old man, and later the
$1 million per year stipend, took enough doing. With no electronic
trail, and cash (not transfers) moving in small amounts in all
forms of currencies, please explain how you would trace it for
starters - stopping it is another matter alotgether.
Wrong on two counts. First, while there was indeed a "no
execution" order, the orders to capture OBL included a clause that
allowed for the possibility of OBL getting killed during a capture
operation - gee, how would that work out to someone on ground zero?
I disagree with you about Albright's role in shelving operations.
Perhaps it was Janet Reno's objection to the operations on
constitutional grounds you were thinking about?
Second, check your maps. A cruise missile strike would have to
overfly Pakistan to hit OBL. Given Pakistan's sympathy towards the
Taliban government during the late 90's, and the need to assure the
Pakistanis that the missile over their heads was not of Indian
origin, there was never much chance of a missile landing on OBL's
doorstep without warning. Even after Musharraf deposed Sharif, he
didn't yet have the political muscle to overcome pro-Taliban
sentiment in Pakistan until 9/11.
Gee, really? I wonder why Yigal Amir, Rabin's assassin, said in
his defence, "a Palestinian state is starting to be established".
I'm sure that as a law student, Amir would not have been able to
see that Rabin's plan had a good chance of working. 
There are too many parallels between the assassinations of Rabin
and Sadat for comfort, and we can all see that Sadat was in fact
assassinated for a peace plan that ultimately worked. Are you going
to say that Sadat went to the White House for photo opps with Jimmy
Carter too?
If anything, Bush is doing exactly what you're saying Clinton did.
That's because he's too busy being stuck in Iraq to worry about
Israel and Palestine.
Clinton took over in 1993 - do you think it takes two years to
completely develop a missile? Even if the US wasn't having a major
post-Cold-War restructure, it would have been too late for Clinton
to have done anything about it. If there was any president who
could have done anything about it in time, it would have been
Reagan.
Now, who's for laksa? 
