more on kandahar evacuation (US airlifted al queda out)

[brad]

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_hersh.html

SY HERSH: There was about a three or four nights in which I can tell you maybe six, eight, 10, maybe 12 more-- or more heavily weighted-- Pakistani military planes flew out with an estimated-- no less than 2,500 maybe 3,000, maybe mmore. I've heard as many as four or 5,000. They were not only-- Al Qaeda but they were also-- you see the Pakistani ISI was-- the military advised us to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. There were dozens of senior Pakistani military officers including two generals who flew out.

And I also learned after I wrote this story that maybe even some of Bin Laden's immediate family were flown out on the those evacuations. We allowed them to evacuate. We had an evacuation.

JANE WALLACE: How high up was that evacuation authorized?

SY HERSH: I am here to tell you it was authorized — Donald Rumsfeld who — we'll talk about what he said later — it had to be authorized at the White House. But certainly at the Secretary of Defense level.

[brad]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...artid=38389207

PTI[ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2003 09:11:41 PM ]
WASHINGTON: Playing a "losing game", the US allowed many Interservice Intelligence (ISI) agents it had captured during the war on terror in Afghanistan to go back to Pakistan and they took with them thousands of al-Qaeda terrorists, who later spread into Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, media reports said.

[MMMMMM]

This might be true, but your post title is false--you shouldn't say the USA airlifted al Qaeda out, you should say that Pakistan airlifted al Qaeda out, even if US permission for Pakistani ISI to be airlifted out was part of the bigger picture, and even if ISI took al Qaeda with them. The US didn't airlift out al Qaeda, Pakistani military planes might have.

Your post title creates a false impression and you should know better--this is either horrible carelessness on your part or an attempt to enhance your conspiracy theories by a measure of intellectual dishonesty or "brad propaganda" as it were.

I'm not saying the article is false--it might well be true--but your post title is seriously misleading.

Sorry but the excuse that you were pressed for space won't work: there are easily many other ways you could have posted the title more accurately.

[brad]

well this particular article says pak planes.

articles i posted when this story broke mentioned US c130's.

US planes may have been non military though.

[brad]

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%2...com&rnum=3

Guardian, UK
Monday January 21, 2002

US helped Taliban to safety, magazine claims
Oliver Burkeman in New York


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The US military may even have directly co-operated in the airlifts, according
to the article, which is based on conversations with intelligence officials
and senior military officers. Two such sources told Hersh that the US central
command was ordered to establish a special air corridor to guarantee that the
rescue flights could proceed safely.

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