Osama Who?

Steve Benen says:

Wanted dead or alive — or whenever.

The president's interest in capturing Osama bin Laden has evolved over time. After the al Queda Qaeda leader orchestrated the attacks of 9/11, Bush pledged to get bin Laden "dead or alive." Six months later, after bin Laden proved to be elusive, the president said, "I truly am not that concerned about him."

So it should come as no surprise that the CIA unit dedicated to getting bin Laden is no more.

The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

Michael Scheuer, a former senior CIA official who was the first head of the unit, said the move "will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda."

The official response is that there are still plenty of officials responsible to tracking bin Laden and that the terrorist remains a "high priority." But I'm curious, if President Kerry had allowed the CIA to disband the intelligence unit tasked with hunting bin Laden, would conservatives just shrug their shoulders?

Update: Funny Steve should ask, for apparently Sen. John Kerry has "fired off a letter to Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence" demanding that the CIA reopen the bin Laden unit.