Hightower Lowdown

Remember Osama bin Laden? Wasn't he the guy behind the horrific 9/11 attack on America? Isn't he the poster boy of terrorism, which Bush pledged he'd "do whatever it takes" to eradicate? Wasn't he the fellow that George snarled he'd get "dead or alive?"

Well, yes, but Bush & Gang made a little detour to Iraq right after 9/11 and haven't found their way back to Osama. In fact, in 2002, George himself rather sheepishly said, "I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."

Osama bin Forgotten. While our troops, treasury, and global prestige are mired in the bloody hell of Iraq, Osama continues to issue murderous edicts from caves somewhere in...well, we don't know where.

And now, the Bushites have officially closed down the only American unit whose sole mission was to hunt for bin Laden. Codenamed "Alec Station," this group of CIA professionals started tracking Osama's movements in 1995, well before he became the global face of terrorism. Last December, though, Alec Station was quietly disbanded, squandering a decade's worth of expertise and further diminishing the hunt for the terrorist leader. The closing of the Osama unit has only now become public, but apparently it has long been a victim of bureaucratic turf wars within the CIA. In recent years, Alec Station was reduced from 25 agents to eight and became a repository for inexperienced CIA officers, who were rotated into it for 90-day shifts.

Of course, the Bushites never admit any errors, so a CIA spokeswoman was trotted out to put a smiley face on the closing. "This is an agile agency," she said spritely, "and the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus."

Huh? More "focus" by disbanding the one unit focused on Osama? What we have here is another administrative screwup caused by Bush's disastrous obsession with Iraq.