Earlier in the war we had received several reports of supposed sightings of both Mullah Omar and bin Laden, which all proved to be false.

At one point I watched a Predator video feed of a tall, lanky man wearing a turban and white robes and surrounded by what looked like an entourage of bodyguards.  Our military command center was abuzz with anticipation.  There was not a doubt in anyone’s mind that the image on the screen was Osama bin Laden.  As they made final preparation to take out the target, something spooked the man we were observing, perhaps an intelligence tip or someone catching sight of our Predator  UAV above.  He took off running like a gazelle over rocky, rugged terrain.  He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.  Bin Laden was in his midforties in 2001. Intelligence later confirmed that the man we all were absolutely convinced was bin Laden was not.

From Known and Unknown by Donald Rumsfeld

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