Al Qaeda's Great Escape

Details how Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda fighters slipped out of Afghanistan during the battles of Tora Bora and Operation Anaconda. The author also charges that Western media outlets, eager to satisfy their audience's thirst for revenge, lost their grasp on journalistic objectivity while covering bin Laden's pursuit. Blinding patriotism and reliance on Pentagon press releases led them to portray events not reflecting reality on the ground. He contends that to satisfy the press and the public's need for vengeance, the Bush administration pushed to achieve early, highly visible successes to the detriment of long-term strategy. Impatience at the top forced a rush into a war aimed primarily at 'œregime change,'� which left the U.S. military largely empty-handed.

Currently filing stories for Time magazine, Philip Smucker has spent the last seventeen years as a war correspondent, reporting from hotspots around the world. Following the September 11 attacks, Smucker went to Afghanistan to cover the unfolding conflict for The Christian Science Monitor and London's The Daily Telegraph. Smucker broke the story of bin Laden's escape from Afghanistan in December 2001. In connection with his reporting in Afghanistan, Smucker appeared on "Good Morning America," "The Today Show," "Hardball with Chris Matthews," ABC's "Nightline," CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports," and other television programs. He is a frequent guest on National Public Radio and other radio newsmagazines. Philip and his wife, Ivana, reside in Cairo