At campaign rallies and in the debates, President Bush has disputed John Kerry's criticism that the administration outsourced the job of catching Osama bin Laden and therefore allowed him to get away.

Apparently, the president forgot that his administration admitted to the press two years ago that bin Laden escaped at the battle of Tora Bora in late 2001. Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post article dated April 17, 2002 and entitled U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight: Failure to Send Troops in Pursuit Termed Major Error.

"The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.

Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the first 10 days of December."