I haven’t checked in on this question in a while. At the time, I was appalled by the constant surrender negotiations undertaken by the Eastern Alliance. I think the basic problem was that we had an understandable strategy of avoiding the Soviet approach in Afghanistan, which meant a light footprint and relying on local proxies–like the Eastern Alliance–that weren’t always reliable. But, if I remember correctly, it was very dubious whether bin Laden was even at Tora Bora. I’m also not sure whether it would have really made sense to have American troops going cave-to-cave in Tora Bora or whether massive numbers of troops would have been deployable on time, but on that stuff we probably need a military expert to weigh in here…