The Alec Station was the code name for a unit of the Central Intelligence Agency dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates. The station first opened in 1996 and lasted until 2005. Alec Station was a virtual station that fused together several intelligence disciplines into one. It included operations, analysis, signal intercepts and overhead photography, all with a single focus on tracking Osama bin Laden. In 1996, the station developed a new deadlier vision of Al Qaeda with the help of a former senior employee of Bin Laden, Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl. And by 1998, the CIA had accumulated an extraordinary array of information on the intentions of Al Qaeda and learned that Bin Laden had planned multiple terrorist operations and had plans for more. In the fall of 1997, the Alec Station put together a plan to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan and hand him over for trial, but the plan was abandoned for fear of collateral fatalities. Later in August of 1998, after the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Clinton ordered cruise-missile strikes on bin Laden's training camps, but there was no follow-up act to these strikes.
By December 1998, the CIA "declared war" on Osama bin Laden and developed a new comprehensive plan of attack to penetrate bin Laden's sanctuaries. The following year, the Counter-terrorism Center picked up multiple signs that bin Laden had put major terrorist attacks into motion, and the they began to focus on the disruption of this activity. One of the men they began tracking was Nawaf AL-Hazmi, a Saudi citizen and one of the five hijackers of the American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, staff numbers a the station had expanded into the hundreds, but the status of the Alec Station became more precarious. The station took much criticism for failing to uncover the September 11 plot. Members of the Alec Station adamantly insisted that little if any connection existed between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but this made them enemies of the President Bush's administration. The Bush administration wanted the CIA to provide justification for the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Finally, in 2005 the Alec Station was disbanded and it officially closed in July of 2006. The reason cited, was a realignment of the CIA to reflect a view that Al Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was. There was growing concern about Al Qaeda-inspired groups that had begun carrying out attacks independent of Osama bin Laden. By this time, it had become clear that President Bush was no longer focused on on just killing Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden was now just one of many terrorist networks. Here are some excerpts from his 2006 state of the union address.
"No one can deny the success of freedom, but some men rage and fight against it. And one of the main sources of reaction and opposition is radical Islam—the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death. Terrorists like bin Laden are serious about mass murder, and all of us must take their declared intentions seriously. They seek to impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder."
"We remain on the offensive against terror networks. We have killed or captured many of their leaders. And for the others, their day will come. "
And for Osama Bin Laden, his time would not come for another 5 years. He was found and killed not by the CIA, not by President Clinton, nor by President Bush, but by the Navy SEALs under President Obama. On May 2, 2011 the United States Navy SEALS killed Osama bin Laden during a raid in Pakistan. Though by this time, the impact of killing Osama bin Laden had little impact on ending the Radical Islamic terror.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65090
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_Issue_Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nawaf_al-Hazmi
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/world/death-of-osama-bin-laden-fast-facts/
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1233017/images/o-OSAMA-BIN-LADEN-SPEEDING-facebook.jpg
http://www.newsweek.com/gunning-bin-laden-149775
http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Bush_addresses_media_on_Israel-Lebanon_w_Cheney_Aug_14_2006-thumb-465x310-13943.jpg
US Conflicts in teh 21st Centery: Afganistan War, Iraq War, and the War on Terror, by Spencer C. Tucker pages 58-59
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