Looks like Bush withdrew from Afganistan most of the spooks looking for OBL by March of '02, in preparation for using them in Iraq!
'That was December 2001. Only two months later, Bush decided to pull out most of the special operations troops and their CIA counterparts in the paramilitary division that were leading the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for war in Iraq, said Flynt L. Leverett, then an expert on the Middle East at the National Security Council. "I was appalled when I learned about it," said Leverett, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration's counterterrorism policy. "I don't know of anyone who thought it was a good idea. It's very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn't done that." Several officers confirmed that the number of special operations troops was reduced in March 2002.'
This seems to contradict what a certain local conservative asserted in the thread that culminated in this post.
Focus on Iraq to the exclusion of getting Bin Laden