“Look what happened with regard to our invasion into Afghanistan, how we apparently intentionally let bin Laden get away,” Hinchey said during an interview on MSNBC.

“That was done by the previous administration because they knew very well that if they would capture al Qaeda, there would be no justification for an invasion in Iraq,” the Democratic congressman continued. “There’s no question that the leader of the military operations of the U.S. called back our military, called them back from going after the head of al Qaeda.”

When host David Shuster followed up to ask if Hinchey really thought Bush “deliberately let Osama bin Laden get away,” the congressman responded: “Yes, I do.”

“I don’t think it will strike a lot of people as crazy. I think it’ll strike a lot of people as being very accurate,” Hinchey said. “All you have to do is look at the exact circumstances and see that’s exactly what happened.”

“When our military went in there, we could have captured [the Taliban],” he insisted. “But we didn’t. And we didn’t because of the need felt by the previous administration, and the previous head of the military, that need to attack Iraq.”

Democrats rarely miss an opportunity to blame George W. Bush for something, and now they are fabricating conspiracy theories. It should be rather obvious that Maurice Hinchey is a fool, but even so, I’ll take a few minutes to debunk his theory.

Think about all the criticism leveled at the Bush administration regarding Osama Bin Laden. His capture would have raised the President’s profile and quieted criticism of the war on terror. Do you remember all the press Sadam Hussein’s capture generated? That would have been nothing compared to the press surounding Bin Laden’s capture. Why would George W. Bush intentionally wreck an opportunity to achieve a major goal that would have been a huge moment in his Presidency? Oh, that’s right…to justify invading Iraq.

If you think back to the weeks and months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, it had nothing to do specifically with Osama Bin Laden. The rationale centered on Hussein ignoring U.N. resolutions, potentially having weapons of mass destruction, and possibly being a breeding ground for terrorism. If Osama Bin Laden had been captured, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that Hussein had attempted to dodge weapons inspections or could have had weapons of mass destruction. Bin Laden’s quick capture might have actually energized those who wanted to invade Iraq.

I have no doubt that George W. Bush and his administration wanted to capture Osama Bin Laden. To suggest otherwise is ignorant and is obviously a partisan shot.