Please give an honest assessment of Bush's handling of the Afghanistan war during his entire tenure?

That's easy. I can sum up Bush's handling in one word:

FAILURE

Not sure if all the blame can be put squarely on Bush's shoulder's when they rely so heavily on generals on the ground. Certainly Rumsfeild didn't help the situation but to label it "total failure" like many have is intellectually dishonest.

Certainly resources were diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq. Comparing Iraq to Japan is apples and Oranges though. in WW2, civilian population was fair game, and carpet bombing Germany was acceptable collateral damage. Now, a Mosque gets wrecked by an rpg because Taliban snipers were shooting at our troops and the media has a fit!

The problem is further compounded when our current President bows to Muslim kings, goes on the world apology tour and for a month can't decide to send the troops generals are asking for. Not to mention this current admin lets terrorists free to Bermuda, and put a ban on the use of the word terrorist (he doesn't want to offend anyone trying to kill us) and now they are called "Misunderstood combatants."

Bush did one hell of a unbelievable great job in Afghanistan! He acted quickly and decisively blowing up Al QUAD strong holds and routing out

Taliban authority though out the land. With, by the way, a greatly diminished air force (thank you so much President Clinton). Lets not forget he additionally was instrumental in setting up a government in that lawless land. All this with almost no credible "eyes-on" intelligence another one of Clinton's "no longer necessaries".

President Bush achieved Pakistan's cooperation, a miracle in it's self, and totally set up the Pakistani regime change that is the basis for the better partner in the war on terror Pakistan is today.

However the Bush White House realized that in order to really turn around the dangerous world wide Islamic terrorist situation he have to change the hearts and minds of the Islamic peoples. With that in mind when he went into Iraq he worked with diligence to achieve democracy in that country..

Did it work --- well lets say Iran had quite the up rising --- they wanted to have fair elections like Iraq. You remember Iran of "now we have a nuclear bomb and want to blow up America and Israel".

Unfortunately our military chiefs currently have to deal with Obama----------------------God half of Obama's left wings loons aka Obama's spiritual director Rev Wright are of the opinion America deserved Sept 11 We didn't comply with all the left wing loon wish lists over the years.

I think that when we were focused on Afghanistan, he did a very good job of kicking *** and pushing the Taliban and Al Qaeda into the very far northern regions of the country. But when IRaq started up, the focus shifted, so the Taliban were allowed to gain ground and gain more control in the country.

I always thought the military should be an accessory to the war on terror fight. It is really an intelligence/fbi/cia battle. This is like using the national guard to fight the crips, blood, and vice kings. I can see it at first to knock down the stronghold but the military should be used as a resource/help but not the entire forefront. It's too hard to win a traditional war (i.e. know who is a good guy/bad guy) because it is urban warfare with people in civilian clothes. Like I said, this would be like going into Chicago against street gangs.

i'll bite...

i think Bush and his guys totally dropped the ball in Afghanistan. instead of focusing resources on the area that was, and IS, the largest hotbed of terrorist activity - he allowed himself to be drawn into what he thought would be a quick and easy action in Iraq. of course - Iraq turned out to be neither quick nor easy and completely pulled focus away from Afghanistan. any headway that we made very early in Afghanistan was lost during the focus on the Iraq War. unfortunately, when we began to try and refocus our efforts in Afghanistan, the enemy was even stronger and more empowered than they had been in the beginning.

If Bush succeeded in removing the taliban and al qaeda influence why are we still there?

The main reason we didn't was because Bush pulled troops out of Afghanistan to invade Iraq.

BTW---How did Bin Laden get away from Tora Bora when he was completely surrounded!

He didled around with his Iraq war, and the people of Afghanistan got tired of waiting for results, and by 2006 many of them turned to the taliban again.

When the afghanistan war was a sure to be victory he should have kept up the fire instead of being destracted by Iraq. Other than that he handled it relatively well, but it stIll could have been handled better.

The grass is always greener on the other side, right? I am sorry but you sound like a fool. You should really do some homework.

He handled Afghanistan like he handled Bin Ladin. Pretended he was doing something about it, but behind closed doors he was making deals with them to put more money in his pockets.