OBL's escape well noted at the time

** In an October 27, 2004 article, The Christian Science Monitor discusses the Kerry allegations that Osama Bin Laden was allowed to escape from Afghanistan because of US negligence. Though the administration calls Kerry an "armchair general," the article cites several news reports at the time that would seem to back Kerry's allegations. Included in the accounts is the Monitor's own. Here's an excerpt:

The Christian Science Monitor was one of the first news sources to report bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora. In a December 11, 2001 article the Monitor reported that there were "growing signs ... that bin Laden ... and other Al Qaeda leaders may have fled the besieged mountain base at Tora Bora."

A December 7, 2001 Monitor piece reported this:

By all accounts, about two-thirds of the original 1,500 to 2,000 of Arabs, Afghans, and Chechens may have fled. ... In addition to the original number of Al Qaeda fighters, hundreds of Al Qaeda family members have escaped the siege of Tora Bora in the past three weeks. Most of those leaving have tapped into an "underground railway" of sympathetic Afghan families at the base of Tora Bora, whose men had long been on bin Laden's payroll.
Though Mr. Rumsfeld has said that the two dozen or so US Special Forces are helping to block exit routes, that number of US military personnel can only be considered a token of the real figure needed to cut off all the mountain passes surrounding the mountain enclave.

A March 4, 2002 Monitor article reconstructed "how bin Laden got away" from Tora Bora.
As the US intensified its airstrikes on Tora Bora, US and Afghan helicopters started to arrive with supplies for the Afghans. Also - as was its pattern elsewhere in Afghanistan - the US began enlisting local warlords. Two - Hazret Ali and Haji Zaman Ghamsharik - would become notorious in the battle for Tora Bora. ...
The rift between the two men would seriously hinder US efforts to capture Al Qaeda's leadership. Although backed by the United States, the Jalalabad warlords would have to determine by themselves - while sometimes arguing fiercely - how best to go after Tora Bora's defenders.

... somewhere between Nov. 28 to Nov. 30 - according to detailed interviews with Arabs and Afghans in eastern Afghanistan afterward - the world's most-wanted man escaped the world's most-powerful military machine, walking - with four of his loyalists - in the direction of Pakistan.