A Senate Foreign Relations Committee report says the U.S. missed an opportunity to kill or capture Osama bin Laden shortly after the 9-11 attacks in 2001.

The document says the military could have nabbed the terrorist leader in Afghanistan had a concerted attack on the area in which he was hiding.

American troops teamed with Afghan forces in an attack on the Tora Bora mountains, but the U.S. let the Afghans take the lead and bin Laden managed to escape.

The Senate report contends, quote, "the vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines." The report says while removing bin Laden would not have eliminated the "worldwide extremist threat," the course of the war in Afghanistan was altered by his escape.

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who lost the 2004 election to President Bush, chairs the committee and has long argued Bush missed a chance to get bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda members.

The report is also critical of military leaders at the time, saying they rejected requests to have more soldiers in the area and relied too heavily on Afghan and Pakistan troops to prevent bin Laden's escape.