On July 25, 2000, Bush surprised some observers when he selected Dick Cheney—a former White House Chief of Staff, U.S. Representative, and Secretary of Defense—to be his running mate. At the time, Cheney was serving as head of Bush's vice presidential search committee. Efforts to kill or capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden failed as he escaped a battle in December 2001 in the mountainous region of Tora Bora, which the Bush Administration later acknowledged to have resulted from a failure to commit enough U.S. ground troops. It was not until May 2011, two years after Bush left office, that bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces under the Obama administration. Bush praised the event as well, saying that the Iraqis 'have taken rightful control of their country's destiny'.