Bin Laden powerless despite new video: White House
UNITED STATES: A new video by Osama bin Laden shows the
Al-Qaeda mastermind as an "impotent" figurehead who poses little
imminent threat to the United States, a top White House official said
Sunday.
Frances Townsend, President George W. Bush's homeland security
advisor, said the US intelligence community "believes it is bin Laden"
following analysis of the tape, which surfaced Friday.
"The indications from the contents of the tape are that it was made
recently. Certainly in the last several months," she said on Fox News.
"There's nothing overtly obvious in the tape that would suggest that
this is a trigger for an attack," Townsend added.
"This is about the best he can do. This is a man on the run from a
cave who is virtually impotent other than these tapes.
"We know Al-Qaeda is still determined to attack. We take it
seriously, but this tape appears to be nothing more than threats. It's
propaganda on their part." But Democrats highlighted the tape as proof
for their contention that Iraq has been a dangerous distraction from the
"war on terror."
"This is an insult to everybody in the world that this man is still
sending his tapes," Senator John Kerry, Bush's opponent in the 2004
election, said on ABC television Sunday. "And it is the real failure
because Iraq had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden in the beginning,"
he said.
In the tape, the Al-Qaeda supremo marks six years since the 2001
terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with a call
for an escalation of the insurgency in Iraq. There are two ways to end
the Iraq war, bin Laden says, according to a transcript released by the
US-based SITE Intelligence Group which monitors Islamic militant
websites.
"The first is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the
killing and fighting against you," he says.
The second is to do away with the US democratic system of government,
which he says merely serves the interests of major corporations. Bin
Laden also invites Americans to embrace Islam.
Townsend reaffirmed the Bush administration's stance that finding bin
Laden, while important, will not herald the end of the war on terror.
"Capturing and killing bin Laden is the number one priority, but it's
not our only priority. We also have to be mindful of current ongoing
threats against this country," she said on CNN.
Washington, Monday, AFP |
