US wrong to sniff blood in bin Laden tape: analysts By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent
39 minutes ago
White House officials listening to Osama bin Laden's latest tape heard a weakened man on the run, but other U.S. officials and analysts heard a dangerous leader rallying his troops, mocking the United States and possibly setting up another attack.
The audiotape -- the first one from the al Qaeda leader since December 2004 -- said the militant network was preparing attacks in the United States but was open to a truce with Americans, linked to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
As soon as the tape aired on Thursday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it proved al Qaeda leaders were fugitives under the gun and Vice President Dick Cheney said bin Laden appeared to be in deep hiding with difficulties getting messages out.
But some counterterrorism officials and analysts say this assessment from the White House is off the mark and fails to examine the benefits a savvy operator like bin Laden may derive from showing he is alive and focused on a U.S. attack.
A U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said al Qaeda was propaganda savvy and knew how to manipulate the airwaves, in contrast to the United States, which has had trouble getting its message across.
"In the cacophony of the media and the Internet, the al Qaeda voice is clear and identifiable," the official said. "They have us on that and this is another example of it."
Gen. Russ Howard, a recently retired army terrorism expert who headed the counterterrorism program at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, said bin Laden was showing the world he was still in action.
"It's a message to rally his own forces and people loyal to him," he said. "He gets a 'two-fer': he's rallying his own people and psychologically he's raising the threat here."
ANALYZING THE MESSAGE
Several officials, including Cheney, said bin Laden's choice of an audio over a videotape was a sign of his crippled logistical capabilities. Some officials have suggested he wanted to avoid being seen in a video because he was ill.
Some analysts and other officials were wary of these suggestions and cautioned against wishful thinking.
"You can read it either way: if you're an optimist, Osama's deep down in a cave," Howard said. "If you're a pessimist, he's in downtown Islamabad two doors down from the president."
Michael Scheuer, a former top CIA official who once led the spy agency's hunt for bin Laden, said the Bush administration failed to understand al Qaeda and would shrug off the tape at its peril.
"You ought to take the measure of your enemy and we're not doing that," he said, adding the truce call would resonate positively in the Muslim world.
"U.S. officials continue to describe these people (al Qaeda) as a small bunch of gangsters and crazy people. They have no apparent conception that so much of the Islamic world is angry with America, not because of our freedoms or liberties but because of our foreign policies," he said.
Several former U.S. counterterrorism officials, including Scheuer, noted how bin Laden manipulated to his advantage the Bush administration's own rhetoric about fighting the war on terror abroad so America would not have to fight it at home.
The al Qaeda leader said he was offering his conditional truce because polls indicated "Americans do not want to fight Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their land."
"Bin Laden ridiculed the president's arguments that we're fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here," Scheuer said. "I think he raises that as a foreshadowing of what's coming." |
