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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Captain Jack who wrote (12127)	12/22/2001 12:23:22 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 27666

White House denies cover up (Sorry bout the pasting. Weird today) www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/FullStory.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&date=20011222&dateOffset=&hub=international&title=International&cache_key=internationalAmericasHeadline¤t_row=5&start_row=5&num_rows=1pe By TU THANH HA Saturday, December 22, 2001 – Page A14 As better, more detailed, translations of the Osama bin Laden videotape emerged this week, the White House denied yesterday that it had attempted to cover up embarrassing parts of it to protect Saudi Arabia's government. A key U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia is also home of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist interpretation of Muslim faith espoused by Mr. bin Laden and his supporters. The content of the tape, which the United States released on Dec. 13, underlines the awkward fact that more than a dozen of the 19 hijackers who took part in the Sept. 11 terrorism came from Saudi Arabia, a country whose ruling monarchy tries to balance its ties to the West with its role as the cradle of Islam. According to several U.S. media outlets that hired independent translators or checked more thorough translations of the tape, the original text released by the White House skipped over references to Saudis in Mr. bin Laden's tape. Both ABC News and CNN said their translators heard Mr. bin Laden and others on the tape allude to three Saudi clerics who supported the Sept. 11 attacks. That would suggest that Mr. bin Laden, an exile stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994, enjoys not only the support of radical factions but also of mainstream officials in his native country. One of them is Sheik Abdulah al-Baraak, a professor at a state university who also acts as a government religious adviser, ABC said. "Right at the time of the strike on America, he gave a very moving speech, Sheik Abdulah al-Baraak. And he deserves thanks for that," Mr. bin Laden said, according to ABC. The tape is believed to have been recorded in Kandahar in mid-November, when Mr. bin Laden was host to a Saudi sheik believed to be Khaled al-Harbi. Both ABC and CNN say their translators heard the Saudi visitor explain that he had been smuggled into Afghanistan thanks to his country's religious police. The visitor used the words jalad alhayaa,a phrase some use to describe the Saudi religious police, Associated Press said. The Washington Post reported that the passage on the tape actually talks about the man being smuggled into Afghanistan by Iran's religious police. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the initial omissions stemmed from government translators working with little time on a tape with poor sound quality. "The translation doesn't change anything about the facts of the case," Mr. Fleischer said, alluding to his government's initial goal to release the tape to highlight Mr. bin Laden's guilt. He denied the United States tried to protect Saudi sensibilities. "This whole contention there was something left out is a far-fetched one." The two leading Arabic translators, a Lebanese and an Egyptian, might have had trouble with Mr. bin Laden's Saudi dialect. The Washington Post fleshed out some previously reported comments that Mr. bin Laden made on the tape. The Post says Mr. bin Laden used a derogatory term for blacks when he bragged that the Sept. 11 hijackers had caught the whole world's attention. He said: "They made the whole world listen to them, whether Arab or non-Arab or slaves [derogatory slang term for blacks] or Chinese. Better than millions of books, tapes or booklets." Also, Mr. bin Laden is reported to have explained that most of the hijackers didn't know the precise target of the operation until they were "walking fast" to their plane gates.