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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: surfbaron who wrote (9364)	11/15/2002 6:25:50 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Bush must keep focus beyond Iraq AUDIOTAPE IS A REMINDER THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN AND AL-QAIDA COULD BE PLANNING MORE TERRORISM The San Jose Mercury News Editorial Posted on Thu, Nov. 14, 2002 THE chilling voice of Osama bin Laden has returned, a specter from an unknown lair. If it really is he -- and experts have yet to verify that -- the audiotape is a stark reminder of an enduring menace. The Bush administration has turned its sights onto Saddam Hussein, but the immediate peril remains Al-Qaida. And bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, with a multimillion-dollar bounty on his head, may still be its guiding force. The tape was broadcast this week on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite TV station, and appeared timed as a warning to America's friends not to join any U.S.-led military strikes against Iraq. On Wednesday, Saddam bowed to the U.N. ultimatum and agreed to admit U.N. weapons inspectors, putting off, for now, an armed confrontation. But that doesn't diminish the threat of Al-Qaida terror; the tape itself may be code to launch more of it. Bin Laden had not been definitively heard from for a year, leading to debate about whether he had been killed or wounded in the torrential U.S. bombing of the Tora Bora region in Afghanistan. Some tapes that surfaced since then have been dismissed as fakes or old recordings. The latest recording, praising the ghastly bombing in Bali and the hostage-taking in Moscow, is recent. Though Bush once vowed to get bin Laden dead or alive, the administration has shifted its public posture from capturing him to exterminating his network. Still, if bin Laden is alive, then it's more evidence that hundreds of his fighters and top lieutenants slipped out of Afghanistan and may have dispersed like pathogens throughout the globe. Intelligence officials are warning that Al-Qaida is piecing its network back together again. Although the Bush administration has tried in vain to link Saddam to bin Laden, the secular Iraqi regime has kept its distance from Al-Qaida. Still, as the adage goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If the United States did invade Iraq, Saddam might equip Al-Qaida with chemical or biological weapons for terror attacks on U.S. soil. The impending return of arms inspectors diminishes that risk, for now. But the appearance of the bin Laden tape, verifiable or not, serves as a warning to avoid tunnel vision. bayarea.com