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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win Smith who wrote (113361)	8/30/2003 12:40:09 PM
From: Harvey Allen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

US Misreading of Bin Laden Tape May Win Iraqi War for Al Qaeda By William O. Beeman* Pacific News Service February 13, 2003 Bin Laden's eventual ends are also made clear in the tape. He admonishes his followers, "You know that such a crusade war concerns the Muslim nation mainly, regardless of whether the socialist party and Saddam remain or go. So Muslims in general and Iraq in particular must pull up your pant legs for jihad against this unjust campaign." It is this last aim that should give the Bush administration serious pause. In eliminating Saddam, the United States is in effect fulfilling bin Laden's agenda. Saddam is not a partner for al Qaeda -- he is irrelevant. Far from opposing the war, bin Laden welcomes it as a chance to humiliate the United States on the battlefield, and as an opportunity to pave the way toward an Islamic regime in previously secular Iraq. The tape suggests that if the United States tries to eliminate Saddam, the process will not be quick and painless as administration officials have claimed. Killing the Iraqi regime will not deal a deathblow to a mushroom-like "terrorist organism." Bin Laden advises his Iraqi followers: "go and dig many trenches as it was mentioned before in the holy book, 'Take the earth as your shelter.' Such a way will deplete all your enemy's reserves in a few months." Now we know how the war may really proceed. A quick blow in Baghdad would not instantly liberate the Iraqi people and usher in democratic rule. In the hills and caves of the Zagros mountains on Iraq's eastern borders, al Qaeda guerilla forces will be waiting for Saddam's secular army to be eliminated by General Tommy Franks and his U.S. Central Command. Then they will descend to strike in the name of revolutionary Islam. globalpolicy.org