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US wrong to sniff blood in bin Laden tape-analysts
By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent
01/20/06 "Reuters"
-- -- WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - 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."
© 1998-2001 Reuters Limited.
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