Politicians disagree on bin Laden’s value

The words were similar to what the newest GOP
presidential candidate said last week.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

WASHINGTON — Two days before the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush’s domestic security adviser dismissed al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden as “virtually impotent.”

The comments by Frances F. Townsend came three days after a new videotape of bin Laden appeared, with the terrorist leader comparing the Iraq war to Vietnam and praising the actions of the 19 airline hijackers who caused the deaths of almost 3,000 people Sept. 11, 2001.

Townsend said the taped statement released by an oddly dark-bearded bin Laden was genuine and recently made, but she described it as little more than a propaganda device.

“Let’s remember almost six years now since September the 11th, we have not seen much of bin Laden,” she said on “Fox News Sunday,” noting that this was the third audio or videotape released of him in as many years. “This is about the best he can do. This is a man on the run, from a cave, who is virtually impotent other than these tapes.”

President Bush said Saturday the tape was a “reminder of the dangerous world in which we live.”

But Townsend’s assessment of the terrorist network leader — which she repeated, almost word for word, in a later appearance on CNN’s “Late Edition” — echoed remarks last week by the newest GOP presidential candidate, former Tennessee Sen. Fred D. Thompson, who said in response to the latest videotape that bin Laden was “more symbolism than anything else.”

Others chime in

Sunday, Sens. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., shot back on ABC’s “This Week,” arguing that bin Laden remains a dangerously charismatic figure with a broad Internet reach who must be captured.

“He continues to communicate, he continues to lead and he continues to be a symbol for them of leadership in this radical hatred and evil radical Islamic extremism,” said McCain, who also is seeking his party’s presidential nomination. If elected to the White House, McCain continued, “I’ll get him. I’ll get him. And we’ve got to get him.”

Kerry, the Democrats’ presidential candiate in 2004, called bin Laden’s most recent appearance testimony to “the failure of this administration to capture and kill him.”

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., expressed concern on “Late Edition” that the Iraq war was taking resources from the hunt for bin Laden. “Every time I see that fugitive terrorist on television taunting America, I think of how wrong this president was in turning away from going after that murderer who murdered our citizens, and moving into Iraq and not having any way of getting us out, while this guy keeps dyeing his beard apparently and making new tapes,” he said.