Rumors and estimates — Osama
"Osama is dead. No, he’s not. Osama is
sick. Well, maybe. Experts say this, intelligence sources say that. Does it
even matter? No, says this colonel. Yes, says that report. Confused? So am I
— and I cover this story!"
Henry Schuster, a senior producer in CNN’s investigative unit…has been covering terrorism for more than a decade. Each week in “Tracking Terror,” he reports on people and organizations driving international and domestic terrorism, and efforts to combat them.
Osama is dead. No, he’s not. Osama is sick. Well, maybe. Experts say this, intelligence sources say that.
Does it even matter? No, says this colonel. Yes, says that report.
Confused? So am I — and I cover this story!
The latest round of “is he or isn’t he dead” rumors began when a regional French newspaper, L’Est Republicain, published a story claiming that a confidential French foreign intelligence document said bin Laden was dead.
The source quoted in the document claimed the Saudis had received confirmation that bin Laden might have died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August.
The recently released U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) about the war in Iraq and its importance to the worldwide jihadi movement had a different take on the importance of getting bin Laden.
“The loss of key leaders, particularly Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and al-Zarqawi, in rapid succession, probably would cause the group to fracture into smaller groups. Although like-minded individuals would endeavor to carry on the mission, the loss of these key leaders would exacerbate strains and disagreements,” according to a declassified portion of the report.
Which leads back to the other questions: Who is looking for bin Laden? And why haven’t they caught him?
Questions which we asked on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Some [methods] are technical — satellites and surveillance drones — monitoring the skies over Afghanistan and Pakistan…And, of course, there are the rewards, including the $25 million being offered for information leading to bin Laden’s capture or death.
That hasn’t worked so far, says former Pakistani intelligence chief Hamid Gul, because Pakistanis, especially those in the tribal areas where bin Laden is thought to be hiding, don’t believe in the U.S. war on terror and don’t want to rat him out.
Just who is receiving the reward money for capturing al Qaeda members is unclear.
In his new book, “In the Line of Fire,” Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says “we have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars.”
He never says where the money has gone.
“Follow the money” once was a productive suggestion. Nowadays, Congress and the Non-Responsible hardly pay attention to the money they waste on each other — much less what they float off to the Middle Eastern NeverLand.
Posted: Tue - October 10, 2006 at 07:04 AM