Trying to Catch bin Laden Not Just Listen to Him

By Brigitte L. Nacos
"I learned a lot of lessons on 9/11," President Bush said in one of the speeches he delivered this week, "and one of the lessons is this: In order to protect the country, we will keep steady pressure, unrelenting pressure on al Qaeda and its associates. We will deny them safe haven, we will find them, and we will bring them to justice." But the President's assurances of his administration's tough stance and progress in the war on terrorism competed on Thursday with a newly released Al Qaeda video-tape for news coverage and public attention. Both the President's speech and the Al Qaeda tape were massively covered. And since bin Laden, although in hiding, shared the mass media stage with the President of the United States, it was a very good propaganda coup for the Al Qaeda leader For more on terrorism, counterterrorism, media and public opinion listen to my remarks on yesterday's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC.

There is no doubt that Al Qaeda timed the release of the video to get world-wide attention just a few days before the fifth 9/11 anniversary. Produced before the 9/11 attacks and showing bin Laden as well as some of the 9/11 terrorists, the Al Qaeda leader wanted to remind America and the world that he and his crew orchestrated the strikes and that he is still around five years after he became the number one target in the war on terrorism.

But this was a week in which bin Laden and other terrorists scored other publicity points, when President Bush devoted  large parts of his speech about the global war on terrorism to cite bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, their fallen associate al-Zarqawi, and other terrorist leaders to explain their ideologies and goals. The President said, "Bin Laden and his terrorist allies made their intentions clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen?" To be compared to the likes of Hitler and Lenin must be music in the ears of bin Laden who wants to be seen as a major global figure. More important, the major question is not whether we will listen but rather whether the administration will put the money where its mouth is and act swiftly to finally find bin Laden.

Instead, "Alec Station." the special CIA unit charged with hunting down bin Laden long before 9/11, was disbanded earlier this year in order to shift resources toward other dangerous individuals and groups in the terrorist milieu. Thankfully, this week members of Congress appropriated funds for the revival of this unit.