|
ekomstop
Registered: 03/31/01
Posts: 1,880
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 13 years, 2 months
|
Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist
#3265984 - 10/22/04 08:54 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/44654.php Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist
San Bernardino Sun | October 22 2004
FLASHBACK: Staged Capture of Bin Laden Coming Soon
Democrats Fear 'october Surprise'
CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Pentagon knows exactly where Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan, it just can't get to him, John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission, said Thursday.
Lehman's remarks echoed those made Tuesday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said the al-Qaida leader was alive and operating in the western part of Pakistan.
Bin Laden is living in South Waziristan in the Baluchistan Mountains of the Baluchistan region, Lehman told the San Bernardino Sun after delivering a keynote speech on terrorism at Pitzer College in Claremont.
In the interview, Lehman noted, "There is an American presence in the area, but we can't just send in troops. If we did, we could have another Vietnam, and the United States cannot afford that right now."
When pressed on why the United States couldn't send troops into the region to capture the world's No. 1 terrorist, Lehman said the Baluchistan region of the country is filled with militant fundamentalists who do not recognize the legitimacy of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a close ally of the United States.
"That is a region filled with Taliban and al-Qaida members," he said, acknowledging that Pakistan's security services also are filled with many who agree with bin Laden's beliefs and would aid him if U.S. Special Forces entered the region.
"Look," he said, "Musharraf already has had three assassination attempts on his life. He is trying to comply, but he is surrounded by people who do not agree with him. This is not like Afghanistan, where there was no compliance, and we had to go in.
"We'll get (bin Laden) eventually, just not now."
Asked how bin Laden was surviving, Lehman said he was getting money from outside countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, and high-ranking ministers inside Saudi Arabia.
"He is not a wealthy man," Lehman said. "We ran that information into the ground, and discovered he only receives about $1 million a year from his family's fortune. The rest of what he gets comes from radical sympathizers."
Department of Defense spokeswoman Capt. Ronnie Merritt confirmed the U.S. military believes bin Laden is in Pakistan. However, she would not comment on Lehman's remarks, except to say that he normally didn't speak about these issues, and she was surprised he had.
Lehman, secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan, was one of the 10 members of the bipartisan commission that examined the terrorists attacks on the United States.
He also is the author of three books about military tactics.
|
Annapurna1
liberal pussy
Registered: 05/21/02
Posts: 5,646
Loc: innsmouth..MA
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: ekomstop]
#3265995 - 10/22/04 08:57 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
god..its so predictable...
-------------------- "anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...
|
oggleman
Stranger
Registered: 01/21/04
Posts: 281
Loc: Chicago
Last seen: 18 years, 2 months
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: Annapurna1]
#3266023 - 10/22/04 09:10 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
Hmmm october surprise is obviously the first thing to come to mind. How will this effect the campaign speeches? I think we all called this one.
What was interesting was their explanation as to why they wouldn't go into the area, explaining it would result in another vietnam.
--------------------
|
Gijith
Daisy Chain Eater
Registered: 12/04/03
Posts: 2,400
Loc: New York
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: ekomstop]
#3266054 - 10/22/04 09:20 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
Wow. Well, 10 days and counting. Let's see how much of an asshole Bush really is.
-------------------- what's with neocons and the word 'ilk'?
|
Annapurna1
liberal pussy
Registered: 05/21/02
Posts: 5,646
Loc: innsmouth..MA
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: Gijith]
#3266061 - 10/22/04 09:22 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
in any other country..the timing would have been a dead giveaway...nor was the october surprise ever a surprise...
-------------------- "anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...
|
Gijith
Daisy Chain Eater
Registered: 12/04/03
Posts: 2,400
Loc: New York
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: Annapurna1]
#3266092 - 10/22/04 09:35 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
If I was a betting man, I'd put my money against him being captured before the election. But, yeah, I'm sure Bush will be talking about this in the coming week.
-------------------- what's with neocons and the word 'ilk'?
|
KingOftheThing
the cool fool
Registered: 11/17/02
Posts: 27,397
Loc: USA
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: Annapurna1]
#3266749 - 10/23/04 01:15 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
id say it would almost be too suspect if the caught that arab before election
|
1stimer
Religion=Rape
Registered: 11/18/01
Posts: 1,280
Loc: Amerika
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: KingOftheThing]
#3266827 - 10/23/04 01:54 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
Its hard to say if it would help bush or not. It would take away one of Kerrys attack points. It would also cause a bustle in the media about it being all staged for the election. I think that Bush is going to have to deal with the issue that Saudi arabia is funding terrorists in Iraq before the election. That issue will hurt bush because it will expose his connection to the saudis.
-------------------- ash dingy donker mo gollyhopper patty popiton rockstop bueno mayo riggedy jig bobber johnathan pattywhacker gogboob t-shirt monkey. There is such emotion in the distortion.
|
Aldous
enthusiast
Registered: 10/19/99
Posts: 980
Loc: inside my skull
Last seen: 1 month, 5 days
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: ekomstop]
#3267238 - 10/23/04 08:12 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
I've heard the same thing from another source. The US knows exactly in what village OBL is hiding. Pretending they can't take him out is pure bullshit, when you see how precisely the Israeli's can target Hamas officials. No need to get in there, one helicopter and two rockets will do. Catching him alive would be something else, although it seems feasible.
Either it will be an October surprise, or they still need him for another job.
|
ekomstop
Registered: 03/31/01
Posts: 1,880
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 13 years, 2 months
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: ekomstop]
#3275376 - 10/25/04 01:17 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
'nother article: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Content...tacodalogin=yes
Betting on bagging Osama Journalists wager on exact day of bin Laden capture
Toronto Star | October 25 2004
Some reporters think he's already in U.S. custody Some reporters say U.S. troops already have bin Laden, but Bush is waiting for right time to play his ace in the hole
CAROL HARRINGTON SPECIAL TO THE STAR
KABUL?These days, rumours are flying among foreign journalists here that Osama bin Laden ? the world's most wanted man ? is about to be snared.
Some journalists are even wagering on the exact day the Al Qaeda leader will be pulled from his hole, mountain, cave or bunker.
Few scribes affirm their assumptions are fuelled by concrete intelligence.
But most admit to basing their claims on sheer speculation ? that President George W. Bush will snag bin Laden just in time to clinch the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election.
Some journalists have gone so far as to assert that the Americans have already bagged bin Laden, but Bush is waiting for the most opportune time to play his ace in the hole.
"George W. is just waiting for the right moment to pull bin Laden out, and show him to the world," a U.S. newspaper correspondent said recently.
"The American public ... will reward him with another term in office."
I must admit that, for several months, I harboured the theory that Bush, in a moment of desperation, would miraculously catch his Number 1 enemy.
My conjecture was formed last February, during an interview with a top Afghan security official in Kabul.
The official told me the Americans could catch bin Laden at any time.
To emphasis his point, he leaned over his big wooden desk, glanced at his wristwatch and said that if the Americans wanted, they could have their man in custody by 3:30 p.m.
It was 3:15 when he spoke.
I asked him why the Americans didn't do just that, to which he replied: "That would mean they would have to leave."
The last recorded statement believed to have been spoken by bin Laden came in the form of an April 15 audiotape.
But so far, among the pack of journalists who haunt the media centre in Kabul to attend daily briefings on Afghanistan's continuing presidential election process, there has been no speculation that the Al Qaeda chief is dead.
Apart from the common theories that bin Laden is in Afghanistan or Pakistan, there is at least one other area being touted.
British journalist Gordon Thomas this month claimed in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that bin Laden was given asylum by Chinese authorities in exchange for placating some 5 million Muslim guerrillas who are rising against Beijing.
If George W. does know where bin Laden is, this would be a good time to play that ace.
He is taking some hard hits on the issue from Democratic opponent John Kerry as the two candidates tear across the United States in a flurry of final campaigning.
Kerry pounced on the president for admitting that chasing down bin Laden ? architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks ? is not the principal aim of the war on terror.
Thundered Kerry: "Compared to this president, who made significant boasts about chasing after Osama bin Laden and then only months later said, `I don't know where he is and I don't really care and I don't think about him that much,' let me make it clear: I will fight a tougher, smarter, more effective war on terror."
The president took a defensive stance.
"Of course we're going to find Osama bin Laden. We've already got 75 per cent of his people," he said.
"And we're on the hunt for him. But this is a global conflict that requires firm resolve."
Three years have passed since Al Qaeda's top members vanished after organizing the deadliest terror attack in history. Yet the constant, near-mystical presence of bin Laden continues to haunt the U.S.-led military dragnet in the craggy mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Earlier this year, France's chief of defence admitted that the elusive bin Laden had escaped capture several times.
"Our men were not very far," Gen. Henri Bentegeat said in March. "On several occasions, I even think he slipped out of a net that was quite well closed."
Most military and intelligence officials tend to agree that bin Laden and his top associate, Ayman al-Zawahri, are holed up somewhere along the rugged, 2,500-kilometre border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The fugitives don't seem to settle in one spot for long.
Last February, bin Laden was believed to have left southeastern Afghanistan to take refuge in Pakistan's South Waziristan region.
It was reported in the Pakistani Urdu press that he was under the protection of rings formed by dozens of Al Qaeda fighters and more than 1,200 Taliban who easily blend in as local Pashtun tribesmen.
Bin Laden moved from that area when some 70,000 Pakistani troops converged on the semi-autonomous tribal region and made dozens of arrests of suspected Al Qaeda members.
U.S. forces hunting Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan have expressed frustration about their prey's ability to elude them by slipping across to the Pakistani side.
Even though Pakistan became a key post-9/11 ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, it refuses to permit foreign troops to hunt for militants on its soil.
American bounty hunter Jack Idema, while on trial in Kabul for torturing Afghans in his private jail, said he gave U.S. authorities the exact address where bin Laden was hiding in Peshawar, a Pakistani border town near the Khyber Pass that served as the key staging area for the jihad in Afghanistan.
Idema, who has spent much time tracking bin Laden, said he couldn't understand why it took the Americans several days to reach the address.
By then, bin Laden, was gone, he added.
Since last February, the U.S.-led military coalition has intensified its search by bolstering manpower by 50 per cent to its current 18,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan.
They pay for information, track suspicious areas by satellite, conduct house-to-house searches, monitor cell and SAT phones, search vehicles at surprise checkpoints and conduct air assaults.
Last March, the U.S. House of Representatives doubled bin Laden's bounty to $50 million.
The concentrated effort seems to have paid off. In the past two months, dozens of terror suspects, including some key Al Qaeda operatives, have been arrested in Pakistan, near the Afghan border.
Maj. Scott Nelson, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, says the coalition receives daily tips on bin Laden's whereabouts from Afghans and Pakistanis, ranging from first-person sightings in the mountainous border region to someone who talked to someone who talked to someone who saw the fugitive.
"There's a tendency for people to embellish these things," says Nelson, adding that following up every lead is a painstaking procedure.
Yet, Nelson says the coalition is getting closer to nabbing their man.
"His routine is going to give him away," he insists. "Somebody is going to turn him in."
|
Anonymous
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: ekomstop]
#3275579 - 10/25/04 02:19 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
Some journalists have gone so far as to assert that the Americans have already bagged bin Laden, but Bush is waiting for the most opportune time to play his ace in the hole.
i don't buy it. if they had him, the time has already passed. 'catching' him now would look very suspicious to a lot of people. it would have done him better if they'd caught bin laden a month ago.
|
Xlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: ]
#3275609 - 10/25/04 02:26 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
You and the other right-wingers assured us he was dead last week. Have you changed your mind?
-------------------- Don't worry, B. Caapi
|
Anonymous
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: Xlea321]
#3275678 - 10/25/04 02:41 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
i do suspect that he's dead. all i'm saying here is that if he is alive, he sure as hell is not in US custody awaiting his timely 'capture' within the next week. i'll be pleasantly surprised if he turns up in US custody during the next week, but i'm not holding my breath. i think he's probably dead.
|
JonnyOnTheSpot
Sober Surfer
Registered: 01/27/02
Posts: 11,528
Loc: North Carolina
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: ]
#3275758 - 10/25/04 03:05 PM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
i agree that it would look to suspicious to unveil bin laden now, before the elcetion, as a political tool. But has anyone toyed with the idea that a repeat of the last election could happen, and that Bush would use Bin Ladens capture after the election? Charges of voter fraud and corruption in such a close race almost gave the presidency to Gore, had it not been for the florida supreme court. If Bush is devious enough to have a planned date to "capture" bin laden then he is most certainly devious enough to rig elections and have buddys like catherine harris help him out again.
If something similar were to happen again Bush could certainly play Bin Ladens capture to his advantage since it would completly eclipse every single other news story on the planet while at the same time portray Bush as a hero. All allegations of voter fraud would drop to the side as Bush celebrated the biggest victory ever in the war on terror and his very tight some what contraversial re-election.
DUN DUN DUNNNN!
|
CJay
Dark Stranger
Registered: 02/02/04
Posts: 931
Loc: Riding a bassline
|
Re: Bin Laden is located, says 9/11 panelist [Re: ekomstop]
#3278379 - 10/26/04 05:18 AM (19 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
When pressed on why the United States couldn't send troops into the region to capture the world's No. 1 terrorist, Lehman said the Baluchistan region of the country is filled with militant fundamentalists who do not recognize the legitimacy of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a close ally of the United States. "That is a region filled with Taliban and al-Qaida members," he said, acknowledging that Pakistan's security services also are filled with many who agree with bin Laden's beliefs and would aid him if U.S. Special Forces entered the region.
Right since 2001 the USAdmin+intel has been saying he is hiding in 'this 10 mile radius' of mountains in Pakistan etc, etc - but they chose to invade Iraq rather than work with their close ally the president of Pakistan and capture him.... War on what? please..... Wanker
|
|