Osama bin Laden releases first videotaped message since 2004 - Kansascity.com

By WARREN P. STROBEL
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON In his first videotaped message in nearly three years, terrorist leader Osama bin Laden accused President Bush of leading the United States to failure in Iraq.
He also needled congressional Democrats for not stopping the war.
Bin Laden asserted in the rambling half-hour video that the U.S. is repeating the mistake of the Soviet Union in its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

“The mistakes of (late Soviet leader Leonid) Brezhnev are being repeated by Bush, who … said in effect that the withdrawal will not be during his reign,” bin Laden said, according to a transcript made available Friday. Bush, he said, was “like the one who plows and sows the sea: He harvests nothing but failure.” While Bush professes to be spreading democracy in Iraq, “he is in fact working with the leaders of one sect against another sect,” bin Laden said.

And while U.S. voters gave the Democratic Party control of Congress in last year’s elections, “the Democrats haven’t made a move worth mentioning,” he said.
A U.S. intelligence official said Friday that technical analysis “suggests the voice is indeed that of Osama bin Laden.”

The videotaped message appeared on the eve of next week’s sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. Bin Laden and his al-Qaida organization were responsible.

Bin Laden hadn’t been seen in a videotape since October 2004, just before the last U.S. presidential election.

Source: Kansascity
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