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New 'Bin Laden message' released...sm

Posted By: Democrat on 2006-06-30
In Reply to:

I guess he's still alive and sending videos.
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From BBC: New 'Bin Laden message' released
Osama Bin Laden

This would be Bin Laden's fourth message this year
A new recording purportedly from al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been posted on an Islamic website.

He praised Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader killed in Iraq three weeks ago, as the lion of holy war.

The video, lasting 19 minutes, shows a still picture of Bin Laden, and moving pictures of al-Zarqawi.

The recording's authenticity has not been verified, but if it is confirmed, it would be the fourth audio message Bin Laden has released this year.

However, no new video images of the al-Qaeda leader have appeared since October 2004.

Last week a video was broadcast purportedly showing the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri in which he paid tribute to Zarqawi and said his death would be avenged.

Universal fight

In the latest recording, Bin Laden addresses US President George W Bush, warning him not to be too happy about Zarqawi's death, for the banner [of al-Qaeda in Iraq] hasn't dropped but has passed from one lion of Islam to another lion.

Bin Laden says al-Qaeda will go on with operations against the US and its allies.

We will continue, God willing, to fight you and your allies everywhere, he said, in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Somalia and Sudan until we waste all your money and kill your men.

In an apparent reference to a campaign against Iraq's Shias by Zarqawi, Bin Laden addressed those who accuse Abu Musab of killing certain sectors of the Iraqi people.

Abu Musab had clear instructions to focus his fight on the occupiers, he went on, particularly the Americans and to leave aside anyone who remains neutral.

He called on President Bush to return Zarqawi's body to his family, and used rhyming couplets to eulogise the dead al-Qaeda leader.

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Bin laden's family are NOT bin laden. They disowned him years ago. Please. nm
/

It HAS been released and cleared up!
Here's his birth certificate with the state seal, verified by the Hawaiian officials, and his birth announcement from the newspaper at the time: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

This is only an issue for Fox viewers & forwarded email believers, everyone else knows it's a non-issue that has been proven false.

That is old news. It was released in the
It's yet another non-starter.

His campaign has released several statements
stating that she was vetted. Just go to cnn.com and you can read them all there.

Here is a partial article (also explains that this was a rumor...that she had not been vetted:

Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain adviser, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday that Palin disclosed her daughter's pregnancy during the vetting process, and that the McCain campaign had been forced to reveal the pregnancy publicly Monday because of "lewd and outrageously false rumors" spread by "Democratic-leaning blogs and a few in the mainstream" media. She did not identify them.

Since McCain publicly disclosed his running mate on Friday, the notion of a shoddy, rushed review has been stoked repeatedly.

First, a campaign-issued timeline said McCain initially met Palin in February, then held one phone conversation with her last week before inviting her to Arizona, where he met with her a second time and offered her the job Thursday.

Then came the campaign's disclosure that Palin's unmarried 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant. The father is Levi Johnston, who has been a hockey player at Bristol's high school, The New York Post and The New York Daily News reported in their Tuesday editions.

In addition, the campaign also disclosed that Palin's husband, Todd, then age 22, was arrested in 1986 in Alaska for driving under the influence of alcohol.

Shortly after Palin was named to the ticket, McCain's campaign dispatched a team of a dozen communications operatives and lawyers to Alaska. That fueled speculation that a comprehensive examination of Palin's record and past was incomplete and being done only after she was placed on the ticket.

Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser, said no matter who the nominee was, the campaign was ready to send a "jump team" to the No. 2's home state to work with the nominee's staff, work with the local media and help handle requests from the national media for information, and answer questions about documents that were part of the review.

At several points throughout the process, McCain's team warned Palin that the scrutiny into her private life would be intense and that there was nothing she could do to prepare for it.

Culvahouse disclosed details of his examination in a half-hour interview with the AP.

First, a team of some 25 people working under Culvahouse culled information from public sources for Palin and other prospective candidates without their knowledge. For all, news reports, speeches, financial and tax return disclosures, litigation, investigations, ethical charges, marriages and divorces were reviewed.

For Palin specifically, the team studied online archives of the state's largest newspapers, including the Anchorage Daily News, but didn't request paper archives for Palin's hometown newspaper. "I made the decision that we could not get it done and maintain secrecy," Culvahouse said.

Reports, 40-some pages and single-spaced, on each candidate then were reviewed by McCain, Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis and top advisers Mark Salter and Charlie Black.

Among the details McCain's campaign found: Palin had once received a citation for fishing without a license.

Palin, like others on the short list, then was sent a personal data questionnaire with 70 "very intrusive" questions, Culvahouse said. She also was asked to submit a number of years of federal and state tax returns, as well as any controversial articles she had written or interviews she had done. The campaign also checked her credit.

Then, Culvahouse conducted a nearly three-hour-long interview.

He said the first thing she volunteered was that her daughter was pregnant, and she also quickly disclosed her husband's DUI arrest.

Early on, the public search unearthed details of the investigation by the Republican-controlled legislature into the possibility that Palin ordered the dismissal of Alaska's public safety commissioner because he would not fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.

Culvahouse said that he asked follow-up questions during the interview, and "spent a lot of time with her lawyer" on the matter.

"We came out of it knowing all that we could know at the time," he said.

As for the financial records review, Culvahouse said: "It was very clean. We had no issues there."

Throughout the process, the campaign said, Davis had multiple conversations with Palin.

He refused to be released from prison...
because there were men who had been there longer than he had and he felt using his dad's clout to get him out was wrong for those men, and it was, and that takes the kind of courage and integrity Barack Obama can only dream about.

How can you say he never regretted it? Does Obama regret throwing a friend and mentor, the man who baptized his children, under the bus for his political career? This is a man you should trust? Hello??

Document NOT to be released to the public?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT-BvWg3e1I&eurl

Judith Miller released from jail.

After 86 days in jail, her *source* has officially given his permission for her to reveal his identity in a story that she never even WROTE presumably regarding WMD/Valerie Plame's identity.

Her source?

Well, none other than *Scooter* Libby, CHENEY'S CHIEF OF STAFF.

Aren't we fortunate to have such honest, ethical, patriotic Cons in the White House? Seems a lot of them could learn a lot about confidentiality and ethics from a member of that horribly corrupt mainstream media -- Judith Miller!!

That's when the letter was dated. It could have been written the day he released it.
Why would he quit the day after his dad accepted the nomination and not release the letter then?

UCLA released a study recently that said...
that the New Deal probably prolonged the depression by at least 7 years. Are you sure that socialism is what the market needs--it is my thought that this problem was well on its way before Bush came into office--caused by the interference in the market that was already in place.

Meixco has released a travel alert.
College campuses here are posting warnings on their websites, warning students that the violence has gotten very bad and they may be targeted or even killed. From a friend who works down there regularly, it is that bad and he says it is only a matter of time before something extremely violent happens to tourists. He hears it in the streets and he watches his back constantly. Mexican drug lords are gearing up to use these tourists for ransom......

Germany released him, OUR state department up in arms
and protesting the release...what's the point. It only proves that the U.S. don't want this thugs released...

Vanity Fair: NORAD tapes released sm
For anyone interested, here is the link to NORAD tapes.

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/060801fege01

That's awful! Praying all those held will be released safely...
they are saying a woman and child have been released, and that is a good thing...praying this will end with no innocent folks being hurt.

To Piglet....Gary Kasparov was released from jail
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/29/kasparov.jail.ap/

Obama has NEVER released his official birth cert.
nm

His exact quote was "Last week, they released

techniques and that was clearly a political decision and ignored the advice of their Director of National Intelligence and their CIA director".

**Outlining torture techniques**

Nuff said.

oops - made a mistake - the other guy's book was released during the campaign -
I am sorry that I was wrong. Obama's book had already been released.

The first copy obviously sold really well though considering the amount of money they paid him to do the sequel.

. . .so where is Bin Laden?
He protected nothing. He made the rest of the democratic world hate the US, throwing his weight around like a ridiculous cowboy, talking like a redneck. All he did was allow AL Queda to regroup, and they're stronger than ever.

According to the bin Laden family sm
They disowned Osama a long long time ago. In fact, the bin Laden family owns probably the largest construction company in the Middle East. They built the new U.S. military installation in Saudi Arabia. I am thinking they were allowed to leave for fear of retribution by Americans. That was always my thought and I never really questioned it because I knew of the alienation between Osama and his family.

Bin Laden got what he aimed for.....
economic ruin...........GW played right into his hands...........4 more years, 4 more years, yeah!!!! RUIN!!!!!! McSame even has a cheerleader to inspire the masses.....

Are you talking about bin Laden?

Or are you talking about an old washed up hippie terrorist who probably couldn't swat a fly?

You Republicans come back and defend the fact that bin Laden has not paid for 9/11. Don't tell me that our military could not have taken him out in 7 years!!! I suspect Cullen Powell knows more than he has ever said and that it is no accident that he is supporting Obama and not because he happens to be black either.

Osama Bin Laden
Perhaps I am missing something here but what strikes me about the above is the fact that this man has not been found (can't find someone if your'e not REALLY looking). They sure FOUND Saddam Hussein. The other thing was that when 9/111 took place, when perhaps you or a loved one was trying to get home from college, business trip, etc - all air transportation was shut down but the relatives of Bin Laden were ALLOWED to be flown OUT OF the U.S...maybe it's just me thinking about it this way...hmmm

What happened to Bin Laden? sm
Watch this Clinton interview by Mike Wallace. Clinton lets him have it with both barrels and defends why he did not get Bin Laden.

http://crooksandliars.com/2006/09/24/fox-clinton-interview-part-1-osama-bin-laden/

So, show me bin Laden! I'm sure you
that he is alive and well somewhere.

Even bin Laden is Saudi..........nm
x

It appears that Bin Laden

has threatened Americans again in a new audio tape, saying President Barack Obama inflamed hatred toward the U.S. by ordering Pakistan to crack down on militants in Swat Valley and block Islamic law in the area.

You just can't win with terrorists. No matter how nice we try to be to Muslims.....the extremists are still going to hate us and want to kill us.

Bush and Bin Laden were (are) friends!

Knew of this way back when 9/11 happened. He also had Saudi Arabians escorted out of the U.S. safely that night or the next night. Good grief! Keep up with the news!

A mission accomplished for bin Laden.

In a 1998 interview, Osama bin Laden � the terrorist organizer of 9/11 who still roams free � listed as one of his many grievances against the U.S. that Americans �have stolen $36 trillion from Muslims� by purchasing oil from Persian Gulf countries at low prices. The real price of a barrel of oil should be $144, bin Laden demanded.

Ten years ago today, the price of a barrel of oil was just $11. Heading into this holiday weekend, the price of a barrel of oil rested at $144 � a thirteen-fold increase.
One month after 9/11, the New York Times wrote of possible �nightmare� scenarios that would deliver bin Laden�s goal. Neela Banerjee warned that among the �misguided decisions� that would put oil supplies at risk would be �that the United States attacks Iraq.� The Times included this quote in its story:

�If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he�d turn off the tap,� said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. �He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel� � about six times what it sells for now.

Bin Laden didn�t have to become king of Saudi Arabia to achieve his goal; in fact, Bush�s policies delivered it for him. The Bush administration�s catastrophic decision to invade Iraq, sink the nation into debt to pay for that war, and consequently, weaken the dollar have all caused oil prices to soar astronomically.
Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last May, Anne Korin, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, reminded Congress about bin Laden�s goal:

[A]bout ten years ago, Osama bin Laden stated that his target price for oil is $144 a barrel and that the American people, who allegedly robbed the Muslim people of their oil, owe each Muslim man, woman, and child $30,000 in back payments. At the time, $144 a barrel seemed farfetched to most. [�]
I would like to impress upon this Committee that $144 a barrel oil will be perceived as a victory for the Jihadist movement and a reaffirmation that the economic warfare component of its campaign against the West is a resounding success. There is no need to elaborate on the implications of such a victory in terms of loss of U.S. prestige and our ability to prevail in the Long War of the 21st century.

Only if you want to say Obama Biden Laden
Which I don't know where the Laden comes in. I don't see the similarity unless you want to see it. You need to get Osama Bin Laden out of your minds and grasp reality. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are two great men in politics. Osama? He's been out of my mind ever since Benazir Bhutto said she knew who had killed Bin Laden (then she was assissinated).

Bin Laden wanted to bankrupt the US. sm
Supporters of the Bush administration like to say that there have been no terrorist attacks on US soil since the tragedy of September 11, 2001, suggesting that President Bush has kept the country safe from terrorism. What they forget is that Osama Bin Laden clearly outlined his strategy for battling America, not by flying more planes into new buildings, but by driving the US into bankruptcy.

Show me bin Laden and maybe I'll be
a little bit.

Yes. Bush most definitely Osama Bin Laden's
NM

We've Found Bin Laden

Osama bin Laden may be hiding out in one of three walled compounds near the Pakistani border, according to scientists who've used satellites and geographic analysis in an attempt to pinpoint the fugitive terrorist's location.

University of California-Los Angeles researchers used nighttime satellite images and population-detection methods to target what they believe to be the 9/11 mastermind's hiding place - Parachinar, a town mere miles from the southern Pakistani border, according to USA Today.

The researchers took into consideration where bin Laden has been spotted and where he would likely frequent since he went underground in 2001, mapping out potential nearby lairs where the AL Qaeda leader could set up house.

The amount of available electricity and the population density of the areas bin Laden was likely to travel through were also a factor in the study's conclusions.

Geographer Thomas Gillespie, who led the UCLA research team, previously used similar techniques to locate endangered species and criminals. The bin Laden study was born out of a seminar Gillespie was teaching to undergraduates on how to use mapping techniques to solve real-life problems, USA Today reported.

Government officials told USA Today that Gillespie's conclusions could potentially hold weight once they are fleshed out and published in journal form.

"The combination of physical terrain, socio-cultural gravitational factors and the physical characteristic of structures are all important factors in developing an area limitation for terror suspects," John Goolgasian of the federal National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency told USA Today.

President Barack Obama has said on the campaign trail and in office that one of his main priorities in the White House will be to locate the terrorist leader.

"My preference obviously would be to capture or kill him," Obama told Katie Couric in a January interview.

Last week, Obama said that he would begin actions to disable al Qaeda activities in Afghanistan, though he did not have a precise timetable mapped out for action in the region.

"What I know is that I'm not going to allow al Qaeda and bin Laden to operate with impunity attacking the U.S.," Obama said on Feb. 9.

Bin Laden as anti-fur demonstrator and vegan?
New Files Show FBI Watched Domestic Activist Groups
By ERIC LICHTBLAU, The New York Times

[0]

Getty Images
One of the groups targeted by the FBI was People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

More Coverage:
� Cheney Cites Presidential Power
� Post-9/11 Law May OK Spying
� Dems Deny Approving Wiretaps

Talk About It: Post Thoughts

WASHINGTON (Dec. 20) - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a Vegan Community Project. Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's semi-communistic ideology. A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week, came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored.

One FBI document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a Vegan Community Project. Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's semi-communistic ideology.

The F.B.I. had previously turned over a small number of documents on antiwar groups, showing the agency's interest in investigating possible anarchist or violent links in connection with antiwar protests and demonstrations in advance of the 2004 political conventions. And earlier this month, the A.C.L.U.'s Colorado chapter released similar documents involving, among other things, people protesting logging practices at a lumber industry gathering in 2002.

The latest batch of documents, parts of which the A.C.L.U. plans to release publicly on Tuesday, totals more than 2,300 pages and centers on references in internal files to a handful of groups, including PETA, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group, which promotes antipoverty efforts and social causes.

Many of the investigative documents turned over by the bureau are heavily edited, making it difficult or impossible to determine the full context of the references and why the F.B.I. may have been discussing events like a PETA protest. F.B.I. officials say many of the references may be much more benign than they seem to civil rights advocates, adding that the documents offer an incomplete and sometimes misleading snapshot of the bureau's activities.

Just being referenced in an F.B.I. file is not tantamount to being the subject of an investigation, said John Miller, a spokesman for the bureau.

The F.B.I. does not target individuals or organizations for investigation based on their political beliefs, Mr. Miller said. Everything we do is carefully promulgated by federal law, Justice Department guidelines and the F.B.I.'s own rules.

A.C.L.U officials said the latest batch of documents released by the F.B.I. indicated the agency's interest in a broader array of activist and protest groups than they had previously thought. In light of other recent disclosures about domestic surveillance activities by the National Security Agency and military intelligence units, the A.C.L.U. said the documents reflected a pattern of overreaching by the Bush administration.

It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans, said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

You look at these documents, Ms. Beeson said, and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology.

The documents indicate that in some cases, the F.B.I. has used employees, interns and other confidential informants within groups like PETA and Greenpeace to develop leads on potential criminal activity and has downloaded material from the groups' Web sites, in addition to monitoring their protests.

More From the Times

* � New Drug Points Up Problems in Developing Cancer Cures
* � In Holiday Displays, Tributes Remembering the War Dead
* � New Airline Navigation System Is Displayed

In the case of Greenpeace, which is known for highly publicized acts of civil disobedience like the boarding of cargo ships to unfurl protest banners, the files indicate that the F.B.I. investigated possible financial ties between its members and militant groups like the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.

These networks, which have no declared leaders and are only loosely organized, have been described by the F.B.I. in Congressional testimony as extremist special interest groups whose cells engage in violent or other illegal acts, making them a serious domestic terrorist threat.

In testimony last year, John E. Lewis, deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, said the F.B.I. estimated that in the past 10 years such groups had engaged in more than 1,000 criminal acts causing more than $100 million in damage.

When the F.B.I. investigates evidence of possible violence or criminal disruptions at protests and other events, those investigations are routinely handled by agents within the bureau's counterterrorism division.

But the groups mentioned in the newly disclosed F.B.I. files questioned both the propriety of characterizing such investigations as related to terrorism and the necessity of diverting counterterrorism personnel from more pressing investigations.

The fact that we're even mentioned in the F.B.I. files in connection with terrorism is really troubling, said Tom Wetterer, general counsel for Greenpeace. There's no property damage or physical injury caused in our activities, and under any definition of terrorism, we'd take issue with that.

Jeff Kerr, general counsel for PETA, rejected the suggestion in some F.B.I. files that the animal rights group had financial ties to militant groups, and said he, too, was troubled by his group's inclusion in the files.

It's shocking and it's outrageous, Mr. Kerr said. And to me, it's an abuse of power by the F.B.I. when groups like Greenpeace and PETA are basically being punished for their social activism.

Yeah, they're definately in on it with Bin Laden.

Bush is no friend of bin Laden and isn't it ironic
that the same person who spouts the first amendment is also the one who runs to the monitor when people say something she doesn't like? Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Obama/Biden - looks like Osama Bin Laden, and
nm

Bush sr having lunch with Obama Bin Laden?
freudian slip? LOL. Before you have a canniption...joke. lol.

oh please. Clinton. The Sudan offered him bin Laden...
long before 9-11 and he did not take him. Now YOU tell ME who failed to protect the American people. Good grief.

obama osama biden bin laden.....
x

BUSH PARDONS OSAMA BIN LADEN??

**** I am so glad this man is no longer the president. He is retarded!!! May want to credit him with "keeping us safe" after 9-1-1. No credit due him, Remember, we were never attacked before 9-1-1 and he knew about the attack and ignored it. PLUS -- He is friends of Osama Bin Laden's family. BYE RETARD!!

Bush, military leaders let bin Laden escape

CIA operative says Bush, military leaders let bin Laden escape

Capitol Hill Blue | January 2 2006

The top CIA counterterrorism officer who tracked Osama bin Laden through the mountains of Afghanistan says the United States could have captured the terrorist leader if President George W. Bush and the American military had devoted the necessary resources to the hunt and capture.

In addition, says Gary Bernsten, a decorated espionage officer, the post-Cold War downturn in recruitment and attention to espionage has left a crippled spy agency that will need a decade or more to build up its clandestine service for the U.S. war on terrorism.

Berntsen led a paramilitary unit code-named Jawbreaker in the war that toppled the Taliban after the September 11 attacks.

He says his Jawbreaker team tracked bin Laden to Afghanistan's Tora Bora region late in 2001 and could have killed or captured the al Qaeda leader there if military officials had agreed to his request for an additional force of about 800 U.S. troops. But the administration was already gearing up for war with Iraq and troops were never sent, allowing bin Laden was able to escape.

His account contradicts public statements by Bush and former Gen. Tommy Franks, who maintained that U.S. officials were never sure bin Laden was at Tora Bora.

Berntsen says CIA Director Porter Goss faces an uphill battle to fill the agency's senior ranks with aggressive, seasoned operatives.

He's probably more aggressive than most of the senior officers in the clandestine service. So I think he's having to pull them along a bit, Berntsen said in an interview.

(Goss) is trying to improve the situation. But it's going to be tough. The rebuilding is going to take years. A decade, at least, he told Reuters late last week.

The CIA, widely criticized for lapses involving prewar Iraq and the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, has seen its clandestine staff dwindle to less than 5,000 employees from a peak of over 7,000, intelligence sources say.

Experts blame a post-Cold War downturn in recruitment for a current lack of seasoned clandestine operatives that has been exacerbated by a rush to lucrative private sector jobs in recent years.

We have a smaller number of really, really aggressive, creative members of our leadership in the senior service, said Berntsen, who recently published a book about his exploits in the war on terrorism, titled Jawbreaker (Crown Publishing).

Former CIA Director George Tenet told the September 11 commission in April 2004 the CIA would need five years to produce a clandestine service fully capable of tackling the terrorism threat.

Goss later said at his September 2004 Senate confirmation hearings that rebuilding the clandestine operation would be a long build-out, a long haul.

President George W. Bush issued an order last year that called for a 50 percent increase in CIA clandestine officers and analysts to be completed as soon as feasible.

The CIA is moving aggressively to rebuild and enhance its capabilities across the board, CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.

But intelligence sources say the rebuilding process has been complicated by disaffection for Goss' leadership within the clandestine service.

Years of double-digit growth in federal spending on intelligence that followed the September 11 attacks may also be about to end.

John Negroponte, the new U.S. director of national intelligence, has endorsed an intelligence budget for fiscal year 2007 that is relatively flat, with current spending levels believed to total about $44 billion for the 15-agency intelligence community. Fiscal 2007 begins in October.

Berntsen, 48, who also led the CIA Counterterrorism Center's response to the 1998 al Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, sued the CIA in July, accusing the spy agency of trying to stop him from publishing his book.

Gimigliano said the CIA reviewed Bernsten's book before publication only to ensure that it contained no classified information.

In the book, Berntsen says his Jawbreaker team tracked bin Laden to Afghanistan's Tora Bora region late in 2001 and could have killed or captured the al Qaeda leader there if military officials had agreed to his request for an additional force of about 800 U.S. troops.

But the troops were never sent and bin Laden was able to escape, he said.

His account contradicts public statements by Bush and former Gen. Tommy Franks, who maintained that U.S. officials were never sure bin Laden was at Tora Bora.

Posters on THIS board condone what Zarqawi and Bin Laden did?

Why? Because they don't all agree with your highness?

Point out one post on this board that condones what they did.

You're pathetic.

Why didn't Clinton kill bin Laden when he had the chance?

ARTICLE-BUSH PARDONS OSAMA BIN LADEN

Forgot to post the link for all you "naysayers" ...... MAN - Before you get on your high-horse, READ, READ, READ -- It's all over the internet. I meant to say, that Bush is friends with members of Osama Bin Laden's "family."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-rees/breaking-bush-pardons-osa_b_159272.html

ARTICLE BELOW:

WASHINGTON, DC: In a stunning late-hour development, President George W. Bush has granted Osama bin Laden a pardon for the murder of more than 2,700 Americans in the fall of 2001.

"This kinda came out of nowhere," said a White House aide who requested anonymity. "I wouldn't have put bin Laden on the short list myself. On the other hand, maybe this is the president's way of finding closure. Because ... y'know ... he wasn't actually able to kill bin Laden, or capture him, or even keep him from making all those (expletive) videos. I mean, jeez, let's face it: Osama bin Laden is basically a one-man Netflix of cave movies."

The aide paused, then went on to say, "Can you believe this dude (Bush) was actually president for eight (expletive) years? What were we thinking? Seriously, what the (expletive) were we thinking?"

The aide began weeping quietly. "May God have mercy on me for my role in the unfathomable travesty that was the Bush administration."

Conservative columnist William Kristol insisted the pardon made sense.

"George W. Bush is a brilliant strategist. I'm sure he has a good reason for this pardon. I'll figure it out."

Kristol sucked his thumb for a few minutes, lost in thought. He was then distracted by a brightly colored piece of string.

A passerby, told of the bin Laden pardon, offered a possible explanation:

"Maybe Bush is trying to smoke him out. Wasn't that the plan?"