Spectre at the feast

Published on Saturday 17 January 2009 18:32

THE voice was unmistakable and the timing was impeccable. Just as George Bush was preparing to hand over the keys of the White House to Barack Obama, the Texan's bête noire put in the final appearance of his eight-year presidency.

There was only an old still photograph of the willowy, bearded figure of Osama bin Laden, but the voice was quickly authenticated as that of the al-Qaeda leader during a 22-minute rant renewing his calls for a Muslim jihad against the West.

References to the current battle between Israeli forces and Hamas in Gaza placed the video in the here and now, and the overall message could not have been clearer. Despite the global might of the US military machine and its state-of-the-art intelligence gathering, bin Laden, architect of the 9/11 attacks, was still out there. He has successfully evaded capture for more than six years by hiding out in the mountainous tribal regions of north-west Pakistan.

For Bush, bin Laden, whom he famously vowed to catch "dead or alive", is unfinished business of the most embarrassing kind. For Obama, the Saudi Arabian terrorist will be the spectre at the feast of his inauguration on Tuesday.

Andrew Legon, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, believes the significance of bin Laden's reappearance at this transitional moment – his last video was broadcast on Arab networks last May – will not be lost on either president. "The events of 9/11 became the defining moment of Bush's presidency and he won't be happy that bin Laden is still out there and has outlasted him," he said. "Now Obama has to take over, but he may find it just as difficult. It has been a combination of tough terrain and missed opportunities. The terrain in which bin Laden is hiding is very difficult to map and penetrate when you don't have the support."

So how has the master terrorist managed to stay at large despite one of the most intensive manhunts in history? Has his power to inspire terrorist operations around the world diminished because of his constant need for movement and protection? And what can he now expect from a new regime in the Oval Office?

All the signs are that as the Iraq mission starts to wind down, Afghanistan will become the focus and the testing ground for America's new commander-in-chief.

Bin Laden rose to prominence in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Bush, only a few months after taking office, announced his "war on terror" and an immediate attack on Afghanistan and its militant Islamic Taliban government. The mountains of Afghanistan had become the base of bin Laden's al-Qaeda and the launch pad for global jihad. The Taliban was overthrown in a matter of weeks and bin Laden and his fighters were pursued deep into the mountain ranges bordering the largely lawless areas of northern Pakistan. But in the absence of regular troops, US special forces commanders had to rely on mujahideen from northern Afghanistan to act as their spearhead and bin Laden slipped the noose.

Analysts believe Washington then underestimated the challenge of extracting bin Laden from the protection of a fiercely loyal population for whom the Saudi Arabian was a resistance hero. As weeks turned into months, even a $50m reward for his capture failed to persuade anyone in the remote Pakistani villages to betray him. Then, in 2002, the regime of Saddam Hussein replaced Afghanistan as the focus of the war on terror. In 2003 Iraq was invaded, tying up the bulk of the US military for the next four years. Although bin Laden was still a target, he was no longer Washington's priority.

To Professor Paul Wilkinson, of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism at St Andrews University, criticism of the tactics used by the Bush White House in Afghanistan are justified. "The momentum was lost after the fall of the Taliban," he said. "Many were surprised at the speed at which this occurred and they could have got the core leadership of al-Qaeda if they had pressed on.

"But the Americans got hooked on the idea of invading Iraq and implanting democracy in the Middle East, which they hoped would spread. Saddam had nothing to do with bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but the deflection of resources of manpower and money meant the efforts that could have been put into bringing the leadership of al-Qaeda to book were lost." In the absence of locating him, US policy has been to isolate bin Laden in his hideouts in Pakistan, while taking out more easily accessible al-Qaeda regional commanders in other parts of the world.

But terrorism experts such as Professor David Capitanchik, of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, believe the psychological impact of bin Laden's seeming ability to evade capture, along with his role in attracting funds to his group, has played a key part in al-Qaeda's survival.

The organisation and its offshoots are still well armed and able to run operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South-east Asia and North Africa. They have also retained the ability to carry out attacks. Since 9/11, Bali, Madrid, London, Istanbul, Baghdad, Algiers, Islamabad and Amman all have come under attack.

"Bin Laden hides and moves around between remote caves so its not easy to track him," Capitanchik said. "He's well protected and as long as he remains there he remains a rallying point."

Many analysts believe that far from being beaten, al-Qaeda influence in Pakistan is growing with the setting up of training camps that supply the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan with fresh soldiers. An increasingly heavy toll is being taken on the British forces operating under the Nato banner in Helmand Province. What has hindered US operations in Afghanistan, however, is that they are unable, for diplomatic reasons, to pursue insurgents to bases in Pakistan. Instead, they have had to concentrate on using unmanned missile-carrying drones to kill a number of al-Qaeda commanders on Pakistan soil.

Wilkinson believes that strengthening the government of Pakistan is the key to catching the al-Qaeda leader. "Pakistan doesn't have the military strength to take hold of those areas," he said. "Tribalism is the tradition there.

That situation could be remedied if Pakistan's democratic leadership is strengthened and they get more resources for their army and police. That would prepare the ground for a much more effective strategy against al-Qaeda."

But after last week's audio rant, Obama suggested eliminating the al-Qaeda leader was less important than containing him. "I think we have to so weaken his infrastructure that, whether he is technically alive or not, he is so pinned down that he cannot function," said the president-elect. "My preference obviously would be to capture or kill him. But if we have so tightened the noose that he's in a cave somewhere and can't even communicate with his operatives then we will meet our goal of protecting America."

Britain's Foreign Secretary, David Miliband used a similar theme in speeches in India. He went so far as suggesting the phrase "war on terror" had been "misleading and mistaken" by lumping together all terrorists and giving them common cause. He added that western solidarity "should not be based on who we are against but instead on the idea of who we are and the values we share".

Audacity of hype the hallmark of a failed leader

WE LIKE our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians like Frank Langella, star of Frost/Nixon. So here, too, George W Bush has let us down.

He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Josh Brolin and Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He is smaller than life.

The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Bush's presidency found that 79% of Americans will not miss him. You start to pity him until you remember how vast is the wreckage. It stretches from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven for toxins under his passive stewardship.

Bush's first and last photo-ops in Iraq could serve as bookends to his entire tenure. On Thanksgiving weekend 2003, even as the Iraqi insurgency was spiralling, his secret trip to the war zone was a PR open goal. The photo of the beaming commander-in-chief bearing a supersized decorative turkey for the troops was designed to make every front page and newscast in the country. Five years later, in what was intended as a farewell victory lap, Bush was reduced to ducking shoes.

Americans stopped listening to Bush after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, but he still doesn't grasp the finality of their defection. Lately he has promised not to steal the spotlight from Barack Obama once he is in retirement – as if he could do so by any act short of running naked through downtown Dallas.

But the brazenness of Bush's alternative-reality history is itself-revelatory. He claims to have kept America safe (provided his presidency began on September 12, 2001) and "led the world in providing food aid and natural disaster relief" (if you leave out Hurricane Katrina). The audacity of hype helps clear up the mystery of how someone so slight could inflict so much damage. So do his many print and television exit interviews.

The man who emerges is a narcissist with no self-awareness whatsoever. It's that arrogance that allowed him to tune out even the most calamitous of realities, freeing him to compound them without missing a step. The president who couldn't name a single mistake of his presidency at a press conference in 2004 still can't.

He can, however, blame everyone else. Asked if he feels any responsibility for the economic meltdown, Bush says: "People will realise a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived."

The September 11 attacks "came out of nowhere", as if he hadn't ignored intelligence warnings of an al-Qaeda attack.

The smugness is reinforced by his conviction that his every action is blessed from on high. Asked last month what he has learned from his time in office, he replied: "I've learned that God is good. All the time."

Once again he is shifting the blame. This presidency was not about Him. Bush failed because in the end it was all about him.

Frank Rich