Bin Laden the 'forgotten man' of Afghan election campaign
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=10/7/2004&Cat=4&Num=004
...excerpt...
KABUL (AFP) -- Osama bin Laden, who unwittingly set Afghanistan on the path to this week's presidential elections, is the forgotten man of the campaign.
Candidates never mention the name of the Al-Qaeda leader whose September 11 attacks on the United States led to the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
Bin Laden is thought to lurk somewhere along Afghanistan's wild border with Pakistan, and remains the major bogeyman in the West's war on terrorism.
But for ordinary Afghans, he is not an issue in presidential elections on October 9.
"He's a forgotten man," said an Afghan journalist who has followed the campaign closely. "We have had 25 years of war, and every day there has been a new face, a new excuse for war. Ordinary people know very little about him."
In contrast, the wealthy scion of a Saudi family is the face of global terror to Westerners and has played a role in the U.S. presidential race.
Democratic candidate John Kerry has cited the U.S. failure to capture or kill him in the Afghan mountains as a prime example of President George W. Bush's incompetence.
The U.S.-led invasion toppled the hardline Islamic Taliban regime which sheltered Bin Laden, but missed its main target. Bush now avoids mentioning the terrorist mastermind, whom he once vowed to bring in "dead or alive."
The U.S. still has more than 18,000 troops in Afghanistan, but Bin Laden's trail appears to have gone cold.
Saddam tells interrogators of fixation on enemy Iran
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/2834813
...excerpt...
WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein, obsessed with his status in the Arab world, dreamed of weapons of mass destruction to pump up his prestige.
Even as the United States fixated on him, he was fixated on his neighboring enemy, Iran.
That's the picture that emerges from interrogations of the former Iraqi leader since his capture in December, according to the final report by Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. arms inspector.
Saddam, the report said, tried to improve relations with the United States in the 1990s yet basked in his standing as the only leader to stand up to the world's superpower.
And, the report said, he was determined that if Iran was to acquire nuclear weapons, so would Iraq.
He was a narcissist who cared deeply about his legacy, making sure bricks were molded with his name in hopes people would admire them for centuries to come.
Yep, as I always say, "Whether UBL IS DEAD, captured, or in a hidey-hole; his evil spirit lives on via jihad."