Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: CWRWinger
Bush and company say the tape is the real Bin Laden.

Not exactly, they said they couldn't conclude that it was or wasn't Bin Laden. The Swiss say it definitely isn't.

132 posted on 11/29/2002 9:13:39 AM PST by pfflier
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 109 | View Replies ]


To: pfflier
Not exactly, they said they couldn't conclude that it was or wasn't Bin Laden. The Swiss say it definitely isn't.

Actually, they said they were 95% certain it is Bin Laden on the tape, but they couldn't be 100% certain because of the tape's poor quality.

134 posted on 11/29/2002 9:16:05 AM PST by Smogger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 132 | View Replies ]

To: pfflier
Here's the relevant parts of the BBC version of the story:

Researchers in Switzerland have questioned the authenticity of the recent audio recording attributed to Osama Bin Laden.

A team from the Lausanne-based Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence, Idiap, said it was 95% certain the tape does not feature the voice of the al-Qaeda leader.

US intelligence officials have said they believe the recording - broadcast on the Arabic al-Jazeera television channel earlier this month - was almost certainly that of Osama Bin Laden.

If verified, it would provide the first evidence in a year that Bin Laden survived the American-led bombing campaign in Afghanistan.

Prudence

The review of the tape was commissioned by France-2 television and its findings were presented by the institute's director, Professor Herve Bourlard.

"It could be an impostor," said one of Mr Bourlard's colleagues at Idiap, Samy Bengio, quoted by the French news agency AFP.

He said the system they had used was difficult to tamper with - the al-Jazeera tape was sufficiently different from other Bin Laden recordings as to raise doubts.


So let me get this straight. This was done by French TV (and we all know what good allies the French are) and all I'm hearing them say is that it COULD (not that it IS) an impostor and that he has doubts about the tape's authenticity. That isn't quite the same as the instant "it's a fake" that's been squawked throughout this thread.
135 posted on 11/29/2002 9:18:20 AM PST by Angelus Errare
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 132 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson