Newsday: Tape a 'big blow' to Bush

WASHINGTON -- The White House said a new audiotape shows Osama bin Laden is "on the run," but counterterrorism experts said it instead pointed up an embarrassing fact for President George W. Bush: It appears bin Laden is alive and well four years after Sept. 11.

More than that, some counterterror analysts pointed to parallels in a 2004 bin Laden tape where he offered a similar "truce" to European leaders, only to have the London subway bombings take place about a year later.

U.S. officials said yesterday that they had picked up no increased "chatter" signaling an imminent attack inside the United States, despite bin Laden's threat that a strike is in the works.

As bin Laden has eluded capture, Bush has sought to downplay his importance, saying in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks that he wanted him "dead or alive," but later saying he was not that concerned about bin Laden. Some analysts recently questioned whether bin Laden was dead.

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