HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
AP. 6 January 2002. Officials Believe bin Laden Has Fled. WASHINGTON and ONTARIO, Calif. -- U.S. and other anti-terrorism coalition officials are beginning to believe that Osama bin Laden has fled Afghanistan for Pakistan, two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who is traveling with other senators in the region, told "Fox News Sunday" that Uzbekistan's military intelligence service believes bin Laden has crossed the border into Pakistan. Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said bin Laden and other top officials have probably escaped Afghanistan, but no one is certain. "Increasingly as our efforts to get them in Afghanistan have been futile, there is a greater sense that they have, in fact, escaped, and are probably in one of those tribal territories just over the border into Pakistan," Graham said from Miami on ABC's "This Week." Top military officials have said they don't know where bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, are. Meanwhile, President Bush mourned the first American soldier [officially acknowledged] to die from hostile fire in Afghanistan and warned anew that more deaths will follow as the war against terrorism enters a more dangerous phase. "This conflict will have its casualties as we pursue our objective," Bush told some 5,000 people at a town-hall gathering in Ontario, California on Saturday. Later, in Portland, Ore., he said: "I understand the war on terror is going to go beyond probably 2002. I have no unrealistic aspirations about a quick calender." In both appearances, Bush strongly hinted that the United States will widen its military campaign beyond Afghanistan, calling that country variously the "first front" and the "first theater." Bush, who will submit his new year's budget after his Jan. 29 State of the Union address, suggested big wartime increases for the military. "The defense of this nation is the number one priority of the budget of the United States," he said to cheers from an audience that included many in uniform. Bush also responded to critics of anti-terrorism measures his administration has taken such as military tribunals for foreigners and letting investigators monitor phone calls and mail between some terrorist suspects and their defense lawyers. "We respect people's constitutional rights, and we will continue to do so, but if we think somebody is fixing to hurt the American people, we will move in this country," Bush said. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
