[ewing]

I thought there were massive stop and restart breaks on the tapes? (a sure sign of fraud)

[2banana]

I dunno - why no videos, why now (after a year) and why make such a poor quality tape?

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Do you know why? An AlQuaida prisoner says so. Great reason to believe a tape.

[SamAdams76]

Apparently bin laden is still alive which should work to our benefit in expanding the war on terrorism. Bin laden was just spotted in Baghdad, wait, there he is in Yemen, and now look, he's in Sudan now. Bombs away!

[The Great Satan]

The US Intelligence community has concluded that Bin Laden's voice is in fact on a newly released tape.

Interesting way of putting it.

[ZULU]

That may very well be Ossama's voice on the tape, but that doesn;t mean Ossama is alive.

With the wonders of modern technology, it is more than feasible to take a number of tapes, extract out words and phrases and re-create an entirely new speech, making it appear the speaker is still alive and delivering addresses.

[fivecatsandadog]

It only proves that he was alive when the tape was made (duh), whenever that was, and then it could have been copied and spliced to make the final product.

[js1138]

There was a voice analysis expert on Fox last night. He had voice prints of OBL from a known tape and the recent one. He said there were large differences. But he mainly said that there was a lot of hocus-pocus involved in authenticating voices, and the techniques were not reliable.

[ChadGore]

Source ?

[Fzob]

The US Intelligence community has concluded that Bin Laden's voice is in fact on a newly released tape.

I have some old 8mm tapes of my grandfather. Does that mean he's is alive? This information does not mean he's alive. Call me a cynic but I still want to see him on video with todays NYT's in his hands.

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

The subtext: "It's Official: Osama bin Laden is Alive [for our purposes]"

And that's fine with me, if it keeps the liberals from getting traction in arguing against the War on Terror.

[Ditter]

I am doubtful he is alive. There would be a video tape of him dancing & singing "nanny nanny boo boo, you missed me you missed me, now you gotta kiss me". When I see that MAYBE I'll believe the evil one still lives.

[VRWC_minion]

The fact that its his voice doesn't mean its not a splice job. Unless they clearly say its his voice and its not a splice job of prior speech I remain a skeptic. If we learned anything about parsing from the clinton age its cautioned us not to read into what we are told.

[Always Right]

I love headlines that exagerate the actual text........

[dirtboy]

The US Intelligence community has concluded that Bin Laden's voice is in fact on a newly released tape.

In other news, the US Intelligence community announced that they believe Pakistan is developing a nuclear weapons program.

[rintense]

STILL don't believe he's alive.

[Hoboken]

GOOD ! I wanna see a corpse.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Bin Laden is alive? That's good-now we cal kill him again.

[glock rocks]

Bin Laden Tape Confirmed as Authentic
Fox News
Monday, November 18, 2002

WASHINGTON — Usama bin Laden is alive.

That's the conclusion of U.S. intelligence analysts who officially determined Monday that an audiotape broadcast last week was the voice of the international terror mastermind.

The tape, broadcast by the Al-Jazeera satellite TV network, was recently recorded, intelligence agents said, providing the first evidence in almost a year that the Al Qaeda leader is alive.

The tape does not appear to have been altered or edited, suggesting it is what it sounds like: bin Laden himself, reading a prepared statement promising new terrorism against the United States and its allies, said one U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The analysis of the tape was performed by technical experts, linguists and translators at the CIA and National Security Agency, who compared the message to previous recordings of bin Laden. They are as certain as they can be that it is genuine, the intelligence official said.

Because it mentions recent terrorist attacks, officials concluded it was made in the last few weeks, the official said. U.S. intelligence had not received any definitive evidence in a year that bin Laden had survived the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan after Sept. 11.

The tape gives little clue to bin Laden's location or his health, officials said. Although his whereabouts are unknown, U.S. officials believe he is probably hiding in a remote mountainous region in the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Al-Jazeera journalist who obtained the tape said it was delivered to him in Pakistan.

The message also was a determining factor in a new spate of terror alerts in the United States and elsewhere last week. Previous public statements from bin Laden have served as preludes to terrorist attacks, officials said.

On the tape, bin Laden referred to the Oct. 28 shooting death of a U.S. diplomat in Amman, Jordan, and praised the bombing in Bali, Indonesia, last month, that left close 200 people dead.

He sounded undeterred by the loss of his home in the Taliban's Afghanistan or by the death and capture of several of his closest lieutenants.

"Why should fear, killing, destruction, displacement, orphaning and widowing continue to be our lot, while security, stability and happiness be your lot? This is unfair. It is time we get even," he said, sounding as if he was reading.

President Bush said last week that whoever released the tape was "putting the world on notice yet again that we're at war."

There has been concern in the intelligence community that this tape could signal another wave of Al Qaeda attacks — U.S. officials say the "chatter" about Al Qaeda action has been as much or more than what they heard prior to Sept. 11.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[Diddle E. Squat]

He may be alive, but how many limbs does he have left?