Timeline and Contradictions (Wikipedia)

Timeline and contradictions

On September 16, 2001 Osama bin Laden issued the following statement via al Jazeera in reference to the 9/11 attacks: "I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation." [8]

On December 9, 2001 U.S. military forces in Jalalabad found a video tape of bin Laden[9].

On December 27, 2001, a second bin Laden video was broadcast on al Jazeera [10]. The tape was reportedly made after November 16, 2001 [11]. There were notable differences in the appearance of bin Laden in the two tapes, although it is notable that they were shot under very different lighting conditions and that the quality of the Jalalabad tape is not very good, making direct comparisons somewhat less than reliable.

Some accounts claimed bin Laden was suffering from Hepatitis C, [12] and Peter Bergen said: “ This is a man who was clearly not well. I mean, as you see from these pictures here, he's really, by December [2001] he's looking pretty terrible. … he's barely moving the left side of his body. So he's clearly got diabetes. He has low blood pressure. He's got a wound in his foot. He's apparently got dialysis ... for kidney problems. :"He could already be dead, but we need to keep searching for him" [13]
The recording was dismissed by the Bush administration as propaganda possibly designed to mask the fact the Al-Qaeda leader was already dead. "He could have made the video and then ordered that it be released in the event of his death," said one White House aide. [14]

Other prominent figures expressed confusion on bin Laden's status. In January 2002, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf stated "I would give the first priority that he is dead and the second priority that he is alive somewhere in Afghanistan." [15] In October 2002, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai said "I would come to believe that [bin Laden] probably is dead. But still, you never know. He might be alive. Five months ago, six months ago, I was thinking that he was alive. The more we don't hear of him, and the more time passes, there is the likelihood that he probably is either dead or seriously wounded somewhere".[16] In July 2002, US Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson , stated "Is (Bin Laden) alive or is he dead? I am not really sure of the answer... I personally think he is probably not with us anymore but I have no evidence to support that." [17]

On December 26, 2001 FOXNews reported “Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al-Qaeda leader.” [18] The World Tribune subsequently reported “Israel and the United States assess that Bin Laden probably died in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in December [2001]. They said the emergence of new messages by Bin Laden are probably fabrications.” [19]

On September 9, 2002 an audio tape made by bin Laden was broadcast on al Jazeera. [20] US intelligence officials concluded the tape was genuine [21], as did French researcher Bernard Gautheron, director of the phonetic testing laboratory at the Institute of Linguistics and Phonetics in Paris [22]. Researchers at the Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence, in Martigny, Switzerland, claimed they were 95% sure the recording was a fake [23], but they since have refused to evaluate subsequent tapes [24].

On February 12, 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate panel that he had reviewed a transcript of a message from bin Laden stating he was “partnership with Iraq" which was to be broadcast on al Jazeera. [25] Al Jazeera initially denied having the tape, [26] but subsequently located it. [27]


Taken from the 29/10/2004 Osama bin Laden video.

On October 29, 2004, two days before the US elections, the Arab television network al Jazeera broadcast a videotape apparently showing bin Laden addressing the people of the United States. In this video he appears to take credit for the idea to attack the WTC towers. He also condemns the Bush government's response to the attacks, and presents the attacks as part of a campaign of revenge and deterrence begun after personally seeing the destruction of the Lebanese Civil War in 1982. See 2004 Osama bin Laden video.

Walter Cronkite said of the video “I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing.” [28] President Bush opened up a six-point lead over John Kerry in the first opinion poll to include sampling taken after the videotape was broadcast. [29]

On 23 May 2006, another audiotape purportedly of bin Laden surfaced on the Internet. On the tape bin Laden claims that it was he alone who assigned the hijackers to perform the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and that Zacarias Moussaoui had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. "He had no connection at all with Sept. 11. I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission. I am certain of what I say because I was responsible for entrusting the 19 brothers ... with the raids," said bin Laden who was speaking about the 9/11 hijackers. He also claimed that all of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks"[30].