Gannett News Service October 11, 2001
White House asks media to limit reporting of al-Qaida statements
By Mike Madden
WASHINGTON -- The Timex watch. The Army jacket. The flowery language.
Was Osama bin Laden's videotaped message last weekend really a secret communique to his followers, like something out of a spy novel? Or was it a chilling -- but basically harmless -- look at the thinking that drives his self-proclaimed jihad -- or holy war -- against the West?
Fearing the worst, the White House moved Wednesday and Thursday to ask TV networks and newspapers not to air or print in their entirety statements from bin Laden or others in his al-Qaida terrorist organization. "At best, Osama bin Laden's message is propaganda, calling on people to kill Americans," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "At worst, he could be issuing orders to his followers to initiate such attacks."
Intelligence agencies are analyzing bin Laden's Sunday message and a statement delivered Tuesday by al-Qaida spokesman Sleiman Abou-Gheith to try to discern any secret messages, though officials do not want to discuss exactly what they were looking for.
The major TV networks agreed to review bin Laden's tapes before airing them.
The taped statements, released through Qatar's al-Jazeera TV network, clearly conveyed threats. Bin Laden wore Army fatigues and sat next to a Kalashnikov assault rifle as he calmly promised that Americans would "never taste security" and called President Bush "the head of the infidels." Abou-Gheith warned that "there are yet thousands of young people who look forward to death like the Americans look forward to living."
National security officials did not give any specific guidance to networks about what might signal that a bin Laden tape has secret orders buried within it, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said Thursday.
Absent clear evidence of hidden orders, some observers worry that the administration is simply trying to quash bin Laden's message, labeling it "propaganda" to discredit it and to keep it from the public.
"Did you pick up any hidden messages? I couldn't find them," said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counterterroism. "It's silly, because it makes us look like we're afraid and intimidated."
The administration argues that the constant military barrage against bin Laden and the ruling Taliban militia in Afghanistan makes it impossible for him to communicate with al-Qaida except by using the tapes. Some terrorism experts disputed that, saying any group that could pull off last month's attacks on New York and Washington could surely find more than one way to contact members.
"By that logic, there is no morsel of information that is too small to be of possible use to terrorists, in which case we should shut down the Internet, shut down television, stop printing newspapers, burn down the libraries and rip out everybody's tongue," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org and a former terrorism analyst with the Federation of American Scientists.
Broadcast messages have been used to send hidden codes in the past, most notably during World War II, when British radio broadcasts into Europe carried secret notices for resistance groups fighting the Nazis. And bin Laden has, in the past, put out videotapes not long before he launched attacks, wearing a traditional Yemeni dagger in one tape that circulated shortly before al-Qaida operatives bombed the U.S.S. Cole.
Even so, the value for the public in knowing the enemy in America's war on terrorism might outweigh the risks.
"I think the American people deserve to hear what it is that bin Laden is saying," said Carolyn Marvin of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. "They deserve to evaluate for themselves the nature of what we're up against ... I don't think [National Security Adviser] Condoleeza Rice should be the news director for the American press."
Copyright 2001 Gannett Company, Inc.
