Bin Laden Was Constantly Revolving

The Dead Cannot Speak. But Hitherto Unknown Information Has Emerged From The Confidential Archives Of The Syrian Presidency And Foreign Ministry, Published In A New Book By Bouthaina Shaaban, Who Spent Ten Years As Hafez's Interpreter And Is Still An Adviser To His Son Bashar.

Individuals In Various Countries Like Egypt And Saudi Arabia Listen To The Tapes Of Bin Laden. They Gather In Groups Of Four Or Five. They Feel They Want To Do Something To Express Their Support For What They've Heard. The Idea That They Were Taking Orders Is A Particularly Western Idea.

I Suppose, In The End, We Journalists Try - Or Should Try - To Be The First Impartial Witnesses Of History. If We Have Any Reason For Our Existence, The Least Must Be Our Ability To Report History As It Happens So That No One Can Say: 'we Didn't Know - No One Told Us.'

I Was Very Struck By The Fact That Colin Powell Said He Would Produce Evidence And Then Never Produced It. Then Tony Blair Produced A Document Of Seventy Paragraphs, But Only The Last Nine Referred To The World Trade Center, And They Were Not Convincing. So We Have A Little Problem Here: If They're Guilty, Where Is The Evidence? And If We Can't Hear The Evidence, Why Are We Going To War?

The Americans May Think They Have 'liberated' Baghdad But The Tens Of Thousands Of Thieves - They Came In Families And Cruised The City In Trucks And Cars Searching For Booty - Seem To Have A Different Idea What Liberation Means.