Bin Laden to bleed US dry?

2004-12-19 09:17

Berlin - Osama bin Laden claims to have bled the Soviet Union into bankruptcy as an Islamic guerrilla fighter in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Could he do the same to another hated superpower - the United States?

The al-Qaeda leader's latest purported communication highlighted that question by calling on militants to stop the flow of oil to the West - crucial to keeping the economy moving - and praising a December 6 attack on the U-S Consulate in Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil producer.

In an audiotape posted on an Islamic website on Thursday, a man who US officials believe is bin Laden accuses Westerners of subjugating the Middle East to plunder its oil.

"Go on and try to prevent them from getting oil," the speaker said. "Concentrate your operations on that, especially in Iraq and the Gulf."

It was believed to be the first time a purported bin Laden tape in effect called for attacks on the oil industry. But he has flaunted the economic theme before, recalling in his most recent video how Afghan mujahideen "bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt" and taunting the US government over the size of its budget deficit - which peaked at US$413bn last year.

Security and terrorism experts suggest bin Laden's claims to be undermining the United States economically are largely propaganda, noting the flexible, market-driven US economy is a far cry from the creaky, bureaucratic Soviet giant that disintegrated in 1991.

Poised on a precipice

Still, the economic argument gives bin Laden a tool he can use to rally his supporters and inflate his aura of success by claiming damage caused by other factors as his own handiwork.

Spurred by the new tape, Muslim radicals using chat rooms on Islamic websites debated on Friday what weapons could be used to attack an oil tanker in the strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.

Bin Laden "sees us as poised on this precipice, and he's going to push us into the abyss," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Rand Corporation.

As Bin Laden put it in his video remarks aimed at Americans just days before the November 2 presidential election: "The real loser is you. It is the American people and their economy."

The al-Qaeda leader cites the experience of Afghan mujahideen fighters "in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers" - meaning the Soviets.

Bin Laden was among the US-supported Islamic fighters in Afghanistan, backed with money and weapons in hopes of weakening the United States' opponent in the Cold War.

Underlying economic weakness

The Soviet comparison was aimed as much at bin Laden supporters as at Americans, says Rand analyst Hoffman. While the Soviets' underlying economic weakness is now commonly accepted, "don't forget that 15 years ago, very few people thought that", Hoffman said.

"That's how he motivates and animates people and addresses morale - telling them, 'No one thought we could achieve that feat, and by the same token no one thinks we can achieve this feat of defeating the United States, but we will'," Hoffman said.

Retired General William Odom, a scholar at the Hudson Institute and an expert on the Soviet collapse, said bin Laden's analogy is off base since the Soviet Union collapsed for reasons other than Afghanistan, including the weakness of its state-run economy.

As far as spending on Iraq, Odom said damage to the US economy is not attributable to bin Laden, but to the Bush Administration for embarking on the costly war, he said.

In the fall of 2003, Congress approved $87.5bn for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $25bn more last spring, and Bush is expected to request another $75bn to $100bn early in 2005.

Own policies jeopardise US economy

"If we're stupid enough to go off and do something like that, bin Laden can justly crow about it," Odom said. "But I don't think he can take credit for having caused it."

Unless the United States plays into his hands, however, Odom said no al-Qaeda strategy can topple US dominance. "In an operational sense, US-made policies, not bin Laden's actions, have risked putting the United States in a very serious situation," he said.

Terrorists "have never brought down a liberal democracy," Odom said. "Terrorists like bin Laden can cause trouble but they're not a strategic problem, they're a tactical nuisance."

Reinforcing that point from an economist's perspective, Princeton University economist Alan Krueger said, "The US economy is too large and diverse to be sunk by terrorism.

"The US government budget is overflowing with red ink because of the Bush tax cuts and the aging of the baby boom generation, not because of Osama bin Laden," Krueger said in an e-mail.

On the video, bin Laden asserted al-Qaeda is the cause of U.S. losses in battle: "All we have to do is to send two mujahideen to the furthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written 'al-Qaeda', in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses. ..."

'Excellent understanding'

Hoffman noted that bin Laden also tried to take credit for US economic difficulties after the September 11 terror attacks, including the sharp drop of the Nasdaq stock market and corporate scandals such as Enron.

Bin Laden has "an excellent understanding" of economic targeting, said Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrew's University in Scotland. But he would need a bigger strike to hurt the United States - one aimed at a critical part of the economy, Ranstorp said.

"Unless they strike at the stock exchange, unless they strike at the exact critical nodes in our infrastructure, I think the economy can certainly absorb that," he said.

Last summer, federal authorities raised the terror alert for financial institutions after uncovering an alleged al-Qaeda plot to attack the New York Stock Exchange and the Citicorp building, also in Manhattan; the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington; and Prudential Financial Inc headquarters in Newark, New Jersey.

Intelligence indicated al-Qaeda had conducted surveillance of the buildings, authorities said. Although the information dated back several years, counter-terrorism officials noted that al-Qaeda has a record of extensive planning and plotting.

- AP