Kent Conrad: “over the weekend, Osama bin Laden was again seen vowing that al-Qaida would launch suicide attacks against Americans and…”

“over the weekend, Osama bin Laden was again seen vowing that al-Qaida would launch suicide attacks against Americans and our allies. Frankly, it angered me to see these taped reports that again Osama bin Laden is threatening Americans. It has now been 771 days since al-Qaida launched terrorist attacks on American targets on September 11, 2001. For me, this report raised the question of why is Osama bin Laden still able to threaten this country? Why have we not been able to find him and bring him to account? I was reminded, in seeing these tapes, that just several weeks ago Newsweek magazine did a detailed analysis on where Osama bin Laden might be. They narrowed it down to Kunar province on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They had detailed reports in that article of Osama bin Laden being seen in this area. It struck me at the time, if we have a pretty good idea of where Osama bin Laden is, why are we not flooding that area with American forces to take him out? Newsweek went on to report that: . . . bin Laden appears to be not only alive, but thriving. And with America distracted in Iraq and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf leery of stirring up an Islamist backlash, there is no large-scale military force currently pursuing the chief culprit in the 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials concede. I find that alarming. Osama bin Laden led the attacks on this country. We know that. There is no doubt about it.…”