Al Qaeda, Bush wage media war as anniversary nears

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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14732258/

Al Qaeda, Bush wage media war as anniversary nears


By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
Updated: 8:49 a.m. CT Sept 8, 2006

LONDON - With striking symmetry, al Qaeda and the United States have waged a propaganda war this week in which both sides agree on one point: the central role of Osama bin Laden, even after five years in hiding.

A video aired by Al Jazeera television on Thursday purported to show bin Laden meeting some of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers as they trained for their 2001 mission to strike the United States in attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

It followed a series of anniversary speeches by President George W. Bush in which he has focused heavily on the figure of bin Laden and even quoted him extensively to underline the threat which he says al Qaeda still poses to the United States.

The rival salvoes were the latest in a long-running battle for hearts and minds, and served to highlight weaknesses on both sides: for Bush, the failure to catch bin Laden; for al Qaeda, the reliance on old footage of a leader who has not issued any new video message since the eve of the U.S. presidential election nearly two years ago........

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1. "See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over

again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."-- George W. Bush