What to Think?

Via the French, the Saudi's are claiming Osama Bin Laden is dead of Typhoid...a month ago:


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden may have contracted an illness and may be dead, according to several news reports Saturday, including Time Magazine. Time, citing unnamed Saudi sources, said officials have received "multiple credible reports over the last several weeks" that Bin Laden is suffering from a water-borne illness. The source said there is a high probability that Bin Laden has died from the disease, according to Time.

However, the source said there is no "concrete" evidence Bin Laden is dead, according to the report. And Reuters reported that government officials in the United States and France could not confirm details, but French officials did say they had launched an investigation into how a government report making the claim may have been leaked.

French President Jacques Chirac, speaking at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Compiegne, France,, said the Bin Laden's death was "in no way whatsoever confirmed," according to the Associated Press.

A French newspaper reportedly said that report concluded Bin Laden had contracted a serious case of typhoid fever in August and developed partial paralysis as a result. The report said the information came from a "usually reliable source."

So what to think? Afghan President Hamad Karzai thinks it's bunk: AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai said overnight that a French newspaper report that Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has died was mere speculation but that it would be good news if it turns out to be true.

Other of the usual suspects are being very circumspect about the report:
World leaders reacted cautiously today to a French newspaper report that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has died, while the French government probed the leak of an intelligence brief cited by the daily.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, when asked before meeting here with Sri Lanka's foreign minister whether she gave the report any credibility, said only: "No comment, and no knowledge."

Pakistan's interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, told AFP in Islamabad: "No, we do not have any such information with us."

Security officials hunting Al-Qaeda in Pakistan rejected the report.

Pakistani intelligence is throwing cold water on the whole thing: Pakistani intelligence circles have strongly refuted a French newspaper report claiming that al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden had died of typhoid in the country some time between August 23 and September 4 this year.
“Based on the information gleaned from several arrested al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, we can say with authority that Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman Al Zawahiri and the former Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar are very much alive and in good health,” said a senior intelligence official in Rawalpindi.

“We are sure that bin Laden is hiding somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said. “We believe that his deputy sometimes moves back and forth between the two with the help of Mullah Omar and his associates.”

So...if it's true, I say "Great!" Not quite as satisfying as seeing him hang in Times Square from his toes but there is a certain satisfaction that comes from the thought of such a man dying in a cave somewhere.

If it's not true...so what? The War on Terror is bigger than Osama, always has been. His capture or death would be a welcome development but does nothing about changing the bigger picture.

On the political front, it's essentially a win-win. If he's dead, the Democrats main talking-points on the War on Terror (Where is Osama? Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time) died with him. The Party of No Ideas insists getting OBL is their main priority. So what's left when he's gone?

If he still lives, it only serves as yet another reminder of the stakes involved and the committment necessary for success. Neither are something the Democrats enjoy talking about.