Intelligence Sources Contradict Myth of 'Osama's Cave'

[Hissyspit]

Source: Raw Story

Intelligence sources contradict myth of 'Osama's cave'
Jason Rhyne
Published: Tuesday September 11, 2007

White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend hit the Sunday political talk circuit to dismiss the new video from Osama Bin Laden as an essentially empty threat, planned in the seclusion of a cave--but journalist James Gordon Meek tells RAW STORY that his intelligence sources say the popular image of a cornered, cave-bound Bin Laden is a myth.

In a story by Meek posted early Sunday on the website of the New York Daily News--hours before Townsend made the talk show rounds--a dozen experts agreed that the top terror leader is more likely to be living in the relative comfort of a "cozy compound" than huddled in a mountainside cave network.

"A lot of people in the intelligence community have -- no surprise -- a very different view of the enemy and the battleground than the White House does, once again," said Meek in a Monday email interview with RAW STORY.

In his piece for the Daily News, Meek had cited a former Pakistan-based CIA station chief, Robert Grenier, who told him that Bin Laden was "probably not living in a cave," but rather "living in a fairly comfortable, though Spartan, compound somewhere in northern Pakistan."

"More than a dozen career counterterrorism sources painted essentially the same picture about how (Bin Laden) lives day to day," Meek confirmed to RAW STORY.

Frances Townsend, however, in an appearance on Fox News Sunday, portrayed a weakened, faltering Bin Laden scratching out a harsh fugitive existence. "This is about the best he can do," she said. This is a man on the run from a cave who is virtually impotent other than these tapes."

Asked why the White House would employ the use of a cave image, even as intelligence officials deny its accuracy, Meek points to history.

"Go back to World War II and look at how we belittled our Japanese and German enemies to harden the national resolve for the fight," Meek said, calling the language "hyperbole" that was "as old as war itself."

Read more: http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Intelligence_sources_contradict_myth_of_Osamas_0910.html