Poll: Fewer Americans expect bin Laden to be caught

[cal04]

Nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans are less optimistic that
Osama bin Laden will be captured or killed and say they believe al-Qaeda will remain a threat even if he is caught. A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday also found that more than three-quarters of those surveyed say they believe bin Laden is planning a significant terrorist attack against the United States.A majority, 53%, predict he will succeed.

Nearly seven out of eight say it remains important to the United States for bin Laden to be captured or killed.Though bin Laden continues to have enormous symbolic value as the mastermind of 9/11, most Americans say his capture or death would do little to increase the nation's safety.

"I think everybody has come to understand that it's important to get bin Laden from a psychological and symbolic perspective. ... It would be the clearest form of justice for Sept. 11," says Charles Pena, a national security analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. "But that's balanced by the reality that people have come to understand that we are no longer dealing ... with al-Qaeda as this relatively small group of terrorists. We are dealing with a much larger problem."

In a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board Tuesday, Homeland SecuritySecretary Michael Chertoff said that although it "would be significant" if bin Laden were captured or killed, "it's a mistake to personalize this. This is not a one-man band or a one-man show." Bin Laden was last seen by the public Oct. 29, when the Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape before the U.S. presidential election, in which President Bushfaced Democrat
John Kerry.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050810/ts_usatoday/pollfeweramericansexpectbinladentobecaught

[radwriter0555]

1. And most of those people still think jesus is coming back too.. which

pretty much says it all.

[stubtoe]

2. No big surprise there. I still think Michael Moore had it right:

Osama is very likely home in Saudi Arabia with his family, getting the medical attention he needs for his kidney problems. That's why we can't seem to "find" him.

[KeepItReal]

3. So we could have won WWII and just let Hitler go free?

Chertoff is full of Novak.

[wli]

4. Why would he be caught? He still works for Bushler et al

[MADem]

5. This proves one interesting point

The boyking told us that the man can run, but he cannot hide. Seems to me ole Usama has been doing a bang-up job in the "hiding" department....

[Jack The Tab]

6. He will be pulled out for the '06 or '08 election.

I'm really surprised he wasn't pulled out for the '04 election, but I guess those CONSTANT terror alerts did a good enough job.

BTW, what ever happened to those alerts?