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U.S. Vows to Prove Bin Laden's Guilt
WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (News Agencies) - The United States vowed Sunday to make a persuasive and public case to back up its charge that Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden masterminded apocalyptic terrorist attacks this month in New York and Washington.
But as Pakistan and other Muslim states pressed Washington to provide proof of its charge against bin Laden, senior U.S. officials also made clear they would not disclose evidence that could jeopardize investigations of the September 11th attacks.
Asked in a television interview if the United States would present to the world evidence supporting its assertion of bin Laden's guilt in the attacks, Secretary of State Colin Powell responded: "Yes.
"We will put before the world, the American people, a persuasive case that there will be no doubt when that case is presented that it is al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, who has been responsible" for the attacks, Powell said on the ABC network.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice echoed his comments.
"Clearly we do have evidence, historical and otherwise, about the relationship to the al-Qaeda network to what happened on September 11th," she said on CNN.
"We will begin to lay out that evidence and we will do it with friends, allies and the American people and others."
Powell, Rice and other officials noted that bin Laden had already been charged with other anti-U.S. terrorist operations including attacks on the naval destroyer USS Cole last year and on two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.
Bin Laden, in a statement carried by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency on September 16th, categorically denied however that he was involved in the September 11th attacks.
Rice dismissed demands from Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime for proof before they would agree to hand bin Laden over to the United States, describing that particular demand as "not helpful".
The Taliban "is not a government that is given to Western jurisprudence, so these calls for proof are somewhat misplaced" when coming from them, Rice said.
Bin Laden is known to have resided in Afghanistan as a "guest" of the Taliban and U.S. officials said they expected the Afghan regime to turn him over and assist in efforts to dismantle his al-Qaeda network.
The question of evidence linking bin Laden to the attacks however has assumed greater importance in the past week as the United States worked to assemble an international coalition to "rip up" and destroy terrorist organizations.
Muslim countries whose participation is regarded as vital to this coalition - Pakistan chief among them - have insisted that they be given proof of bin Laden's role in the attacks before supporting, in word or deed, a U.S. strike on Afghanistan.
"We have said, and many world leaders have said, that evidence should be shared with the international community," Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan said.
Other countries, including U.N. Security Council permanent members Russia and China, have also spoken of a need for evidence of bin Laden's guilt to be put on the table - by the United States and others with pertinent information - before any military riposte is undertaken.
"The attack on terrorists should be based on concrete evidence and the act should have a clear orientation that should not hurt innocent people," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Tuesday.
Washington claims that it already has this evidence and is in the process of acquiring more of it, but U.S. officials have also cited a "dilemma" about how much of it should be shared and whom it should be shared with.
"The fact is that we are not going to jeopardize this investigation ... in order to satisfy the Taliban that Osama bin Laden and his network are responsible," Rice said.
The closest thing to a public disclosure of evidence from a U.S. official came when Senator Orrin Hatch said in television interviews a day after the attacks that intelligence agencies had intercepted phone conversations linking bin Laden to them.
Hatch was quickly and soundly reprimanded by top U.S. officials, who said his remarks compromised the investigation of the attacks, and the United States has since made public no evidence of bin Laden's involvement in them.
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