Where is Osama bin Laden?

This is not a question I spend much time thinking about.

But I am acquainted with someone who does think about it. And he knows a lot more about this terrorist leader.

In April, that person, Peter Bergen, testified before the House Intelligence Committee and presented much valuable information about bin Laden.

I write about it here because the national media has given so little attention to his testimony. And talking with someone who has talked with bin Laden has made me feel less removed from him, his outlook, and his lair.

As to Peter Bergen’s qualifications, he was one of the last Western journalists to have interviewed Bin Laden. In his book, Holy War Inc., Bergen gives a gripping account of this 1997 event.

Together with Peter Arnett, then of CNN, and a cameraman, he was driven in a van from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, to Peshawar. This city serves as the gateway to the Khyber pass leading through the mountains into Afghanistan.

After passing through various check points, manned by armed guards, and other perilous adventures, the two came to the camp where Bin Laden was headquartered.

The three journalists were not allowed to use their own camera or sound equipment. Bin Laden’s people confiscated the devices, fearing that they might be equipped to track the exact location of their leader’s hiding place.

The journalists were treated to a meal before the interview. Then bin Laden entered the hut, and spoke at length in Arabic (though he knows some English), delivering his usual indictment of the United States. He emphasized the injustices he sees the U.S. committing against Muslims in Saudi Arabia and he called for jihad against America.

Since that time, Bergen has stayed in touch with developments and has become an expert on Al Qaeda. His grasp of terrorism impressed me, as it does others who have heard him speak.

In his testimony before Congress, Bergen posed three questions and answered them.

The first could be answered briefly. “How is the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda leaders going?” In one word, “poorly.”

The video and audio tapes bin Laden has released are clearly authentic, says Bergen, and prove that he is alive. The al Qaeda leader is also well and remains in charge of his terrorist organization. Nor does the U.S. have any reliable leads on his whereabouts.

The second question posed by Bergen is: What is the status of the organization al Qaeda today, and what are its prospects over the next five years?

The answer, in brief, is that, contrary to conventional views, it is still strong and resilient. As proof, Bergen cites several factors, among them the London attacks, its influence in Iraq, and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

Bergen believes the threat of an attack on the U.S. in the next five years to be low. Instead, al Qaeda will more likely make trouble for America in other parts of the world.

As to how the U.S. can implement policies more likely to defeat al Qaeda, Bergen proposes almost a dozen. Among them, only a few can be cited here.

America should lead the way in transforming Pakistan’s “Tribal Belt.” Efforts to find bin Laden should be redoubled. Many more Americans should learn to speak Arabic and the other languages spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries in the region.

It seems obvious to me that many of these changes should be adopted by the next president and the next Congress. However, both will almost surely face serious handicaps because of the need to resolve the Iraq fiasco. Many agree that this war has tended to hamper rather than eliminate the threat posed by bin Laden and al Qaeda.

This bin Laden-led terrorist movement and its offshoots rank as immense disappointments for us who hailed the collapse of the Soviet Union. We Americans rejoiced in the end of the Cold War and, for a time, thought we could look forward to a period marked by disarmament and by peace.

Realistically, most of us recognized that some nations would, almost inevitably, quarrel with one another. And, unfortunately, some of them would resort to war and other forms of violence, some of it directed against their own citizens.

World-wide terrorism, however, has come as a shock. Inevitably, it has chastened the outlook of us who had hoped for better times in our later life. And we have reason to feel disappointed for the younger generations who must live with this new kind of warfare.

Life in America has already been profoundly changed for the worse by the threats posed by terrorism. We older Americans see the new climate as extraordinary: our children and grandchildren, however, may come to regard it as normal.

I fear, as my age peers must too, that our still young century, in its own way, shows awful signs of embracing violence as did the century into which we were born.

Richard Griffin