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Daschle Says U.S. Must Find Osama bin Laden, Ex-Taliban Leader
Thursday, February 28, 2002
(7:10 PM ET)
By Alan Fram
Associated Press Writer

"They're bootstrapping this operation into adopting the dramatically higher defense spending they'd been proposing before this ever happened," said the Senate Budget Committee chairman, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "That's a budget tactic they're using."

WASHINGTON -- AP
The United States must find Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders for the war on terrorism to be a success, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Thursday amid mounting Democratic challenges to President Bush's defense policies.

The South Dakota Democrat told reporters that while the campaign against terror has been successful so far, "the continued success, I think, is still somewhat in doubt."

Daschle said the United States must find ex-Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network, "or we will have failed."

"I think that it's critical that we keep the pressure on," he added. "We do the job that this country is committed to doing. But we're not safe until we have broken the back of al-Qaida. And we haven't done that yet."

Daschle joined a slowly growing chorus of Democratic criticism of Bush's defense plans. On Wednesday, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, complained "there's no end in sight" to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

With elections for control of Congress in November, Bush and the fight against terrorists remain so popular that Democrats have been cautious about disparaging either. But they have begun searching for ways to criticize aspects of Bush's anti-terrorism policies and his defense budget while still voicing overall support for the anti-terror effort.
(More: The Nando Times News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

Dan