Author:
Publications: The Times of India
Dated: October 6, 2001
WASHINGTON: The United States has
said that it backed the "facts and conclusions" in a British report accusing
Osama bin Laden of last month's terrorist attacks but refused again to
reveal its own evidence pointing to the Saudi militant's guilt.
State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher said London had provided Washington with a copy of the report before
Prime Minister Tony Blair presented it before his parliament earlier on
Thursday and that US officials had cleared it. "We saw it in advance,we
looked at it, enough to confirm the facts for them, we agreed with the
facts as asserted in the British paper," he said.
"We agree with their conclusions,"
Mr. Boucher said. "I do not have any reservations about the British paper."
Earlier, Mr. Blair became the first western leader to outline publicly
evidence against Osama bin Laden for the September 11 attacks in New York
and Washington.
He released a 20-page dossier to
parliament that said Bin Laden and his Al-Qaida network had planned and
carried out the atrocities, and been able to do so because of the support
of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime. Mr. Boucher said Washington had
cleared the document because it did not contain information that could
jeopardise U.S. intelligence sources or practices. However, he declined
to say when an American version of the evidence would come out.
"We will continue to look for opportunities
to make information available in an unclassified form for the general public
(but) I don't have any-thing for you today."
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir
Putin on Friday fully backed Mr. Blair's view that imminent military action
against Bin Laden and the Taliban was necessary to curb international terrorism.
During a meeting between the two leaders at the Kremlin, Mr. Blair said
any western military action would not be limited to Bin Laden's network
in Afghanistan and the Taliban militia harbouring the "terrorist number
one" would also not escape retribution, ITAR-TASS reported.
