Al-Hayat’s Scoop
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The day after President Bush redefined America’s strategic policy in his speech to West Point graduates, Al Qaeda outlined its own foreign policy goals. Quoted in the London-based daily newspaper Al-Hayat, a spokesman for Al Qaeda announced his terror group is planning another large-scale attack on America. One wonders exactly who is this spokesman — or, should one say, spokesculprit. Al-Hayat says his name is Sulaiman Abu Gaith, but the individual’s whereabouts are unknown. How did he issue what amounts to a press release to this pan-Arab paper? If Al-Hayat’s editors can manage to contact and quote at length this enemy representative, America, with its powerful military, intelligence resources, and technology should also be able to find the fellow. In short, it may not be so newsworthy that Al Qaeda, which murdered 3,000 Americans last year, vows to kill more Americans. What is newsworthy is that after eight months of war against Al Qaeda, we have failed to still their spokesmen. As long as Al Qaeda continues to have the infrastructure to flaunt its objectives, we know this war really has just begun.