CAIRO, Egypt – Osama bin Laden vowed to bleed America to bankruptcy, according to a full transcript of unaired portions of a videotape released yesterday by an Arab TV station. The Qaeda leader’s remarks appeared targeted to the final days of the American presidential campaign in which the struggling economy is a major issue.

Mr. bin Laden boasted in his first appearance in more than a year that for every $1 Al Qaeda has spent on terrorist strikes, it has cost America $1 million in economic fallout and military spending, including emergency funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.

“As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers,” Mr. bin Laden said, estimating the deficit at more than $1 trillion.

In reality, spending in the war against terror and other factors have resulted in an expected $377 billion shortfall for 2003 – the highest deficit since World War II accounting for inflation. The total American national debt is near the $7.4 trillion statutory limit.

Mr. bin Laden dwelled on Al Qaeda’s economic strategy against America, according to the complete transcript of the 18-minute video that aired on Al Jazeera and was obtained by American intelligence. Al Jazeera broadcast about 14 minutes of the video Friday and put the full English language transcript on its Web site yesterday.

The terror mastermind whose Al Qaeda network carried out the September 11,2001 attacks credited the religiously inspired Arab volunteers that he fought with against the Soviets in Afghanistan with having “bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.” He suggested the same strategy would work against America.

“So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy,” a calm and forceful Mr. bin Laden said in the tape that appeared near the end of an American campaign that has focused on the war on terror as well as the foundering American economy. Mr. bin Laden, in rhetoric that seemed to echo critical campaign headlines in America, accused President Bush of going to war in oil-rich Iraq simply to create business for military contractors linked to his administration.

In his message aimed at American listeners, Mr. bin Laden claimed Al Qaeda was winning its war with America, and that contractors “like Halliburton and its kind” were also benefiting, while the losers were “the American people and their economy.”

Mr. bin Laden noted reports that Al Qaeda spent $500,000 “on the event” – referring to September 11 attacks – while America has lost more than $500 billion “in the incident and its aftermath,” he added, citing an estimate by a British think tank.

Evan Kohlmann, an American-based counterterrorism researcher, said it was as if Mr. bin Laden were following the news from America, perhaps on satellite TV, and drawing shrewd assumptions about what concerns Americans.

Al Qaeda has long made a point of hitting economic targets. The World Trade Center was likely targeted in the September 11 attacks both because attacking it would kill thousands and because the Twin Towers were symbols of America’s economic power. In a video that surfaced in December 2001, Mr. bin Laden said the September 11 attackers struck the American economy “in the heart.”

Mr. bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, comes from an Egyptian terrorist group that had attacked tourism and other economic targets in hopes of bringing down Egypt’s government. In an audiotape that surfaced in October 2002, Mr. al-Zawahri threatened new attacks on the American economy.

At about the same time, a small boat crashed into a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen and exploded. That attack was seen as a strike at international oil shipping. Saudi terrorists linked to Al Qaeda have attacked foreigners working in that kingdom’s oil industry.