ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) --
Pakistan's president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead
because
Musharraf: I would
give the first priority that he is dead
the suspected terrorist has
been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease.
"I think now, frankly,
he is dead for the reason he is a ... kidney patient," Gen. Pervez
Musharraf said on Friday in an interview with CNN.
Musharraf said Pakistan
knew bin Laden took two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. "One was
specifically for his own personal use," he said.
"I don't know if he has been getting all that treatment in
Afghanistan now. And the photographs that have been shown of him on
television show him extremely weak. ... I would give the first
priority that he is dead and the second priority that he is alive
somewhere in Afghanistan."
In Washington, a senior Bush
administration official said Musharraf reached "reasonable conclusion"
but warned it is only a guess.
"He is using very
reasonable deductive reasoning, (but) we don't know (bin Laden) is
dead," said the official, who requested anonymity.
"We don't have remains
or evidence of his death. So it is a decent and reasonable
conclusion -- a good guess but it is a guess."
The official said U.S.
intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and,
"it is fairly obvious
that that could be an issue when you are running from place to
place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in a
mountain hideout."
Other U.S. officials
contradicted the reports of bin Laden's health problems, saying there is
"no evidence" the suspected terrorist mastermind has ever suffered
kidney failure or required kidney dialysis. The officials called such
suggestions a "recurrent rumor."
Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. forces in central and southwest
Asia, said Friday that he had not seen any intelligence confirming or
denying Musharraf's statements on bin Laden's condition.
The United States has said that bin Laden is the prime suspect in the
September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that
killed about 3,000 people.
Hunt for bin Laden
The United States launched its campaign in Afghanistan after the
country's ruling Taliban refused to turn over bin Laden.
Earlier this week U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he
believed bin Laden and Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammed Omar
were inside Afghanistan but "we are looking at some other places as well
from time to time."
Rumsfeld noted there were dozens of conflicting intelligence reports
each day and said most of them were wrong. Most of the reports are based
on sightings by local Afghans that cannot be verified.
There are reports that bin Laden and his convoys have been sighted
recently by a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle.
A senior Defense Department source said the lack of credible information
about the two was so severe that many officials believe the U.S. would
catch bin Laden or Omar only through pure luck, or an "intelligence
break" -- essentially one of their associates turning them in.
Top CIA analysts who track bin Laden and Omar have been asked for their
best assessment on the two men's whereabouts. That has led to a variety
of thoughts, placing bin Laden in Afghanistan, in Pakistan or Iran, on
the open ocean onboard a ship, or headed north through Tajikistan or
Uzbekistan -- if he is still alive.
The videotape seen worldwide several weeks ago of bin Laden talking
about the September 11 attacks was made in Kandahar. He then apparently
disappeared -- possibly going north to Tora Bora.
Franks said there was evidence bin Laden was in Tora Bora but he gave no
indication of when that might have been. In October, intelligence
officials thought they had bin Laden pinned down to a 10-square-mile
area in the eastern central mountains of Afghanistan.
Two senior military officers told CNN it would not have been hard for
bin Laden to change location several times because vast areas of
Afghanistan are virtually unseen by the U.S. military, and he would have
been even harder to spot if he moved without his telltale large security
contingent.
Even before the war, bin Laden moved around frequently, making it
difficult for the United States to determine his location and launch an
attack against him.
