Bin Laden wanted US to invade Iraq, author says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Bin Laden wanted US to invade Iraq, author says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): "Abdul Bari Atwan is one of the only Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, spending three days with him in the mountains of Afghanistan in 1996. He is the editor-in-chief of the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabia, and the author of The secret history of Al Qaeda. ABC TV's Lateline presenter Tony Jones interviewed Mr Bari Atwan on the program last night. TONY JONES: When you met bin Laden, he told you that his long-term plan was to 'bring the Americans into a fight on Muslim soil'. That must have sounded like madness at the time, but now we have Iraq. ABDUL BARI ATWAN: It seems Osama bin Laden had a long-term strategy. He told me personally that he can't go and fight the Americans and their country. But if he manages to provoke them and bring them to the Middle East and to their Muslim worlds, where he can find them or fight them on his own turf, he will actually teach them a lesson. It seems the invasion of Iraq fulfilled Osama bin Laden's wish. That's why the Americans are losing in Iraq, financially and on a human basis, and even their allies, including Australia, are really losing patience, losing money, losing personnel, losing reputation in that part of the world."