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Bush pours scorn on Bin Laden, vows no end to hunt
( 2001-12-29 09:15 ) (7 )

President Bush on Friday poured scorn on Osama bin Laden and made clear that despite Afghan calls for a quick end to U.S. bombing, the United States would hunt the world's most wanted man for as long as it takes to find him dead or alive.

In a voice dripping with sarcasm, Bush described bin Laden as a man on the run, a man in charge of a cave with the door open or closed and a man who in three months swapped control of a country for control of a cave.

Making his first direct comments since Christmas holidays when a new videotape of bin Laden set off reports that the chief suspect for the Sept. 11 suicide hijack attacks had escaped to neighboring Pakistan, Bush said the Saudi-born militant's main achievement had been to be on the losing side of a rout.

The mountainous Tora Bora region was thought to be the last redoubt of bin Laden's al Qaeda network before they were blasted from the region's myriad caves by U.S. bombing.

Fahim said there would be no need for U.S. bombing once a few remaining border areas had been cleared of final resistance.

Earlier his spokesman said this would take no more than three days after which the bombing must stop.

The United States, though, said it had received no request to stop the bombing, and declined to make such a promise.

Bush and his military commander in charge of the Afghan operation said they were keeping all their options open.

``We don't know whether he's in a cave with the door shut, or a cave with the door open. We just don't know. There's all kinds of reports and all kinds of speculation,'' Bush said of bin Laden. ``But one thing is for certain: He's on the losing side of a rout.''

With operational commander Gen. Tommy Franks at his side at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, Bush said he expected U.S. forces to remain in Afghanistan ``for quite a long period of time,'' as long as Franks said was necessary.

Bush also declined to sign on to any suggestion that bin Laden was no longer in a position to mastermind another attack on the United States or its allies, saying intelligence reports showed that he or his al Qaeda network could strike again.