Video: Bin Laden Hails Sept. 11

A new, undated videotape excerpt aired Wednesday shows Osama bin Laden hailing the major blow the Sept. 11 attacks dealt to the U.S. economy.

In a CBS News translation of the tape, bin Laden lists the impact of the attacks on Wall Street.

"According to their studies, the loss reached 16 percent and they said this loss is the greatest since the market was opened," he says in the tape aired by the the Saudi-owned, London-based Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).

The tape also includes images of al Qaeda fighters killed by American bombs, old statements from bin Laden and his aides and images of the falling World Trade Center towers.

In a related development, the Washington Post reported Wednesday that the Bush administration has concluded bin Laden was at Tora Bora when U.S. aircraft began bombing on Nov. 30, but escaped because American ground troops were not sent to pursue the al Qaeda leader.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the Post report "speculation."

The tape shown on MBC appears to be a segment of another video aired on Monday by Qatar-based satellite television network al-Jazeera. In both tapes, bin Laden is dressed in light-colored flowing robes and seated on a patch of grass next to a top aide, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Either bin Laden or someone loyal to him seems to have decided to launch a public relations offensive, sending about two hours worth of tapes to networks which broadcast throughout the Arab world, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.

On the newly disclosed bin Laden video, the suspected terror chief does some arithmetic on the Sept. 11 economic losses and seems pleased by the idea that Americans continued to suffer psychologically from the attack.

"This whole achievement came because of one strike," he said. "They say that they could not work because of the psychological shock. If you multiply $20 billion in one week, they would have lost $140 billion. Add this to $640 billion this equals around $800 billion. Add to this the loss in navigation companies. They also say that people are still suffering psychologically since the two towers incident."

MBC Chief Editor Nakhle al-Haj said the tape obtained by his station "best shows al Qaeda's involvement in masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks." Al-Haj wouldn't say when or how the tape was obtained.

On Monday, Rumsfeld said the Pentagon had obtained what appeared to be an old videotape with bin Laden on it, but that it was not clear whether it was the same tape aired by al-Jazeera.

In the excerpt broadcast by al-Jazeera Monday, Zawahri said: "Those 19 brothers who went out and sacrificed their lives for God were rewarded with this victory. This is a great victory, which was in fact achieved by the will of God Almighty and not because of our skill or superiority."

The Jazeera excerpt also included footage of Ahmed Alghamdi, a Saudi believed to be one of the 19 hijackers who piloted airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Wednesday's Washington Post said intelligence officials have what they consider to be decisive evidence, gleaned from interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden was inside the Tora Bora complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border when the battle began on Nov. 30, but escaped in the first 10 days of December.

The Post said the Bush administration had concluded that bin Laden escaped because U.S. ground troops were not sent to pursue him.

Rumsfeld bridled when asked whether U.S. Afghanistan war commander Army Gen. Tommy Franks had made a major mistake in his approach to the Tora Bora campaign, as alleged by unnamed U.S. government sources in the Post.

"My view of the whole thing is that until the lessons learned are known and have been developed … I wouldn't be able to answer a question like that, and it impresses me that others can from their pinnacles of relatively modest knowledge," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing.

Rumsfeld said he has no conclusive evidence of bin Laden's whereabouts and dismissed the Post report as "speculation."

Captured al Qaeda fighters, interviewed separately, gave consistent accounts describing an address by bin Laden around Dec. 3 to fighters dug into the caves and tunnels of Tora Bora, the Post said, citing intelligence officials.

"I don't think you can ever say with certainty, but we did conclude he was there, and that conclusion has strengthened with time," an unidentified official said in an authoritative account of the intelligence consensus, the report said.

"We have high confidence that he was there, and also high confidence, but not as high, that he got out. We have several accounts from people who are in detention, al Qaeda people who were free at the time and are not free now," the official said.

The report said a common view among those outside the U.S. Central Command is that Gen. Franks misjudged the interests of Afghan allies who did not live up to their promises and let pass the best chance to capture or kill bin Laden.

"We messed up by not getting into Tora Bora sooner and letting the Afghans do all the work," a senior official with direct responsibilities in counterterrorism told the Post.

Franks' chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, acknowledged the dominant view among those interviewed but dissents from the Tora Bora analysis, the paper said.

"We have never seen anything that was convincing to us at all that Osama bin Laden was present at any stage of Tora Bora - before, during or after," Quigley told the Post. "I know you've got voices in the intelligence community that are taking a different view, but I just wanted you to know our view as well."

"Truth is hard to come by in Afghanistan," Quigley said, and for confidence on bin Laden's whereabouts "you need to see some sort of physical concrete proof."