The 'cave man' speaks.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Osama bin Laden - Public Enemy No. 1 in the war on terror - has seized center stage again with the release of an audiotape that contains both the threat of pending al-Qaeda attacks within the United States and the offer of "a long-term truce with fair conditions."

The first communication from bin Laden since December 2004 was a treasure trove of contradictory revelations that provided ample grist for a range of competing interpretations on the status of the elusive al-Qaeda leader.

There was Vice President Dick Cheney's bin Laden, a crippled fugitive so scared to come out of his cave he couldn't even produce his trademark videotape.

There was White House press secretary Scott McClellan's bin Laden, a criminal unworthy of any response other than, "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business."

There was the Department of Homeland Security's bin Laden, a blowhard without the ability to back up his tough talk about pending attacks. Homeland Security is not planning to raise the national terror threat level from yellow, the middle of five grades signifying an elevated risk of attack.

But there was also the CIA's bin Laden. Despite a four-year manhunt by the most powerful nation in the world, the most wanted terrorist of all time was still alive and at large, according to CIA analysts. They confirmed that the voice on the audiotape was bin Laden's, and the tape contained a reference to a news event that occurred in late November 2005.

That means that Richard Clarke's bin Laden is still dangerous. Clarke, the former White House antiterrorism chief, wonders why bin Laden would make a direct threat of a pending attack "and risk being proved wrong, if he can't pull it off in a month or so."

The tape also reinforces the image of bin Laden as a media-savvy propagandist. The al-Qaeda leader made a direct appeal to the American people, offering his conditional truce because polls indicated "Americans do not want to fight Muslims on Muslim land, nor do they want Muslims to fight them on their land."

Clearly, bin Laden hopes to add the aura of statesmanship to his latest communique by presenting the possibility of a truce. In reality, the truce is a sham intended to legitimize whatever actions al-Qaeda takes after declaring that the offer wasn't accepted.

What's the truth about bin Laden? Most likely, a mix of all these perceptions. He is unquestionably weaker, yet certainly still deadly. And although his days may be numbered, his freedom continues to mock the Bush administration and to sharply call into question what the invasion of Iraq had to do with apprehending this mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.