A new video by Osama bin Laden shows the Al-Qaeda mastermind as an "impotent" figurehead who poses little imminent threat to the United States, a top White House official said Sunday.
Frances Townsend, President George W. Bush's homeland security advisor, said the US intelligence community "believes it is bin Laden" following analysis of the tape, which surfaced Friday.
"The indications from the contents of the tape are that it was made recently. Certainly in the last several months," she said on Fox News.
"There's nothing overtly obvious in the tape that would suggest that this is a trigger for an attack," Townsend added.
"This is about the best he can do. This is a man on the run from a cave who is virtually impotent other than these tapes.
"We know Al-Qaeda is still determined to attack. We take it seriously, but this tape appears to be nothing more than threats. It's propaganda on their part."
But Democrats highlighted the tape as proof for their contention that Iraq has been a dangerous distraction from the "war on terror."
"This is an insult to everybody in the world that this man is still sending his tapes," Senator John Kerry, Bush's opponent in the 2004 election, said on ABC television Sunday.
"And it is the real failure because Iraq had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden in the beginning," he said.
In the tape, the Al-Qaeda supremo marks six years since the 2001 terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with a call for an escalation of the insurgency in Iraq.
There are two ways to end the Iraq war, bin Laden says, according to a transcript released by the US-based SITE Intelligence Group which monitors Islamic militant websites.
"The first is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you," he says.
The second is to do away with the US democratic system of government, which he says merely serves the interests of major corporations. Bin Laden also invites Americans to embrace Islam.
The tape surfaced before a week of drama in Washington as General David Petraeus and Baghdad ambassador Ryan Crocker, the top two Americans in Iraq, prepare to testify in Congress Monday and Tuesday.
Bush said Saturday that the new video showed how dangerous the world remains and how the United States must show resolve in Iraq.
"I find it interesting that on the tape, Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is a part of this war against extremists," the president said.
The tape was probably produced as recently as early August because of a reference to the 62nd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, a US intelligence official said.
It was bin Laden's first such appearance since October 2004, when he threatened new attacks against the United States in a video just days before the US presidential election.
Townsend reaffirmed the Bush administration's stance that finding bin Laden, while important, will not herald the end of the war on terror.
"Capturing and killing bin Laden is the number one priority, but it's not our only priority. We also have to be mindful of current ongoing threats against this country," she said on CNN.
But even some Republicans take issue with the downplaying of bin Laden, accusing the US government of bungling the hunt for the Al-Qaeda leader in the years after its invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
White House contender John McCain said bin Laden remains "a great danger."
For Islamists, "he continues to be a symbol for them of leadership in this radical hatred and evil radical Islamic extremism," he told ABC.
