defiant spirits like those of the 19—may God have mercy on them". Bin Laden further accuses U.S. President George W. Bush of misleading the American people during the previous three years—"Despite entering the fourth year after September 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened"—as well as criticizing Bush's actions on the day of the attacks: "It never occurred to us that the Commander-in-Chief of the country would leave 50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone because he thought listening to a child discussing her goats was more important." Immediate reactions George W. Bush said: Let me make this very clear: Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I'm sure Senator Kerry agrees with this. I also want to say to the American people that we're at war with these terrorists and I am confident that we will prevail. Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry said: Let me make it clear, crystal clear: as Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. They are barbarians, and I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes. Period. Intelligence response Even though Al Jazeera (when broadcasting the footage on its evening newscast) did not disclose the source of the video, sources within the United States intelligence community have confirmed that the speaker, who appears behind a lectern, is indeed bin Laden. By mentioning 2004 U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry by name, the tape seemed to prove that bin Laden was still alive at least midway through 2004, which was not known with certainty at the time. According to the Agence France-Presse, U.S. diplomats in Qatar were given a copy of a videotape of Osama before it aired on al Jazeera television; the diplomats unsuccessfully sought to prevent the Arabic language network from broadcasting it. The United States State Department requested that the government of Qatar (where Al Jazeera is located) discourage the station from airing the videotape, according to a senior State Department official. Even though the tape was analyzed by American intelligence to determine if it contains any coded messages to operatives, White House spokesman Scott McClellan commented that there were no plans to