Bin-Laden Sums Up Well the Bush "War on Terror" Policy

"It is easy for us to provoke and bait this administration.
All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin
[jihadists] to the furthest point east to
raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-
Qaida, in order to make the generals race there
to cause America to suffer human, economic,
and political losses without their achieving for
it anything of note other than some benefits
for their private companies . . . So we are continuing
this policy in bleeding America to the
point of bankruptcy. . . . That being said . . .
when one scrutinises the results, one cannot
say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving
those spectacular gains. Rather, the policy of
the White House that demands the opening
of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations—
whether they be working in the field
of arms or oil or reconstruction—has helped
al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.
And so it has appeared to some analysts
and diplomats that the White House and us
are playing as one team towards the economic
goals of the United States, even if the intentions
differ. . . . for example, al-Qaida spent
$500,000 on the event [the 9/11 attacks], while
America, in the incident and its aftermath,
lost—according to the lowest estimate—more
than $500 billion. Meaning that every dollar
of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the
permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge
number of jobs."

The above is quoted in Lustick, Ian S. "Our Own Strength Against Us: The War On Terror as a Self-Inflicted Disaster." Independent Policy Report. The Independent Institute. April, 2008. (Available at: http://www.independent.org/pdf/policy_reports/2008-04-04-lustick.pdf)

This speech was broadcast on Al-Jazeera television on November 1, 2004. I haven't found a current online video version of it yet.