Years Of Deceit: US Openly Accepts Bin Laden Long Dead

Yesterday, Gen Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, admitted that the trail was growing cold.

He said: "He can be in Tora Bora or in that area dead, he can be somewhere else in Afghanistan and still alive, or perhaps he may have gotten over into Pakistan. I think we'll hear an awful lot of speculation, but right now we don't know which of those three categories he's in."

As White House staff put together a briefing paper on the first 100 days of the global war against terrorism, boasts of what would have been a major coalition achievement had to be put to one side.

Instead, the 24-page document referred only obliquely to bin Laden's uncertain whereabouts, declaring: "Leaflet drops and radio broadcasts continue daily to convey our determination, provide truthful information and encourage the capture of Osama bin Laden."

"Put it this way," said one administration official, "this thing would have looked entirely different if we'd actually killed or caught bin Laden by now."

Mr Bush's advisers are buoyed by his continuing high approval ratings - 86 per cent, according to an end-of-year survey by the Washington Post - and cheered that 70 per cent of Americans said in the same poll that they were confident that bin Laden would be killed or captured.