Laden's tape aided re-election: Bush

US President said his 2004 victory over Senator John Kerry was inadvertently aided by Osama bin Laden.

US President George W Bush said his 2004 re-election victory over Senator John Kerry was inadvertently aided by Osama bin Laden, who issued a taped diatribe against him.

HT Image

This happened before Americans went to the polls, The Examiner newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Bush said there were "enormous amounts of discussion" inside his campaign about the 15-minute tape, which he called "an interesting entry by our enemy" into the presidential race.

Bush's comments in the Washington newspaper were excerpts from the new book Strategery by Bill Sammon, a long-time White House correspondent.

"What does it mean? Is it going to help? Is it going to hurt?" Bush told Sammon of the bin Laden tapes.

"Anything that drops in at the end of a campaign that is not already decided creates all kinds of anxieties, because you're not sure of the effect."

"I thought it was going to help," Bush said. "I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn't want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush."