WASHINGTON (AFP) - He is America's most reviled man, the face of global terror and of the September 11, 2001 attacks. But it is only this week that Osama bin Laden became an issue in the US presidential campaign.
Democratic candidate John Kerry rolled out bin Laden's name repeatedly Monday, citing the US failure to nail him in the Afghan mountains as a prime example of President George W. Bush's "colossal failures of judgment."
"Instead of using US forces, we relied on the warlords to capture Osama bin Laden when he was cornered in the mountains," the Massachusetts senator said in a speech at New York University.
"He slipped away. We then diverted our focus and forces from the hunt for those responsible for September 11 in order invade Iraq."
Kerry came back harder in a televised interview later, calling the December 2001 decision to call in local forces when bin Laden was believed surrounded in the Tora Bora mountains "catastrophic."
"He turned to Afghans, who one week earlier, were fighting against us and said, 'You go up in the mountains and get this guy, the world's number-one terrorist,'" Kerry told popular talk-show host David Letterman.
"And the result is Osama bin Laden and all of Al-Qaeda have now grown, they're more dangerous, they're all over the world, and we are going to have to prosecute this war more effectively."
The Democrat had for months mentioned bin Laden rarely and only in passing before deciding late last week to refocus his campaign on the Republican's record in Iraq and the war on terror.
Bush, for his part, never refers on the campaign trail to the Saudi-born terrorist mastermind whom he once vowed with typical Texan swagger to bring in "dead or alive."
The president does make frequent mention of ousted and imprisoned Iraq leader Saddam Hussein, whose brutal 24-year rule is now the main justification used by Bush for the March 2003 invasion.
Taking aim Monday at Kerry's claim that going to war was a mistake, Bush countered that: "Incredibly, he now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power, not in prison."
So the two biggest names in the US pantheon of current villains have ended up on opposite sides of the political divide: If Saddam is a Republican poster child for success in Iraq, bin Laden is the Democrats' evidence of failure in the war on terror.
Speculation has been rife the Bush administration could pull an "October surprise" before the November 2 election and announce the capture of bin Laden.
A senior State Department security official raised eyebrows earlier this month when he suggested in Pakistan that the Al-Qaeda leader's days on the run might be numbered.
A Gallup poll two weeks ago suggested nabbing bin Laden would be a boon for Bush. More than two-thirds of respondents thought it extremely or very important that he be arrested or killed, even if dwindling numbers feel this will happen.
The Bush administration has played down its failure to bring in bin Laden, saying he has been marginalised and Al-Qaeda decimated with 75 top leaders knocked out of action. But his name still evokes dread in the United States.
When a gun-control group was lobbying for the extension of a 10-year ban on assault weapons 10 days ago, it ran a full-page ad in the New York Times showing bin Laden clutching an AK-47.
Former Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean got into trouble applying the American notion of "innocent until proven guilty" to bin Laden. He had to back off and call the Islamic militant a prime candidate for execution.
Dennis Hastert, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, sparked a furious Democratic response with his assessment over the weekend that Al-Qaeda would prefer to see a weaker Kerry in the White House than a stronger Bush.