For years, codebreakers have been struggling to unravel the secret language of Alan Greenspan, writes columnist Larrry Elliot in this morning’s U.K. Guardian The best brains from the world’s elite universities have burned the midnight oil to crack the code. But to no avail.

Greenspan scrambles his thoughts in his own personal Enigma machine, from which they emerge as incomprehensible gobbledegook when he surfaces from the depths of the Federal Reserve.

Until now. For we can now reveal that the years of toil have paid off and it is now possible to decipher what Greenspan really thinks.

Here in its unexpurgated form is what the Fed chairman was going to say on Capitol Hill before the encoders got to work: “First things first. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington last month were terrible events, and we must not shrink from our duty of bringing the guilty men to book. But when the politicians say that we are winning the war against Osama bin Laden they are utterly wrong. I’ve no real idea whether carpet bombing Afghanistan means we are achieving our military objectives, but I know one thing: the economic war has already been lost. All that remains now is damage limitation. And boy, is there plenty of damage.

“The economic consequences of the war have yet to make it to the front pages of the papers or into the top slots on the TV bulletins. But they are profound, and it would be wise to wake up to the possibility that the global economy is now faced with a downturn that will be the worst since my predecessor, Paul Volcker, banged up interest rates in the early 1980s and forced us to endure all those dreary Bruce Springsteen songs about life in the rust belt.

“It would be wrong to assume that all the problems of the economy have been caused by terrorism. We were already on course for a recession in the second half of this year, and that recession will now be longer and deeper. The initial shock to the American psyche from the attacks was profound, and has since been amplified by the anthrax scare. From a personal point of view, however, being able to blame the terrorists for higher unemployment, the bankrupt businesses and the cuts in investment makes it easier to escape my culpability for America’s boom-bust cycle.

“At this stage, I really can’t tell you how bad things are going to get. But I would certainly beware of those who are predicting only a short, sharp reces sion followed by a rapid recovery early next year.