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"Looking for Answers"
With Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman
Producer/Filmmaker and Correspondent, "Frontline"
Friday, Oct. 12, 2001; 11 a.m. EDT
The Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. were not only the most horrendous terrorist attacks in history, but they also represented the U.S. intelligence community's biggest failure since Pearl Harbor. How could the CIA and FBI have missed the plot to strike two of the most potent symbols of the U.S. government and economy? What happens next?
In "Looking for Answers," airing on PBS Tuesday, Oct. 9 at 9 p.m. with an encore broadcast Thursday, Oct. 11 at 9 p.m. EDT, Frontline examines what went wrong with intelligence and how the U.S. government fails to understand why and how much Muslim fundamentalists hate America, beginning with support for Israel and other "moderate" Arab states in the Middle East. A Frontline co-production with the New York Times, this special episode is anchored by Bill Moyers.
Award-winning producer and reporter Martin Smith produced the program with special correspondent Lowell Bergman. They were online to talk about what they learned Friday, Oct. 12.
The transcript follows.
Smith, who served as Frontline's senior producer from 1990 to 1994, produced, directed and co-wrote "Hunting bin Laden," which was re-broadcast on PBS on Sept. 13. (He later discussed the film on washingtonpost.com.) For Frontline, he also produced the Emmy Award-winning "Drug Wars," in 2000, a look at 30 years of American drug policy; "The Real Life of Ronald Reagan"; "Who Pays for AIDS?"; and "The Bombing of West Philly." He also investigated private funding for the Nicaraguan contras in "Whos Running this War?" and produced "Revolution in Nicaragua" for the Peabody Award-winning Frontline series "Crisis in Central America."
An award-winning reporter, producer and journalism consultant, Bergman has produced and worked on numerous Frontline films, including "Hunting bin Laden"; the June 2001 "Blackout," exploring the California energy crisis; "Drug Wars"; and "Murder, Money and Mexico," a 1997 report on corruption in the former Mexican president Carlos Salinas administration. He began as a print reporter, co-founded the non-profit Center for Investigative Reporting in 1977 and helped launch "20/20" for ABC News in 1978. He was a producer for CBS's "60 Minutes" for 14 years, winning numerous Emmy awards and a Peabody Award for investigative reporting. His most famous story focused on the tobacco industry, dramatized in 1999's Academy Award-nominated film "The Insider." Currently, Bergman is a contract reporter and TV consultant to the New York Times and is a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.
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San Francisco, Calif.:
Mr. Bergman and Mr. Smith,
I am HUGE fan of your series on the Frontline program. Very well produced and educational. Q:
You have been interviewing (or interviewed in 1998) a follower of the blind cleric, Rakman (sp?). Who is he and what is his relationship to the cleric, other than follower to Islamic fundamentalist movement. Is he analagous to what a Sein Fein representative would be to the IRA?
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: Yes. Ahmed Satar was a close aide to the blind sheik, and still, as far as I know, maintains contact with him, though I don't know whether he's able to. Up until a few years ago, they were keeping in touch. He's also a paralegal and a spokesperson for the blind sheik. He's been investigated and under surveillance, and I know soon after Sept. 11, his apartment was searched. But he's never been convicted. He remains on the safe side of the law, and a free man.
We were all stunned when we listened to him, because he's intelligent and articulate. But he gives one an insight into the minds of those people who have committed terrorist acts. Although he says he deplores violence, he says he believes in self defense. He told us he would never turn the other cheek if attacked, but he would punch us right in the face. We asked him to do an interview again, and he said he was going to decline that, and he said he deplored the violence that he saw on Sept. 11. We didn't have a chance to ask him many other questions.
What he said as that the assassination of Anwar Sadat was good work. He told us in 1998 that in this war between this war between the United States and Islam, that there was going to be more violence. His full interview is published on the Frontline Web site. -- Martin Smith
Lansing, Mich.:
Why is everyone so quick to accept the belief that Sept. 11 was an intelligence failure? The historical background surrounding the world of intelligence would imply otherwise. The South Asian research desk of the Directorate of Research (CIA) would have to have been utterly incompetent to have overlooked the imminent threat. There is a great deal more to this story than "failure." The truth lays somewhere buried in the murking operations of the CIA, the ISI, and the previous George Bush Sr. administration.
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: I assume that the questioner is referring to the ISI in Pakistan, which is closely related to the Saudi government. But I'm not sure what their meaning is from their question. Clearly, U.S. agencies put out an alert, they thought something was happening, but they didn't know what it was. And we still haven't untangled all the different messages, reports and apparent snafus that allowed some of the apparent hijackers into the country. -- Lowell Bergman
Boston, Mass.:
If Osama bin Ladden's goal is to create an "Islamic state" or "nation" that will essentially transcend the boundaries of the existing Arab nations, how can we continue to think that the creation of a presumably secular Palestinian state, to exist alongside Israel, will satisfy his stated -- albeit vague -- goal relative to Palestine? Does he not bolster the argument of many Israelis that the Palestinians are not really a separate people who deserve an independent state, but are rather part of the larger Arab world and should have been assimilated into existing Arab nations long ago?
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: I would answer that by saying that the creation of a Palestinian state has never been a priority for Osama bin Laden. If you look at his fatwas over the last eight years, his primary concern is the stationing of troops in the Gulf states, and primarily in Saudi Arabia. But he has in recent years attempted to exploit widespread Muslim anger over the treatment of Palestinians in order to build support for himself. But I think on his part it's cynical, although perhaps effective. I agree with the questioner that his primary interest is in some unification of the Umma under one leader who would presumably be bin Laden. -- Martin Smith
Alexandria, Va.:
Yesterday a Saudi prince blamed the World Trade Center attack in part on U.S. support of Israel, after which New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani rejected a $10 million charitable donation from the prince.
Did Mayor Giuliani do the right thing? He said it was dangerous to rationalize the murder of five thousand New Yorkers as a type of political protest.
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: If Mayor Giuliani thought he was doing the right thing, then he was doing the right thing. It seems to me that in order to understand what happened, we have to look at motivations. And in order to understand why it is that bin Laden's statements have resonance in the Islamic community, even though someone like this prince rejects his tactics, you have to discuss the issues. I would suggest to the mayor that rejecting people's opinions is not going to help solve the problem.
The rationalization concerns why this happened. It doesn't necessarily justify that it happened. -- Lowell Bergman
Biddeford, Maine:
To what depth do United States policy makers grasp the culture, history, and values of a foreign country before they, for lack of better words, make deals with its leaders?
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: The government is not monolithic. There are many people, many professionals, in the State Department, in the Pentagon, who I'd say have tremendous grasp of the issues. The problem comes when one has to make decisions, and is faced with contradictory information. So while it may not look as if people understand, and while some of our policies may not seem thought through, it's not for lack of people within government who understand the problems. However, the people who make the decisions in the Executive Branch may not always do the best job of weighing the intelligence information that they're given. In any organization, the people at the top are not always the best informed. -- Martin Smith
To the people at the top, there are other considerations -- political considerations, reelection considerations and the immediate reaction of people in the United States. -- Lowell Bergman
Houston, Tex.:
In the late 1990's, Ramzi Yousef's planned to blow up 11 airliners over the Pacific. In addition, Murad, a Pakistani working closely with Yousef told U.S. and Philippine police that they were planning to attack CIA headquarters by crashing a plane into or gassing the CIA's Langley headquarters. It also turns out that Murad was a U.S. trained commercial pilot. Did anyone in the intelligence community ever seriously consider that Al Qaeda just might try to pull off a coordinated terrorist attack using Yousef's original idea of aircraft as weapons? And how seriously is the intelligence community taking the threat biological or chemical weapons especially considering that the use of gas was also part of Yousef's thinking regarding terrorist attacks in the U.S.?
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: Our understanding, and go to the Web site and look at the interview with Lew Schiliaro, former head of the FBI in New York and head of the Nairobi bombing case and escorted Yousef to jail. Mr. Schiliaro, like Mike Sheehan, former head of counterterrorism at the State Department (transcript also available), acknowledged that they had information related to Ramzi Yousef, but never took seriously the idea of using a commercial airliner as a weapon. Clearly, the surprise here to U.S. authorities was the coordinated event involving planning over many years, and the ability to do that and avoid detection.
In the outtakes, in another transcript, Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador, indicates that there in fact was some advance knowledge of the hijackers, but he doesn't explain or give any further detail. -- Lowell Bergman
Baton Rouge, La.:
The Muslim news agency, Al Jazeera, that broadcasts to 20 some odd Muslim countries is said to be a voice for bin Laden and anti-western ideas. As Frontline and ABC have reported this news agency is broadcasted via satellite. This may be an off the wall question, but can the coalition stop or take out the satellite transmissions of this news agency? Who own's the satellite? Could we shoot it out of the sky?
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: This person may misapprehend what Al Jazeera is all about. It is considered, as Prince Bandar says, subversive by the government in Saudi Arabia. As well as in Iraq to Saddam, or other countries. If we are to believe Al Jazeera, they want more participation by U.S. officials in their broadcasts. And it's my understanding that they have interviewed Israeli officials as well as others who would not have been available to the Islamic community. -- Lowell Bergman
If, over this last month, had CNN or MSNBC or ABC news had an uplink in their office in Kabul that was functioning, and had received tapes from al Qaeda, it's likely that they would have disseminated the information just as Al Jazeera did. And you notice that nobody here shied away from airing Al Jazeera's material. Al Jazeera simply was the only news organization that had a functioning office in Kabul. That's why they got the tapes. -- Martin Smith
Edgewater, Md.:
Was this a failure of "policy" (Administration did not put a high enough priority on issue), of intelligence "collections" (IC failed to target and "collect" specifics of time and place of attack), of intelligence "analysis" (there was plenty of data/information, but analytic community missed or misread evidence), or some of all three. Explain.
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: Again, I'd refer you to our Web site. We are told that lots of stuff is intercepted. The big problem is deciphering it and then searching it and knowing where to look, and having enough Arabic speakers who are also knowledgeable analysts and know what they're looking for. This has been acknowledged by the CIA and the FBI. That's one level of problems. Another level, which has been discussed quite a bit since Sept. 11, is human intelligence, or actual sources and people in the field. -- Lowell Bergman
One can find failures all around here. One of the biggest, in terms of policy, was the failure to pay attention to Afghanistan after the war against the Soviet Union was over. -- Martin Smith
Washington, D.C.:
I read the transcript of your interview with Satar and was surprised to see he is a U.S. citizen. Do you have any sense of how he reconciles that with his apparently deep animosity for the U.S. -- why did he immigrate and why did he become a citizen?
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: I don't know the specific circumstances of Satar's leaving Egypt, but many Egyptians left because they were going to face jail or worse in their homeland. He is a follower of the blind sheik, who left the country not long after the assassination of Sadat. The government believes that the sheik was behind that assassination, although the Egyptian courts failed to convict him. At that time, hundreds of Egyptians were leaving the country, and Satar was one of them. -- Martin Smith
Morrisville, N.C.:
Mr. Smith and Mr. Bergman,
To the best of your knowledge, does Osama Bin Laden's network have ties to American terrorist organizations? During the Oklahoma City tragedy, I vaguely remember reading Terry Nichols meeting terrorists in the Philippines.
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: No. Plus, I don't think there's anything close to al Qaeda operating in the United States -- an American-based terrorist organization. -- Martin Smith
Arlington, Va.:
Just wondered, as that Armitage guy pointed out during last night's broadcast, the reporter seemed to adopt the bin Laden view that America should get out of the Middle East. Is it really necessary to adopt a subject's point of view? Seemed odd.
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: Deputy Secretary Armitage reacted as if I were representing bin Laden's perspective, and I think he failed to understand the question, which is that many people that we spoke with agree with many of the grievances that bin Laden cites, but disown his methods. -- Lowell Bergman
Nutley, N.J.:
On the program, people were allowed to present points of view that should have been challenged. For example, we were told by one that the U.S. is a "great oppressor" of people around the world, but the role played by the U.S. in saving Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Somalia, Afghanistan (from the Russians), not to mention the large amounts of foreign aid we give, was not mentioned. Prince Bandar was allowed to get off without serious questioning. His government's refusal to freeze bin Laden's assets or to allow us to investigate the Saudi hijackers seem to me to smack of collusion with the terrorists.
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: The questioner should check the transcript on the Web -- Prince Bandar takes exception, saying that they have frozen Osama bin Laden's share of the family business. -- Lowell Bergman
The program does point that we give significant aid to Egypt. -- Martin Smith
But the questioner is correct to point out in the program we do not say that we give most of the humanitarian aid to Afghan refugees. Whatever we did, we did too late in Bosnia. In Kosovo, it's true, we did intervene, and it's as much a criticism of the Europeans as anyone, because they didn't intervene. The questioner is correct; in the Islamic world, the perception is that we only do it when we have to because of other interests. We didn't intervene for years in the Balkans until it became clear it was destabilizing Europe. -- Lowell Bergman
Edison, N.J.:
I am somewhat dismayed by how apathetic our Saudi Arabian allies seem to be to our cause. I am thinking specifically about their refusal to allow U.S. personnel to interrogate the Khobar Towers bombing supsects before beheading them, their refusal to accept bin Laden from Sudan for arrest, and recent reports about their refusing to cooperate in freezing suspected terrorists assets.
Do you feel that the Saudi government is trying to appease their people in not going along with the U.S. openly or do they really not care too much about helping us with this problem of terrorism?
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: That's a very good question. I think that the issue here isn't so much of appeasement. But the Saudi government has to walk a very fine line. The fact that they don't always cooperate with U.S. intelligence agents is because many in Saudi Arabia agree with much of what bin Laden says, although many would disagree with his tactics. But if the government appears to be simply kowtowing to U.S. demands, the government risks alienating its own people. And their primary concern is stability of their government. And therefore, they don't always cooperate with the U.S. demands.
Saudi Arabia is a closed society, but from what we can discern about it, there is significant fragility to the government's hold on power. Therefore, the government has to walk a very fine line. -- Martin Smith
San Francisco, Calif.:
One important point (that I am about to describe) was not mentioned on the "Target America" episode and I hope that it will be explored in a future episode. You mentioned the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, and soon afterwards the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. What you did not mention was that after a truck bomb successfully attacked the Embassy, security should have been increased to prevent this from being successful at the barracks, but it is a matter of public record that the Marine sentries who had the responsibility for guarding the barracks were ordered not to have any ammunition in their weapons. This allowed the same exact type of attack on the barracks that was earlier done at the Embassy and it resulted in 241 dead Marines. No lessons were learned from this because the same thing happened again in 2000 when the suicide killers used a small boat instead of a truck when they (in Osama's words) "destroyed the Destroyer Cole." The sentries on the USS Cole, again, were ordered not to have any ammunition in their weapons. Again the military trusted the terrorists more than they trusted their own sentries to protect sailors and Marines against a terrorist attack that was similar to those earlier terrorist attacks. Did the U.S. military learn the importance of armed sentries from all of these bloody defeats of America? If not, how many more times will American military personnel die because their sentries were not allowed to have ammunition in their weapons? If officers in the Pentagon don't trust enlisted personnel to be armed sentries, they should use officers for that purpose.
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: Clearly, there's a learning curve here. But I'm not sure that had the sentries on the Cole been armed, it would have been a different outcome. There was not great suspicion aroused until right before the bomb went off. -- Martin Smith
Orlando, Fla.:
We hear so much about the hunger and economical woes in Afghanistan -- does Bin Laden give humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan?
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: It's a tenet of Islam to give a certain percentage of your money to humanitarian causes. Bin Laden has always claimed to have done this, and there's evidence that during the war against the Soviet Union, he was quite active in this way. Whether he does so now, I have no idea. -- Martin Smith
Washington, D.C.:
With mounting evidence that the WTC '93 bombing can be tied to Saddam Hussein and Iraqi intelligence and beliefs that Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the 22 terrorists on the White House list and the only remaining fugitive connected to that bombing, supposedly living in Baghdad, possibly under protective status, where do we fit Iraq and Saddam Hussein on the list of possible state sponsors behind the recent terrorist attacks and how do we confront the issue of Iraq as a threat despite any success we may achieve in Afghanistan?
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: The intelligence apparatus of the United States government does not currently believe that there are any substantial links to Saddam Hussein. It has been widely reported that Mohammed Atta had one or two meetings with an Iraqi intelligence official. But beyond that, there seems to be nothing more to go on, at least as of yet. The preponderance of evidence points to bin Laden. Bin Laden is a fundamentalist and Saddam Hussein is a secularist, and they do not share common values. -- Martin Smith
Gaithersburg, Md.:
Huge fan of the Frontline programs. In many a occasions, I think it is the only well balanced program in the media that provides both sides of the views on tough issues.
Question: Most people here trashed the idea that one's terrorists are others' heroes. What are your opions? Especially in light of the recent events.
Martin Smith and Lowell Bergman: I think that's historical fact. The evidence is that yesterday's freedom fighters are today's terrorists, when looking at Afghanistan. I'm sure the British weren't fond of George Washington.
I see bin Laden as more of a messaianic figure willing to commit mass murder than as a political activist. His political program is extremely anti-progressive. -- Martin Smith
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