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One Year Later:
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda
With Peter L. Bergen
Author/Journalist/Terrorism analyst
Monday, Sept. 9, 2002; Noon ET
A year after the terrorist attacks in New York and the Pentagon, the United States's military and foreign policy course have changed to encompass mounting tensions in Central Asia and the Middle East. The scope of the war on terror has made judging allies and coalitions more difficult. And the question of Iraq looms large. What's the state of the U.S. strategy with respect to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda? Where should we go from here?
Author, journalist and CNN terrorism analyst Peter L. Bergen, one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden in person, was online to discuss these questions on Monday, Sept. 9.
Bergen is a veteran news producer for ABC News and CNN, where he reported on various news stories including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He has written for publications including The New Republic, Vanity Fair and The Times of London. A graduate of Oxford University, Bergen won the Leonard Silk Journalism Fellowship and was a Pew-Journalist-in-Residence at Johns Hopkins University in 2001.
The transcript follows.
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washingtonpost.com:
Good afternoon, Peter, and welcome. Recently there has been talk from some parts the U.S. military of calling off the search for Osama bin Laden. One of the points was that the search is taking away from the overall war on terror. Do you think giving up looking for bin Laden is a wise course of action?
Peter L. Bergen: Last time I checked, I thought that was the whole point of the war. I think that that response illustrates some frustrations that they're going out on these missions and coming up with nothing. But just because they're coming up with nothing doesn't mean there's nothing there. I think those statements are reflecting frustrations about the lack of success rather than anything about whether bin Laden is alive or dead or in Afghanistan or not. But I think it would be a very poor idea to give up looking for him.
Washington, D.C.:
With regard to the car bombs last week in Kabul and the attempted assassination of Hamid Karzai in Kandahar -- who do you think is more likely responsible? Al Qaeda or the Taliban?
Peter L. Bergen: I think the fact that there were two events sequentially within a few hours is a signature of al Qaeda. If it were just the car bomb, I'd say it was the Taliban. If it were just the assassination attempt, I'd say it was the Taliban.
And in fact Dr. Abdullah said it was al Qaeda, so let's take his word for it.
Washington, D.C.:
What do you think of Karzai as Afghanistan's leader? Did the assassination attempt expose a weakness? What do you think of his prospects for the future?
Peter L. Bergen: Hamid Karzai seems like a rather good compromise. Clearly, the assassination attempt indicates that the fact that U.S. Special Forces who were added to his bodyguards saved his life. I think if he continues to have the U.S. Special Forces as his bodyguards, it will certainly lengthen his tenure on the planet. There's a school of thought that the future is pretty grim for Afghanistan, but in fact, compared to the past 23 years, the situation in Afghanistan is much better.
Washington, D.C.:
I completely fail to understand why bin Laden has not yet been apprehended. The U.S. simply has not brought adequate pressure to bear upon our Saudi, Pakistani, and other "allies" to make them cough bin Laden up.
Given the Saudi royal family's affinity for bin Laden and his cause, have we mis-selected Iraq as our target -- shouldn't we really be trying to wipe out the cadre in control of Saudi Arabia?
Peter L. Bergen: That's an interesting question. The problem about finding bin Laden is the problem about finding individuals. We had thousands of troops in Mogadishu in 1993 looking for Aideed for quite a period of time, and we never found him. And it's an intellectually defensible proposition to say that the Saudis have fomented more anti-American terrorist activities than the Iraqis. There's no evidence that Iraq has been involved in terrorism against Americans. The last was the attempted assassination of George Bush Sr. in 1993, but that's it. Whereas Saudi businessmen continue to fund al Qaeda and there's an important role in al Qaeda -- not necessarily the royal family blessing it, but there's a role there.
Arlington, Va.:
Does Scott Ritter have any credibility in the intelligence community? If I remember correctly, his previous insubordination was supposedly the result of his claims that the Iraqis were getting away with murder, whereas now he claims that Iraq threatens no one. From what little I know of his background, he's done more resume stretching in the past than the Feds' anthrax suspect. He impresses me as a media hog. Just wondering if you know if my impression is shared by anyone important?
Peter L. Bergen: You can certainly say that he's taken a turn -- he was the most skeptical about Iraqi claims about not having weapons of mass destruction, and now he's the most sanguine. And his trip was paid for by the Iraqi government.
Los Angeles, Calif.:
What is your response to reports of links to Al Qaeda and Iraq being used to justify a possible attack? My understanding is that al Qaeda is anti-Saddam because there is no islamic state in Iraq.
Peter L. Bergen: Agreed. And in fact, when we met with bin Laden in '97, he told us at the end of the interview that he thought Saddam was a bad Muslim. That's about as bad as you can get in bin Laden's eyes -- being a bad Muslim.
washingtonpost.com:
A Swiss official recently said that al Qaeda's assets remain intact and have been converted to diamonds and gold -- more privatization of terror. There's no possible way to cut off their access to wealth, is there?
Story: Al Qaeda's Wealth Still Intact, Says Swiss Official (Reuters, Sept. 5, 2002)
Peter L. Bergen: My general view is that the money question has been a bit of a red herring, because we're looking at it through a Western lens. Clearly, you can't persuade someone to fly a jetliner into a skyscraper because of money. It's about belief. And even though the 9/11 events cost seemingly a lot of money -- $200,00-$500,000, the stock market lost a trillion in value the following week, New York suffered damage up to $300 billion -- gigantic effects for a relatively small investment. That's what terrorism. That's what bin Laden's secret is. It's not money; it's people willing to commit suicide for their beliefs. Without that, you wouldn't have the World Trade Center, you wouldn't have the U.S.S. Cole.
I think following the money is a useful investigative tool, but it's not a useful preventative tool.
Harlingen, Tex.:
Terrorism is certainly a serious danger, and has been for many years. But is our response to it really a "war" in other than a rhetorical sense?
If we are engaged in such a war, when will we know when it is at an end, and what are the limits of executive power while it's in progress?
Peter L. Bergen: The war on terrorism is clearly a metaphorical war -- the military component is essentially over. In fact, it would be more usefully described as a war on terrorists, really. And so when can we declare victory? I think when we're no longer having these online discussions. When it's no longer at the forefront of our consciousness. Terrorism's been around in its modern form since the '60s and '70s, and it's not going to go away. It's a problem that can be managed -- once we can manage it, then we can declare a sort of victory.
Philadephia, Pa.:
In terms of preventing future terrorist attacks, should the U.S. be more concerned about Iraq or Iran? Is the Bush administration looking in the wrong country for al Qaeda?
Peter L. Bergen: I don't think we should be particularly concerned about either Iran or Iraq. I think we should be concerned about al Qaeda, which is in more than 60 countries, including the United States. But the last time we were looking in the wrong direction; we weren't looking right here. My concern about all this talk about Iraq is that it was al Qaeda who killed all those Americans a year ago, not Iraq. And there is still a lot we don't know about al Qaeda, not least of all is where is Osama?
Los Angeles, Calif.:
What is a useful preventative tool? Do you think the Bush Administration is preventing terrorism?
Peter L. Bergen: The proof has sort of been in the putting. Since 9/11, the most significant al Qaeda attack has been 14 German tourists in Tunisia. Which is a tragedy for each of those individuals and their families, but it's not 9/11. Which is not to say we should sit back and say we won the war on terrorism, because these guys operate on a pretty long time scale. There have been some big successes. The defeat of the Tabliban. Al Qaeda means "the base" -- and these guys just lost their base. It makes al Qaeda a non-replenishable resounce in some ways -- they had training camps and a government that was sympathetic; that's all gone.
Washington, D.C.:
It seems that the interviewer for the current Al Jazeera feature on al Qaeda caught one of the representatives mentioning bin Laden in the past tense, and also noted the apparent disarray of their organization.
At what point can we declare bin Laden dead and move on? He's going to end up as a mysterious, mythical figure at this rate, when he's probably buried under a rock in Tora Bora. Let's face it, we'd have heard from him by now.
Peter L. Bergen: I'm of the empirical school, which is until there's evidence he's dead, let's not presume he's dead.
And we're about to hear from him. Al Jazeera is airing something from bin Laden talking in an hour and a half, and CNN is going to be on the case soon thereafter. It may be stuff that was recorded a while ago and is being presented as new, who knows? But I'm presuming nothing about bin Laden's status.
New York, N.Y.:
Will Bush's insistence on attacking Iraq, coalition or no, make the situation worse?
Peter L. Bergen: It will certainly inflame the al Qaeda people of the world. If there was a successful outcome, of course that would be a good thing. But war is an uncertain thing.
Peter L. Bergen: The important thing to remember is that the people who really want to kill Americans are al Qaeda. The war in Iraq could distract from that.
Chevy Chase, Md.:
How do you perceive the attack on Iraq would help fight the so-called "war on terrorism" and help stabilize the region? Why attack Saddam Hussein if he is one of many leaders around the world who is in possession of weapons of mass destruction?
Peter L. Bergen: Dick Armey had a good response to this: the United States doesn't unilaterally go to war against other countries. If we did, is there a laundry list of other countries we're going to go after next? It seems a slightly dangerous precedent created by it. But the administration is now talking about the United Nations and coalition building -- they're making all the right noises.
Washington, D.C.:
Appreciated your reviews of books by Malise Ruthven and "Anonymous" in yesterday's Washington Post Book World. What other books along these lines would you recommend? In particular, what do you think of Rohan Gunaratna (Inside al Qaeda) and Ahmed Rashid? washingtonpost.com:
Portrait of the Enemy, (Post, Sept. 8)
Peter L. Bergen: I think Rohan did a nice job. Some of it is a little dense, but he's got a lot of good information.
Ahmed Rashid's Taliban book was excellent. Again, a rather dense book, but the definitive work on the Taliban.
Those are serious books.
Cumberland, Md.:
In view of the farce that the Moussaoui case has become, would not it have been better to put him before a military tribunal? Is this defendant not the "poster boy" for military tribunals?
Peter L. Bergen: I'm opposed to military tribunals, because I think that open trials are very useful exercises, not only because they are a tremendous source of information for journalists and for the public, but also because they show people's true colors. Moussaoui's pretty much admitted his guilt in a very public way, and people can draw their own conclusions.
Piscataway, N.J.:
How big of a setback was it for al Qaeda when Mohamhed Atef died?
Peter L. Bergen: He was a military commander, but we're about to hear from his replacement, who doesn't seem to be any better.
Khalid Sheikh Muhammad -- Al Jazeera's going to air an interview with this guy on Thursday. All sorts of news about how 9/11 was planned. The problem is not that it's just one or two people, there are about 15 or 20 people, all of whom are bad news.
washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
Stay tuned to Live Online:
Author
Paul Light on "Government's Greatest Achievements" at 1 p.m. ET
Poet
Robert Pinsky on "9/11" at 1 p.m. ET
The
Chat House: Kornheiser and Wilbon at 1:30 p.m. EDT
Travel
Talk at 2 p.m. EDT
Fast
Forward: Rob Pegoraro at 2 p.m. EDT
One
Year Later: State Department on Afghan Aid at 3:30 p.m. EDT
One
Year Later: White House Adviser Karen Hughes at 3:30 p.m. EDT
Astrologer
Charlene Lichtenstein at 6 p.m. EDT
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