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American Morning

Where Will We Hunt For Osama bin Laden Next?

Aired December 28, 2001 - 08:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: If U.S. Special Forces are indeed leaving Tora Bora, where they were on the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the questions remain: Where is bin Laden, and where does the search go next?

CNN's terrorism analyst, Peter Bergen, joins me from Washington with more on that -- hello, Peter -- good to see you again.

PETER BERGEN, CNN'S TERRORISM ANALYST: Good to see you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: What do you make of these reports that bin Laden might have bought his way across the border into Pakistan? Plausible?

BERGEN: Well, I mean there have been conflicting reports. The president of Pakistan said at one point earlier this week that he thought bin Laden might be dead. We have the Afghan officials saying that bin Laden might be in Pakistan. We have a leading Pakistani cleric, who is accused of harboring bin Laden, denying it to CNN. So I think it's not at all clear, Miles. We don't even actually know if he is alive or dead, to be honest. Whether he is in Afghanistan or Pakistan, I don't think any of these questions are very clear.

O'BRIEN: But certainly, it's untenable for the government of Pakistan to allow Osama bin Laden to remain in that country.

BERGEN: I agree. And, you know, the Pakistani government has had quite a record of extraditing people to the United States or who are wanted by the United States, even though there is no extradition treaty between Pakistan and the United States. That happened with the World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef, in 1995. And it has also happened in other cases.

So and the Pakistani government is going after bin Laden with quite a lot of arguer. In fact, bin Laden six weeks ago issued statements against the Pakistani government. So if I was bin Laden, I wouldn't go to Pakistan. It's not a particularly good place to go.

O'BRIEN: But just -- I'm going to draw up this scenario one more step. If in fact there was some good solid intelligence that bin Laden might have moved into a cave into Pakistan, it raises the question as to whether U.S. forces might pursue him there. That becomes sort of a sticky wicket, doesn't it?

BERGEN: A little bit, although I think that the Pakistani government -- I mean, the Pakistani government is not going to tolerate a large number of U.S. ground forces. But I think small numbers of U.S. Special Forces that aren't very visible, I don't think that will be a problem. And if indeed he is over the border in a cave in Pakistan, as you know, the border is somewhat porous. It's often -- it's actually hard to tell where you are sometimes -- whether you're in Pakistan or Afghanistan in some of these very remote passes.

So it's not impossible he might have slipped over. But I don't think Pakistan is a very good place for him, nor is Afghanistan in the sense the government there is obviously going after him fairly aggressively. But Afghanistan is simply a better place to hide. It's a country where the topography is much more suitable to hiding than Pakistan.

O'BRIEN: Yesterday when we talked, we had seen that five-minute excerpt of the bin Laden tape. Now, you've had a chance to see the full 34-minute Al Jazeera release. Anything that struck you in that remaining portion?

BERGEN: You know, in the 34-minute version, you know, bin Laden didn't move his left side at all, which does indicate perhaps some kind of injury or something has happened to his left side. It's very unusual to talk for 34 minutes without gesticulating with one of your -- both of your hands. So that strikes me. He is looking -- continues to look not particularly well.

I think he said a number of interesting things on the tape. One, that he is prepared to die. He made that very explicit. Two, that he is calling for other attacks against American economic targets as a sort of way of attacking the United States. And finally, that he demonstrates an extremely detailed knowledge of the identities of the Trade Center attackers and comes very close to publicly taking credit for the Trade Center in a pre-taped -- in this pre-taped message.

O'BRIEN: You know, we keep looking for that smoking gun, but when you take all of these tapes in total, could there be any doubt of his guilt?

BERGEN: I don't think so. I mean, when you add in the tape, which was obviously not meant for public distribution -- the amateur videotape that we saw on December 13, and you add in all of these tapes, I mean, it's overwhelming. But I don't think that we didn't need a lot of convincing in the sense that, you know, bin Laden's organization is the only organization in the world that was capable of pulling off the Trade Center events. And hopefully, as it gets taken down, it will not be able to do those kinds of things again in the future, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Peter Bergen is our terrorism analyst. He is also author of the newly released book, "Holy War, Inc.," an excellent account of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda -- invite you to check it out if you want to learn more. Thanks for being with us, Peter.

BERGEN: Thank you, Miles.

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