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CNN Live At Daybreak

Interview with Michael Rubin

Aired August 20, 2002 - 07:30   ET

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

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There are some new indications that al Qaeda has been at work inside of Iraq, but not necessarily with the cooperation of Saddam Hussein. CNN has learned that in recent weeks the U.S. has been monitoring a suspected chemical weapons factory that has been linked to al Qaeda.
Details now from CNN national security correspondent David Ensor, who joins us from our Washington bureau -- good morning, David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, U.S. officials are telling us that in recent weeks the Bush administration considered a covert CIA and military mission against a suspected al Qaeda associated chemical weapons test facility in northern Iraq, in an area that is not controlled by Saddam Hussein. The officials now say that for now at least no such mission is imminent and one senior official has told us that any possible attack has been called off.

U.S. intelligence officials have been saying for some time now that al Qaeda has been in northern Iraq, in an area under the control of Kurdish militants. Because the area is under Kurdish control, U.S. officials stress they have no reason to believe that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would have been aware of what was happening there.

Sources say the site, which is primitive, was being used for chemical weapons tests, using a chemical called ricin, against barnyard animals and possibly against one human.

Now at the White House, a spokesman said there would be no comment at all on the matter since it involves possible military targeting. Another official pointed out, though, that the area is within the northern no fly zone, which has been patrolled since the end of the Gulf War by U.S. and Allied war planes and therefore it could, of course, be struck -- Paula.

ZAHN: So, David, is there any information the administration's giving you about why the covert action was called off?

ENSOR: No, and it may not have been called off forever. This is a site that they were watching very closely for some time. It's very simple. It's small. It's basic. But the mere fact that these kinds of chemical weapons, which, of course, we were discussing quite a bit yesterday on CNN, are being experimented with by this group, which is called Ansar al-Islam and has some ties with, officials believe, to al Qaeda, the mere fact that that was going on has obviously got their attention and they're watching the situation closely. Some further action in the future can't be ruled out entirely -- Paula.

ZAHN: Thank you so much, David Ensor.

We're going to have more on that right now.

As we have said, this weapons factory is reportedly in an area of Iraq controlled by Kurds.

And Michael Rubin from the American Enterprise Institute spent several months in northern Iraq investigating radical Islamic groups. He joins us from Washington this morning.

Welcome, Mike.

We're glad to have you with us.

MICHAEL RUBIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, IRAQ EXPERT: Thanks. Glad to be here.

ZAHN: Now, in your travels through the Kurdish controlled part of Iraq, did you ever see any evidence of a weapons factory of this nature?

RUBIN: I didn't see the weapons factory, but I traveled in the area where they now say that it's located. It was controlled by a group of Islamist militants that on September 1, 2001 declared themselves to be Ansar al-Islam.

ZAHN: And why would they choose that part of Iraq?

RUBIN: It, actually, I traveled a lot in Afghanistan and it reminds me a great deal of Afghanistan. It's fairly inaccessible. It's very mountainous. And it's easy to transport and smuggle both to areas of Saddam Hussein's control and also, more importantly, from Afghanistan through Iran.

ZAHN: But this particular area we're talking about is not in control of Saddam Hussein. Do you really believe what U.S. officials have told CNN and other news organizations, that they really don't think Saddam Hussein had anything to do with this factory?

RUBIN: Well, there's three or four members of the group that we know come from Mosul, which is a city under Saddam Hussein's control. And, of course, in Iraq ordinary Iraqis don't have freedom to travel. So that's curious.

But more intriguing is the link to Iran. You had some of these people bragging at dinner parties of their training in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. The leader of the group, since 1993, had made three trips to Afghanistan and to traverse, to smuggle an individual across Iran is one thing. But to smuggle jeeps and 4x4s, Toyota Land Cruisers across more than 1,000 miles is something different and it's just that the Iranians may not have been as cooperative in the war on terror as they'd like us to believe. ZAHN: Let's come back to the point you made, though, that one of these gentlemen came from a town that is, indeed, controlled by Saddam Hussein. Are you suggesting then there is a linkage here between Saddam Hussein and this factory?

RUBIN: There's actually at least three of the members of Ansar al-Islam came from the town of Mosul. Now, the area near the Iranian border where this group is located is not under the control of Saddam Hussein and these three may have somehow escaped or smuggled themselves out of Saddam Hussein's territory.

But because of the restrictions on freedom of travel within Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it's an issue that I'm sure U.S. intelligence will be pursuing.

ZAHN: What was your reaction when you had heard that there had been a covert operation planned that was called off? And as David Ensor reported, maybe not completely, you know, we don't know. It may happen in the future, but it's certainly been called off for now.

RUBIN: Well, this group, there were rumors several months ago about U.S. forces in the region which were never confirmed, rumors I'm talking about in the Turkish press and in the Kurdish press, because there's a relatively free press up in northern Iraq.

Now, there are also groups -- the great majority of the territory in northern Iraq -- first of all, the territory controlled by the Kurds is about twice the size of New Jersey and the pro-U.S. Kurdish groups control about 95 percent of it. So we're only talking in that other five percent. And we might simply rely on the pro-U.S. Kurdish groups, some of whose leaders were in Washington last week, to go after this group instead of us.

I mean this group has tried to assassinate our allies' leaders. It's ritually decapitated and mutilated 40 of the anti-Saddam, pro- U.S. Kurdish troops. So we might rely on the Kurdish militias to go after this instead of us.

ZAHN: But how reliable are they? There's a, are they, there's a lot of cynicism about their power to do what you're just talking about.

RUBIN: There's a lot of cynicism, but this group first, their first military action actually came -- I'm talking about Ansar al- Islam -- came on September 11, 2001 and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talibani, which is very pro-American and pro- Turkish, has been at the forefront of fighting this group ever since, with considerable success. The major obstacle is the terrain.

ZAHN: Well, you've given us a lot to think about this morning.

Thanks so much for your perspective. Appreciate your dropping by.

RUBIN: Thank you.

ZAHN: Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. Love to have you back.

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