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CNN Live Today

CNN Reporters Answer Viewer E-mails About al Qaeda Videos

Aired August 23, 2002 - 11:34   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: All this week, we have been bringing you our series "Terror on Tape." It is based on a collection of al Qaeda videotapes obtained by CNN. Now it's your chance to comment and also to ask questions.
Joining us, our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, who actually brought the tapes out of Afghanistan.

Also, in Washington, CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen.

Gentlemen, good morning, both of you. Thanks for being with us here.

And we are going to get right to it.

I have it say, I'm not surprised: As always, our viewers, as smart as they are, writing in some great questions and appreciating the opportunity it talk to both of you.

First question -- this one coming from Mary in Detroit. She asks, "How did you decide to take only 64 of the 251 tapes? Were you allowed to preview tapes?"

And actually, I'm just going to combine that. Jason in Toronto later asks, "If you showed us part of it, what was on the part that you didn't show (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

NIC ROBERTSON, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: First of all, I only had a limited amount of time to look at the material. But it was enough time to get a good sense of it. I was able to look at all the tapes I wanted to look at. I was directed to some of the tapes; I was told that these ones would probably be interesting. They...

KAGAN: By the source who was giving you the tapes?

ROBERTSON: Exactly. By the source. I put them to one side; I moved on. He said there is a lot of other material here, but he said a lot of it is just air checks of CNN news reports over the last five or six years.

KAGAN: Don't need to look at that.

ROBERTSON: Well, you always want to check. So I said, OK, let's put a few of them in, let's check. And it was. It was old stories about the situation in Israel, about Libya or about situations in Africa. So I just put those to one side. I figured those weren't very interesting. Took the interesting ones. KAGAN: From what you brought back, clearly, we haven't not just put on tapes for 24 hours; we had to make a decision some stuff we are going to show and some stuff we are not. How was that decision made?

ROBERTSON: On the tapes, we had somewhere between about 120 and 140 hours of video. So there's a lot of video there. We filtered it down and put out what we thought, and our analysts thought as well, were the most interesting elements.

But there is a lot of stuff that isn't there. There's some pretty gruesome stuff from Bosnia and from Chechnya as well that is not on there. And material from Somalia and Sudan and from Chad and from (UNINTELLIGIBLE). There's a lot of other locations and a lot of other sort of Osama bin Laden speeches that we had heard before. We were seeing them for the first time, but again, we put out what our analysts thought were the most relevant bits.

KAGAN: Got it.

Let's move on. Peter, we are going to bring you in for this one.

This is from Bob in Redondo Beach, California, and he writes, "Why do you think that no one has been successful or perhaps no one has, in fact, turned Osama bin Laden in for the millions in possible rewards?"

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, Daryn, I think the short answer to that question is there has been a reward of $5 million on bin Laden's head even before 9/11, for two years; now it is $25 million. I think the short answer to that question is the people around him are not motivated by money. Clearly, they are aware of this reward; it is being widely advertised in Afghanistan, Pakistan. No one is taking it up.

The other thing also is that if one person is trying to give -- you know, bin Laden knows Pakistan and Afghanistan very well. Nic was earlier saying that there is a belief that bin Laden might be in Northwest Frontier of Pakistan. These are places that he has been visiting since 1982. They are almost like a second home. He has been building, you know, basically places to hide in the mountains throughout the war against the Soviet Union. I imagine he may be using some of those. That is why it is going to be very hard to find him.

KAGAN: This next question is a personal one for Nic, and it comes out of San Francisco, wanting to know, "Do you have a wife? Do you have kids? Were you thinking about them while you were en route to obtain these videos?"

ROBERTSON: I do have a wife and children. And yes, I did. Whenever I'm at work, because I'm away from home a lot of time...

KAGAN: You don't have a conventional job, Nic.

ROBERTSON: It is pretty unconventional. Whenever the job slows down, that's what I think about. I think about my family. I'm thinking about them right now, and I'm looking forward to meeting up with them soon. This particular trip has been a long one away from them.

KAGAN: We wish you safe travels back there. We aren't letting you go just yet.

Peter, you travelled to a lot of dangerous places in your work as well. Do you consider your personal safety when do you that?

BERGEN: I don't travel to as many dangerous places as Nic does consistently. Usually, I'm actually focused on the job. And usually, I find these places to be quite exciting to be in, rather than necessarily worrying. And of course, you always never think you that you are going to be a victim. I was held up at gunpoint in Afghanistan in '93, during the middle of the civil war. So I have had some encounters which were a little distressing.

On the other hand, you just never think that it is really going to happen to you.

KAGAN: Ongoing theme that we have talked about with different reporters here throughout the morning.

Peter, next question for you, coming from Toby in Fort Lauderdale, Florida: wants to know -- actually, a compliment to you, that your book "Holy War Inc." really enlightened me. Where do you think Osama's feelings for Saddam lie now? Do you think they could unite against their common enemy (America), or does bin Laden still dislike Saddam?"

BERGEN: I think there's no real great love between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. In fact, a very interesting find in Nic's videotapes is a documentary about Saddam Hussein that takes a very critical view of Saddam. I don't think it was made by al Qaeda, this documentary, but it is a documentary that criticizes him for his war crimes against the Kurds and also criticizes him as not being sort of sufficiently a good Muslim leader. So that represents the real view of al Qaeda, this videotape. In fact, when we talked to bin Laden in '97, right at the end of the interview, after the formal part of the interview was over, he described Saddam as a bad Muslim. So that's really his real beliefs.

Would they perhaps get together and do something at some point? It's not entirely impossible. I think it's extremely unlikely.

KAGAN: Next question is for Nic. "Although the contents of these tapes are disturbing" -- this is coming from Ryan in Hamilton, Ontario -- "I think America needed to see them. The content had been reported about terror manuals, but America needed to see it with their own eyes."

Some criticisms coming out about these tapes. You have you to weigh what you show and what you don't.

ROBERTSON: Not only what you show, but how you show it. We did spend a lot of time thinking exactly how we would do it, make sure that we presented it in a manner that wasn't inflammatory, that it didn't put too much fear into people -- that most importantly explained it. And I think the most controversial material perhaps would have been the chemical tests on the dogs. That's where we heard from most people, on that.

In that videotape, we bring in four different experts. And if you look at the way we present it, you hear them explaining -- there is a lot of explanation in there -- about what we are seeing and what we are understanding. I think that's the true value here.

Although there have been manuals -- have been found -- it's in the videotape that people really see documentary evidence. Beyond that, it's in the explanation that the analysts bring to it. And I think that's what we have been able to bring to people, is an understanding of what's happening and what it really means. That's what the experts tell us.

KAGAN: Of course, in this very, very competitive journalistic world, it is a coup for CNN to get these tapes. Let me congratulate you on the work.

But beyond that, why do you think it was important to show the tapes, and how do you know you and CNN weren't being exploited by having access to them?

ROBERTSON: The person through whom I obtained this material is somebody that I've known for some time, is a contact I've had in a lot of different contexts. I know him, and I trust them. In this case, I knew the people -- he was a middleman taking me to meet some other people. I saw those people and met with them. They are not al Qaeda. We know the genesis of this material. We know where it was. We know how they came in possession of it. This is not al Qaeda. This is not al Qaeda trying to put out their story because they want it blow themselves up.

Look at the material. There are things in there al Qaeda doesn't want to get out. Faces of key important operatives. It's a very private collection of al Qaeda. Do we think that they really wanted to telegraph their next punch, that they might be using chemical agents? That seems highly unlikely. They are one of the most secretive organizations.

Coalition intelligence experts have looked at the material. One of the particular rooms on the tapes there, they say this was al Qaeda's, they believe al Qaeda's supersecretive operating headquarters in Afghanistan, off limits to most people. Some of those tapes had on them exclusive for (UNINTELLIGIBLE), Mohammed Atta, the chief military commander within al Qaeda. No, this was the real material. This was not intended to be made public.

KAGAN: The real deal. Secretive, yet a little less secretive after your work. And a lot of people around here, their work this week.

Nic Robertson, thank you. Peter Bergen, thanks for your insight as well, from Washington. Appreciate your time there, and your thoughts.

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