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CNN Live Today
Huge Win in War on Terror
Aired March 03, 2003 - 07:32 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: A huge win in the war on terror. That's what U.S. intelligence officials are calling the arrest of al Qaeda's chief of operations. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed believed to have been the key planner of the 9/11 attacks. He is now being interrogated at an undisclosed location overseas.
What can U.S. officials learn from him?
Joining us now from Washington, our expert on terrorism, Peter Bergen.
Good morning, Peter.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERROR ANALYST: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: We'd love for you to put this into perspective, about the importance of this capture this morning. This is, after all, a man who led the U.S. government to raising the level of alert from code yellow to orange. Who is he?
BERGEN: Well, I mean, you know, his arrest is the most important development since 9/11. I mean this was the guy who, by his own admission, planned 9/11. But not only that, has been involved in anti-terror, anti-American attacks since as early as '93. His nephew, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first attack on the Trade Center, was somebody that he was sending money to in the run up to that attack.
So you go back to '93, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's fingerprints on this attack. We're seeing the first attack on the World Trade Center. But then moving forward he is also linked to a plot in the Philippines, also with Ramzi Yousef, the planner of the Trade Center attack, which would have assassinated John Paul the II, the pope, and also President Clinton and also blown up a dozen passenger jets.
None of those plots were successful, but that plot almost, it was sort of became part of the plot, the later plot, the 9/11 plot, the plan to hijack planes and crash them into American targets, was hatched in the Philippines in the mid-'90s by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
ZAHN: In spite of what you're saying about his fingerprints being over all these operations, there is a lot of criticism out there this morning in a bunch of different published reports that maybe U.S. intelligence officers were slow in understanding his importance.
Is that true? BERGEN: Well, he was indicted in '96 for the plots in the Philippines that I just mentioned. However, I think it is fair to say that he was not on the radar screen as he should have been. He was somebody that was indicted, but he wasn't sort of in the top tier of who people were looking for. There was a point when he was in Qatar in the '96 period when the FBI and the U.S. government was trying to snatch him. Unfortunately, it appears that he was tipped off and then disappeared, and then was not on the radar screen anymore.
So I think that criticism has got some truth to it, that he wasn't taken as seriously as he should have been.
ZAHN: "USA Today" reporting this morning that his arrest will do one of the two things, either delay some attacks that were in the planning or actually accelerate them because the operatives involved might be afraid of their identities being discovered.
BERGEN: Well, it's...
ZAHN: Walk us through the various scenarios that intelligence officers are looking at right now.
BERGEN: Well, I hadn't thought of the latter one, that things might be accelerated. But certainly he, certainly something, I mean Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's disappearance, getting him off the streets, whether he talks or not is incredibly important because here's somebody who was very active and had several different plans going at once, whether they were plans to attack American targets in Southeast Asia, plans to attack Americans inside the United States, etc.
So getting him off the streets will mean, I think, almost certainly that some attacks will be averted. However, as you point out, I mean it's quite possible that people may panic and try and push something forward because they're worried he may talk. Most of the al Qaeda leadership have eventually talked. The question is really time. You know, time is of the essence. It doesn't really matter if he tells, if he starts talking six months from now. If he has things to say about plots that are imminent, clearly it would be nice to know about them now rather than later.
ZAHN: Do you think this arrest will lead to the finding of Osama bin Laden?
BERGEN: I don't know. The question is, you know, will, was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in contact with Osama bin Laden in a very routine manner? I mean it's possible. But, you know, we haven't had a huge track record about finding Osama bin Laden, unlike Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who looks completely different in that, in this, in these new pictures of him. I mean Osama bin Laden is one of the most recognizable people in the world and we still have yet to find him.
ZAHN: Peter Bergen, thanks for your insights this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 3, 2003 - 07:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: A huge win in the war on terror. That's what U.S. intelligence officials are calling the arrest of al Qaeda's chief of operations. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed believed to have been the key planner of the 9/11 attacks. He is now being interrogated at an undisclosed location overseas.
What can U.S. officials learn from him?
Joining us now from Washington, our expert on terrorism, Peter Bergen.
Good morning, Peter.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERROR ANALYST: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: We'd love for you to put this into perspective, about the importance of this capture this morning. This is, after all, a man who led the U.S. government to raising the level of alert from code yellow to orange. Who is he?
BERGEN: Well, I mean, you know, his arrest is the most important development since 9/11. I mean this was the guy who, by his own admission, planned 9/11. But not only that, has been involved in anti-terror, anti-American attacks since as early as '93. His nephew, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first attack on the Trade Center, was somebody that he was sending money to in the run up to that attack.
So you go back to '93, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's fingerprints on this attack. We're seeing the first attack on the World Trade Center. But then moving forward he is also linked to a plot in the Philippines, also with Ramzi Yousef, the planner of the Trade Center attack, which would have assassinated John Paul the II, the pope, and also President Clinton and also blown up a dozen passenger jets.
None of those plots were successful, but that plot almost, it was sort of became part of the plot, the later plot, the 9/11 plot, the plan to hijack planes and crash them into American targets, was hatched in the Philippines in the mid-'90s by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
ZAHN: In spite of what you're saying about his fingerprints being over all these operations, there is a lot of criticism out there this morning in a bunch of different published reports that maybe U.S. intelligence officers were slow in understanding his importance.
Is that true? BERGEN: Well, he was indicted in '96 for the plots in the Philippines that I just mentioned. However, I think it is fair to say that he was not on the radar screen as he should have been. He was somebody that was indicted, but he wasn't sort of in the top tier of who people were looking for. There was a point when he was in Qatar in the '96 period when the FBI and the U.S. government was trying to snatch him. Unfortunately, it appears that he was tipped off and then disappeared, and then was not on the radar screen anymore.
So I think that criticism has got some truth to it, that he wasn't taken as seriously as he should have been.
ZAHN: "USA Today" reporting this morning that his arrest will do one of the two things, either delay some attacks that were in the planning or actually accelerate them because the operatives involved might be afraid of their identities being discovered.
BERGEN: Well, it's...
ZAHN: Walk us through the various scenarios that intelligence officers are looking at right now.
BERGEN: Well, I hadn't thought of the latter one, that things might be accelerated. But certainly he, certainly something, I mean Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's disappearance, getting him off the streets, whether he talks or not is incredibly important because here's somebody who was very active and had several different plans going at once, whether they were plans to attack American targets in Southeast Asia, plans to attack Americans inside the United States, etc.
So getting him off the streets will mean, I think, almost certainly that some attacks will be averted. However, as you point out, I mean it's quite possible that people may panic and try and push something forward because they're worried he may talk. Most of the al Qaeda leadership have eventually talked. The question is really time. You know, time is of the essence. It doesn't really matter if he tells, if he starts talking six months from now. If he has things to say about plots that are imminent, clearly it would be nice to know about them now rather than later.
ZAHN: Do you think this arrest will lead to the finding of Osama bin Laden?
BERGEN: I don't know. The question is, you know, will, was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in contact with Osama bin Laden in a very routine manner? I mean it's possible. But, you know, we haven't had a huge track record about finding Osama bin Laden, unlike Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who looks completely different in that, in this, in these new pictures of him. I mean Osama bin Laden is one of the most recognizable people in the world and we still have yet to find him.
ZAHN: Peter Bergen, thanks for your insights this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
