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American Morning

Saudi King Dies; London Terror; CIA Secrets

Aired August 01, 2005 - 07:29   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. Coming up, one of the most influential leaders from one of the most volatile regions of the world has died.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We are talking about Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. He died overnight. A look this morning, though, at what that means to U.S.-Saudi relations. That's ahead.

First, though, let's get a look at the other stories that are making headlines this morning with Carol Costello.

Good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.

"Now in the News."

The Discovery crew is taking a spacewalk this morning, the second one of their mission, as NASA decides what to do about possible shuttle damage -- or damage to the shuttle. Right now, astronauts are repairing a faulty gyroscope that helps steer the space station. In the meantime, NASA is trying to decide whether to fix some protruding material between the shuttle's tiles. That could potentially trigger overheating during the shuttle's re-entry.

Iraqi officials say they're on track for drafting the country's new constitution. The committee had until today to request a six- month extension. But the chairman says that the August 15 deadline will be met. If the charter is approved by the National Assembly, a public referendum will be held in October.

And some Democrats are urging President Bush not to appoint John Bolton as U.N. ambassador without Senate confirmation. But senior administration officials have said the president could issue a recess appointment as early as this week. The Senate has stalled Bolton's confirmation over documents and accusations of bad behavior. One Republican senator says the president has waited long enough. And, of course, that could come today as well. And we will keep you posted.

M. O'BRIEN: The plot thickens. Thank you very much, Carol.

We return to our top story this morning, the death of King Fahd. The oil-rich Saudi Arabia king and monarch, the strong alliances he developed with the United States earned him the fury of Islamist militants.

With more on the Saudi monarch's influence on world politics, here is national security correspondent David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice over): His name said it all, Fahd bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, one of nearly four dozen sons of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. Fahd was the fifth to rule a desert kingdom delicately balanced between the strong traditions of the past and the necessary transition to the future.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope to see you soon.

ENSOR: Fahd was both ruler of 24 million people in a deeply conservative society and custodian of the two most holy shrines of Islam. In later years, the man once known as a playboy prince preferred the latter title.

In 22 years on the thrown, Fahd's control of a quarter of the world's petroleum reserves made him both a billionaire and a powerful player on the world political stage. He shared an American president's desire to fight communism by secretly funding the anti- communist contras of Nicaragua and the mujahedeen of Afghanistan against the Soviets.

During the nearly decade-long Iran-Iraq war, King Fahd allowed American planes to monitor the battlefields while siding with his brother Arabs in Baghdad. But Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait changed all that by threatening Saudi security. The United States asked the king to let a multinational military base itself in Saudi Arabia to force Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.

BRENT SCOWCROFT, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Basically, he wanted to make sure that we wouldn't turn around and run if the going got tough. That was his fundamental concern.

ENSOR: It was by all accounts a difficult decision, but he eventually invited the troops in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For a temporary period only. And would leave Saudi Arabia when the Saudi government feels that is necessary.

ENSOR: Hours after the shooting started in January, 1991, Saddam Hussein was denouncing his neighbor by radio.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: King Fahd will rot in hell. He is a treacherous criminal, King Fahd.

ENSOR: The short war that followed left physical, social and economic scars on Fahd's kingdom. The cost of the coalition and swings in the selling price of the country's principal export forced a king who had once cried publicly over balancing the budget to cut back public spending because there wasn't enough income.

SCOWCROFT: That caused serious strain, both in the world as a whole, and dramatic changes in the internal situation within Saudi Arabia. I think that was the primary economic problem he had.

ENSOR: King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, leaving him mostly inactive. But he still received selected visitors.

In the last years of Fahd's reign, the kingdom's close relationship with the United States has been tested. The fact that 15 of the 19 terrorists on September 11, 2001, were Saudis, as was their leader, Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, raised questions in Washington about how much of an ally Saudi Arabia really was. But the kingdom suffered its own attacks by al Qaeda and tightened up its security efforts against the fundamental fundamentalist terror group.

In March of 2002, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met briefly with King Fahd and other leaders from the region to drum up support for a possible offensive against Iraq. The attempt at forging a coalition was not successful. After the war, the king ordered $80 million in emergency assistance to be given to Iraq.

Throughout his later years, following his stroke, Fahd suffered from a number of other physical ailments, including diabetes and arthritis. With his death, the throne passes to Fahd's half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, yet another son of Abdul Aziz al Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: King Fahd will be buried tomorrow morning.

In Sudan, the country's vice president, John Garang, has been killed in a helicopter crash. The news touched off a wave of rioting in the capital of Khartoum. Thirteen people on board the helicopter were killed in the crash, which is being blamed on bad weather. Garang is a former rebel leader, who became vice president just three weeks ago. His death could damage a seven-month-old peace deal that ended almost 22 years of civil war -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: In London this morning, Scotland Yard is deploying a huge police force, including snipers, in its response to reports that another terror attack could be in the planning stages.

Sajjan Gohal is the director of international security for the Asia-Pacific Foundation.

Nice to see you. Thanks for talking with us, Sajjan.

Let's get right to this lockdown. I mean, obviously, as you made your way in this morning, did you see it? Is it obvious on the streets?

SAJJAN GOHAL, ASIA-PACIFIC FOUNDATION: Well, the presence, Soledad, is very clear and apparent. The authorities are very worried that there could be another cell, if not another two, that could be activated to try and replicate another mass-casualty atrocity. And for that reason, the U.K. is still on threat level one, which means imminent or critical, because the fear hasn't disappeared. There is a major concern that there could be follow-up attacks, because the last cell failed in its attempt. So the authorities are taking this very seriously.

S. O'BRIEN: So, are they doing this lockdown because the last attempt failed, or is it because there's some kind of specific threat?

GOHAL: Well, there have been stories that have appeared or circulated in the press that a cell comprising of individuals of Pakistani origin, similar to the July 7 attack, have been activated, and that could be in the process of wanting to carry out some type of attack. But it's not clear. There is not enough intelligence as to what that can be, where they're planning it. It doesn't even necessarily have to be in London. It could be in another major city like Birmingham, Manchester or Glasgow.

So there is still not enough information. The authorities aren't going to speculate as if there is an imminent threat, these individuals are going to plan something today or tomorrow. They just want to keep the threat level real. They want the general public to be aware of the fact that they're taking it seriously, and not to panic and to carry on with their normal lives.

S. O'BRIEN: The suspects in the July 21 bombings now it seems to be all of them are under arrest, including Hamdi Issac, or Hussain Osman as we've been calling him this morning. Here's a guy who they found in Rome. He said that he had nothing to do with the bombings -- the first round of bombings on July 7, essentially saying this, if we can show a little bit of a quote when he was interviewed by authorities. He said that he's a peace protester, and that essentially he was a guy who, because no one was listening to him at the peace marches, he decided to do this as a warning. And he had nothing to do with the first round of bombings. Do you believe that?

GOHAL: Well, it sounds a bit farfetched. I think he's also told Italian authorities that the devices that were planted weren't actually meant to kill anybody. They were just supposed to scare people. No one is going to buy that. No one is going to take that very seriously.

This was a very calculated, coordinated plot that had the material, the acetone peroxide, not degraded. It would have resulted in a lot of people being killed.

What's interesting about him is that just before he was arrested he made a cell phone call to an individual in Saudi Arabia. Now, the Italian authorities are trying to track down who that is, find out, was that cell organized or controlled from Saudi Arabia? Because that would be another interesting dimension. It again shows how wide and international the linkages could be in this terror network that leads all the way from the U.K.

S. O'BRIEN: And when you look at the profiles of the two groups of bombers, the ones of the 7th and the ones of the 21st, the ones of the 7th are British citizens with Pakistani backgrounds. East Africans, it seems to be, the second round, the failed bombers. So, in your mind, does that give you a sense that there's this massive international ring as opposed to individual cells with individual leaders?

GOHAL: Well, this is the problem is that terrorism today is transnational. It doesn't comprise of one specific nationality. It is multiple. And, of course, they'll choose specific ethnic groups to serve a purpose. Now, the U.K. has a very large Pakistani population, and therefore it's easy to try and recruit from within that. These individuals in the second cell are from the Horn of Africa. There has been a large immigration of those individuals ever since there has been conflict in the Horn of Africa, like Somalia, Ethiopia or Eritrea.

But the problem is that there is no central command control. These are all different cells. They operate independently, and they're compartmentalized. Whichever handler there is, keeps them apart, so in case one is found out by authorities it doesn't necessarily lead to the other one. And that proves to be a big concern, because we don't know how wide the network is. We're just touching the surface. We've only made the progress in the last few weeks. This is just the beginning of what could be a very big investigation that could go on for months.

The Madrid train bombings, the fallout is still taking place today. People are still being arrested over that. So, I think we are going to have to prepare ourselves for a very long and, I'd say, difficult time ahead.

S. O'BRIEN: And certainly complex as well. Sajjan Gohal, the director of international security for the Asia-Pacific Foundation. Nice to see you, as always. Thanks for talking with us.

GOHAL: It's good to be with you.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's check the weather once again.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, is Atkins, one-time power in the diet industry, going belly up? An interesting choice of words.

M. O'BRIEN: It is. Slim belly, right? One would hope.

S. O'BRIEN: Very toned belly. Andy is looking at that as he minds your business ahead.

M. O'BRIEN: And is the CIA trying to keep the truth about what happened with Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora under wraps? We'll tell you about a controversy over a new tell-all book next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) M. O'BRIEN: A former CIA officer is suing the agency for deliberately, he says, holding up his book with a lengthy review process. Gary Bernsten's book is said to reveal potentially embarrassing details about Osama bin Laden's escape in Tora Bora.

Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer has gone through the review process twice himself, and believes the CIA is deliberately delaying Bernsten's book. He joins us from Washington.

Good to have you with us.

MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CIA ANALYST: Good morning. How are you?

M. O'BRIEN: Very well. Tell us about this process, first of all. What is this vetting process like?

SCHEUER: Well, the process is a very responsible process in the sense that the agency needs to protect sources and methods. You submit a manuscript for review, whether it's a short story or a novel or a non-fiction book. And the regulations say you're supposed to have 30 days -- the agency has 30 days to cull whatever they think might damage national security from it. Thirty days, as Mr. Bernsten is finding out, is not necessarily always the rule that's followed. My first book was delayed about two years, and the second book was about 160 days.

M. O'BRIEN: So, if they go beyond that 30 days, what recourse do you have? Not much?

SCHEUER: You really don't have any, sir. There's really no recourse except to continue to try to push the system to some kind of a decision.

M. O'BRIEN: So why is the CIA, as you would put it, dragging its feet?

SCHEUER: I think they're probably doing it -- we've had an unusual situation, sir, under Mr. Tenet and now under Mr. Goss. Both of the gentlemen refused to defend the agency for successes against Osama bin Laden. Mr. Bernsten was on the ground in the Tora Bora area trying to direct the activities that would have captured bin Laden.

And I believe what his book is going to show is that the American military at the general officer level refused to commit troops to go after bin Laden, because they feared casualties in an exceptionally hard terrain, and instead chose to work with Afghan commanders, surrogates, who had been fighting alongside bin Laden against the Soviets.

M. O'BRIEN: So, in other words, it's a story which makes the CIA look pretty good?

SCHEUER: Well, yes. It's a very unusual situation. As I said, sir, Mr. Tenet -- before 9/11, the CIA was the one who carried the load for the United States government, and Mr. Tenet never told the American people that, against bin Laden. And certainly Mr. Bernsten and his officers isolated the location of Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, and the military refused to use the troops it had to go in and get him.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, let me ask you this. When you sign on at the CIA, do you sign a little document -- I assume this happens -- saying you're not going to write a book ever without our approval?

SCHEUER: What you do is sign a document, sir, that says that anything you write while you're serving or after you're retired, basically for your life, has to be reviewed by the agency for sources and methods. The regulation specifically says it's not to foreclose any information that would embarrass the agency or the U.S. government, but simply for security measures.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. We should button this up before we shift subjects here by saying, you know, we talked to a CIA spokesperson. They said they can't comment on this matter because it is before the courts at this moment.

I want to ask you a little bit about, just in the wake of the London bombings, your general sense of the al Qaeda threat or al Qaeda-inspired threat right now. Are they emboldened right now?

SCHEUER: I don't think they're emboldened, sir. I think they're kind of on a course of steady as she goes. Our leaders have, I believe, greatly overestimated the damage we've done to al Qaeda. And I think the recent attacks in Egypt and London show exactly that. The enemy hit exactly where they wanted to, precisely when they wanted to, and with complete surprise.

And London especially should be a wakeup call for the United States. London is the best policed city in the west, and the British security services are by far the best national police service in the world. And they got caught completely flat-footed twice. And I think that's a very strong signal that those who say al Qaeda's back is broken are whistling past the graveyard.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, the administration would tell you that by taking the war to the terrorists in Iraq, they're potentially preventing terror attacks here in the U.S. Based on what we've seen in London, what are your thoughts on that?

SCHEUER: That's 100 percent incorrect, sir. There are really -- the administration seems to have a block to reality before their eyes. What Iraq did was immensely increase the animosity toward the United States across the Islamic world. The invasion was completely seen as an attack on Islam, as an attack on their religion. It was just the wrong war at the wrong time.

And now the administration, Ms. Rice, the president, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld have to find a way to explain the fact that the enemy we face today is much greater than the enemy we faced on 9/11.

M. O'BRIEN: Michael Scheuer, former CIA analyst and author. Thank you for your time.

SCHEUER: A pleasure, sir. Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: And we'll be back with more in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: The company that led the low-carb craze is out of dough. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Hello.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Hello, Soledad.

We're talking about Atkins Nutritionals has filed for bankruptcy. Hard to believe, because...

S. O'BRIEN: Yes.

SERWER: ... it was a little more than a year ago that this company was hot, hot, hot. Now it's not.

What happened? Well, first of all, a lot of other food companies got into the business of making and selling low-carb food. Atkins Nutritionals, which makes and produces and sells all of these candy bars and low-carb pasta sauces and all of the rest of that stuff...

S. O'BRIEN: Low-carb bread, too.

SERWER: Yes, low-carb bread.

S. O'BRIEN: I never got that.

SERWER: Go figure.

S. O'BRIEN: And pasta.

SERWER: Right. The company also borrowed a ton of money. It owes about $300 million. And then, you know, it was a fad, Soledad. And less people are following the diet than used to. You can see here in just one year, according to one survey, the number of people following the diet went from 9.1 percent down to 3.6 percent.

And, of course, Dr. Robert Atkins passed away in 2003. So that might have also hurt the company as well. Remember, he was on this program and saying how he would eat a hamburger and just throw away the bun.

And I think, you know, it's interesting. Of course, the books were a huge hit. They're not so hot anymore. I think the lasting legacy, though, of Dr. Atkins and this company and this movement is, you know, we're aware now that you probably shouldn't load up on carbs all the time. Watch the French fries. Watch the pasta. Watch the bread a little bit. So it is a part of our diet and a part of our mindset, I think.

S. O'BRIEN: So now you eat French fries and you just have guilt about it. SERWER: You're just guilty now.

S. O'BRIEN: Andy, thanks.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come, you know what is hot, hot, hot, the real estate market. But buyers can get burned if they're not careful. We've got some tips on how you can avoid becoming the victim of housing fraud. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: In a moment, the death of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. How will it affect the war on terror? A closer look is next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The passing of a king, the end of an era in Saudi Arabia. The country's ruling monarch, King Fahd, is dead. Will his death change U.S. relations with this key ally in the Persian Gulf?

A space walk this morning for two members of the shuttle Discovery crew. While they work, NASA is considering a risky repair mission near the shuttle's nose. We'll look at the dangers.

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