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Amanpour

What Did Pakistan Know about bin Laden?; Class War and Ballet Slippers; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 15, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:01:35] CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: secrets, lies and spies, is the official account of the killing of Osama bin Laden

untrue?

Is the world unprepared for a major attack from ISIS?

I ask one of the only men who knows, the former deputy CIA director, Mike Morell.

Plus ballet and strike ballots: we celebrate 10 years of "Billy Elliot the Musical," set amidst the 1980s British miners' strike. Why director

Stephen Daldry and the show's latest 10-year-old star tell me that it is a story for today.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to a special weekend edition of the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

What really happened the night the world's most wanted terrorist was caught and killed?

And how much did Pakistan know about Osama bin Laden's whereabouts?

Those questions are once again in the spotlight after an article this week by the often controversial journalist, Seymour Hersh.

At the center of it all is the world's most powerful spy organization, the Central Intelligence Agency. And one of its most experienced officers,

Deputy Director Michael Morell, has just stepped down after serving six presidents. And he was at President Bush's side in that Florida classroom

when news of the September 11th attack started to come in.

His new book on America's intelligence and security is called, "The Great War of Our Time."

Osama is dead, but that war continues against ISIS now. Earlier this week Mike Morell joined me from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program.

MICHAEL MORELL, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CIA: Christiane, it's great to be on your program.

AMANPOUR: I wonder whether you ever thought the killing of Osama bin Laden four years later would raise such controversy. And I want to ask you

because I know that publicly you've said that what Seymour Hersh says is not true.

But I would like to ask you how did you think that the Pakistanis or the ISI or low-level officers may have known about it?

You say in your book that you said to the ISI chief, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, that "Americans find it hard to believe that no one in your Abbottabad

detachment or in the Abbottabad police ever questioned what was going on in that compound."

That's where OBL was.

MORELL: Correct. So Christiane, I have confidence, very high confidence, 95 percent, 99 percent confidence that the Pakistani government did not

know that he was there, that Pasha didn't know, that General Kayani, the chief of staff, didn't know.

But I find it very difficult to believe that there wasn't somebody at a local level who was protecting him in some way, somebody with radical

leanings. I find it hard to believe that that didn't happen. I find it hard to believe that there wasn't somebody who looked at that compound and

said what is going on in there?

AMANPOUR: Before I get to "The New York Times" Carlotta Gall, who had additional information, did you find it bizarre that after explosions and

40 minutes on the ground, the SEALs were uninterrupted and the Pakistanis didn't come until after they had left?

[14:05:07] MORELL: So the Pakistanis who did not know about this -- and I can guarantee you, Christiane, about that; they did not know about this --

the Pakistanis were incredibly embarrassed and I know this because they talked to me about it and I talk about this in the book.

The Pakistanis were embarrassed by our intelligence that we were capable of finding him in their country and they weren't and they were horribly

embarrassed by the fact that we were able fly hundreds of miles into their territory and be on the ground and they couldn't -- they didn't even know

about it until some time into the raid.

So they were terribly embarrassed by all of that, didn't say a lot about their intelligence capabilities and their military capabilities.

And Christiane, one of the things that I think is going on here is that at the end of the day I think the Pakistanis are putting out propaganda that

they knew about this in order to save face on these two things that they're terribly embarrassed about and I think that's what Seymour Hersh picked up

on.

AMANPOUR: Why do you think this American source then told all this to Seymour Hersh?

MORELL: So that's the one piece that I have a hard time thinking through. It must be that this American source is somehow getting information from

Pakistan and passing it on to Seymour Hersh. That's the only thing that I can conclude.

But this person claims to have been at the center of the discussions in the U.S. government about this operation and he was not in the meetings that I

was in, I guarantee you that.

AMANPOUR: Let me move on to the Arab Spring, because all of this is all part of a big part, people hoped that when Osama bin Laden was caught and

the whole idea of democracy coming to the Arab world would actually have a much better effect than it's had. And the CIA -- I mean, you say that part

of the reason you got all that so wrong was that you were relying on the strong men themselves for intelligence.

You say, "We failed because to a large extent we were relying on a handful of strong leaders in the countries of concern to help us understand what

was going on in the Arab street."

But isn't that a basic mistake? Because on the one hand, these leaders are not in touch with their people. That's why there was a revolution. And

yet you went to these very leaders to figure out what their people knew.

MORELL: Sure, Christiane. There were two key analytic judgments. The first was we had been warning for years that pressures were building in the

Middle East, social pressures, economic pressures, political pressures for change. And we'd been warning about that.

What we weren't able to do is tell the president, Mr. President, these pressures we've been talking about, they're building to the point of

boiling over. We didn't do that. We weren't able to call the tipping point.

The other judgment -- and I think we should have been, right. I think we should have been and I think you're right.

The other judgment we made was in the immediate beginning of the Arab Spring, we said we think this is going to undercut Al Qaeda. We think this

is going to undercut their narrative that it takes violence to bring political change. And that turned out to be wrong. In fact, I have a

chapter called Al Qaeda Spring, right.

The Arab Spring was really a spring for Al Qaeda. And it was a spring for Al Qaeda in two ways. It really benefited them on the one hand because it

destroyed institutions that were capable of keeping a handle on them.

Best example, Libya, where the intelligence service and the security service fell apart and militants were able to run wild. And the other

thing it did was undercut the willingness of some Arab countries to take on extremism.

Best example, President Morsi's Egypt, where the capabilities were there but the officers that I dealt with every day in Egypt, who used to be

pretty tough on terrorism, didn't think they had political cover anymore and eased up and when they did that, Al Qaeda came back to Egypt for the

first time in 25 years.

AMANPOUR: And that is actually a major takeaway from your book, that is your sort of big global analysis that Al Qaeda is back; it's in the form of

ISIS now.

And what then is your analysis about how long and how difficult the struggle will be?

You just heard me talk to General Breedlove about training. Most people say it's a little and it's too late.

But what is your analysis of how long it's going to take to defeat ISIS and what you fear they might do?

MORELL: Christiane, I have a great deal of confidence that what we're doing on the Iraq side of the border is working. We have taken back about

25 percent of the territory that ISIS took during its blitzkrieg. And it's going to be a slow process.

And fortunately the Iranians are in there helping us. But we are going to slowly take that territory back. So I'm confident in our Iraqi strategy.

We have air power and we have ground troops in the form of the Iraqi military, the Kurdish military and Iranian trained Shia militia.

But on the Syrian side of the border, I don't have a lot of confidence that our strategy is going to work.

[14:10:05] It's not that it's too late, Christiane, it's that it's too little. We need to train ground troops in very large numbers if we're

going to be able to take back territory from ISIS and Syria. And what I fear is that we're going to be successful in Iraq; we're going to have a

hammer in Iraq but no anvil in Syria.

So the ISIS guys are just going to go across the border into Syria and they're going to have a safe haven in Eastern Syria, where they're going to

be able to continue to plot and that plotting will include plotting against us.

AMANPOUR: Michael Morell, really fascinating. Thank you so much for joining me tonight.

MORELL: Great to be with you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And after a break, we turn to a cultural milestone.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): An inspirational story about a coal miner's son, who just wanted to dance. Now the musical has been seen by 10 million

people worldwide. it's a very British story, playing out even today and next we meet the director and the young star of "Billy Elliot," 10 years

old this week.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

And we turn to the theater, where "Billy Elliot the Musical" celebrates 10 years in London's West End this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): It's the story of a dance-mad coal miner's son who dreams of a career on stage. It's a universal tale of hopes and dreams

that has rung true with audiences in London, New York, Sydney, Seoul and more. Today this look at the challenges facing working class Britain

couldn't be more timely.

As the working class Labour Party devastated in last week's elections here tries to understand how it lost, I've been speaking to director Stephen

Daldry, who's recently nominated for a Tony award, and to the latest young actor to take on the title role in "Billy."

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AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program.

STEPHEN DALDRY, DIRECTOR, "BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL": Thanks for having us.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, Stephen, what does it mean to you, 10 years later, that this is still going strong?

DALDRY: It's phenomenal. I mean, I didn't think any of us, at the point at which we first did the show here, it was opening night here, actually,

Thomas is -- this is Thomas, he's one of our Billys -- it was 10 years ago tonight, meaning it was literally 10 years ago exactly and I don't think

any of us had any expectation that we would be still here 10 years later.

And also just then having taken the show to America and Australia and South America and Europe. I mean, we had no expectations.

AMANPOUR: What does it say about Britain?

I mean the film sort of marked the turn of this century, if I can say that, the 21st century. It came out in 2000 and then the musical.

And it is about evolving attitudes in politics, isn't it?

DALDRY: Well, it is about -- I mean, the story, it's about a community in crisis, a family in crisis, a community crisis.

[14:15:03] And then at the heart of it is a story about a -- Billy, as you know, who -- he understands the notion of grace.

And the community, if you like, gather around and eventually, from a position of opposition at the beginning, come around to support this child

and his journey and aspiration.

I think it is an aspirational idea of regeneration, which is in the midst of this terrible suffering that this mining community are going through.

AMANPOUR: How did you feel when you first got the call that actually you'd made it into this musical?

THOMAS HAZELBY, "BILLY ELLIOT": Oh, I was absolutely amazed. It was the moment of truth.

(LAUGHTER)

AMANPOUR: Did you know about it before? Because you're 10.

What did you know about it?

HAZELBY: Not much, really, because I was just walking home and it happened.

AMANPOUR: What, you got a phone call?

HAZELBY: My mum got a phone call and she just told me. It was amazing.

AMANPOUR: You come from Doncaster in the north of England.

HAZELBY: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Very working class.

HAZELBY: Yes.

AMANPOUR: How was it for you to be a young boy in dance class?

It was obviously difficult for the real Billy.

HAZELBY: Yes. It's different because it's full of girls, but I still really enjoyed it.

AMANPOUR: Elton John has written a beautiful column, saying that Billy was able to do what he was never able to do as a young kid, that his father

didn't recognize his talent, not to mention that Elton is gay.

And obviously one of the characters, not Billy but Billy's best friend in the play and in the film, is gay as well.

DALDRY: And has a big number called "Expressing Yourself". I mean, and what's amazing of course is the -- is the support, if you'd like, that

comes around both Billy and his gay friend, Michael, to support them, in the end, being his ballet.

But you know, the funny thing about.

Well, but, first of all, when's your birthday?

What's the date of your birthday?

HAZELBY: The 22nd of August.

DALDRY: So you were born -- you weren't even born when we started this show.

AMANPOUR: That's right.

DALDRY: You weren't literally even born.

And you know, the other funny thing -- I think this is a funny anecdote but -- my first job when I just left university was in Doncaster during the

mining strike.

AMANPOUR: That is an amazing story, given what's happening on the political scene right now.

What do you think of the defeat of Labour and the idea of working class aspirational -- because obviously that's what Billy is all about.

DALDRY: Well, "Billy Elliot," the story, is set during one of the great disasters, if you like, of post-War British trade union movement. It was a

moment where, at that point in time, the Conservative government were adamant, led by this woman, Margaret Thatcher -- we sing a lovely song

about -- not -- wanted to destroy trade unions in this country, particularly the miners' union.

But I don't think Labour can ever really go back to the olden days. I mean, I think that what Tony Blair did with New Labour and reinvented it

and actually allowed it to be a party of -- for everybody, not just for the trade unions, was the right thing to do.

So we hope that actually that aspirational Labour Party will come back.

AMANPOUR: What's the best thing about being in the musical?

HAZELBY: That you can -- you always have fun when you do it.

AMANPOUR: And do your parents like it?

HAZELBY: Yes, they absolutely love it.

AMANPOUR: And are they very proud of their little boy?

HAZELBY: They are.

AMANPOUR: Yes?

What about school?

What is your life like as an ordinary boy when you're a major star on stage?

HAZELBY: So we still do school in the morning from 9:00-12:00. And then we go to rehearsals and then we go to the show. So it's a long day, but

it's still really fun.

AMANPOUR: Let me switch gears a little bit, Stephen, because not only is "Billy" a roaring success all over the world, but so is the Queen and you

have really done amazing things with the audience and this amazing sort of interest in the Queen of England.

I just want to ask you about what Peter Morgan, the writer, said the day after the election, that he went to bed thinking that he was writing in a

script for Ed Miliband, as the Queen's next prime minister, and had to wake up at 5:00 in the morning and write a whole new dialogue for Cameron and

the Queen.

How difficult do you think that was to sort of roll with those punches?

(CROSSTALK)

DALDRY: Well, for all of us, we didn't really know what the result was going to be. We had been auditioning Ed Milibands just in case because we

- this plan, being the audience, the Queen has lots of different interviews with the prime ministers over the years.

We didn't know who was going to win the election. And we had to keep the play up to date so we didn't know whether we would have Ed Miliband or not.

And in the end, David Cameron won with a majority, which was a bit of a surprise. Nobody thought that was going to happen. So we quickly repenned

in the morning, rehearsed it in the afternoon and then did it in the evening.

And then we actually filmed it for "News Night" that night and then the next morning I got on a plane and flew to New York, where I rerehearsed it

with Helen Mirren.

AMANPOUR: What is it, do you think, about the Queen that is the gift that keeps on giving?

I mean, she is endlessly fascinating. People all over the world, including those who don't believe in monarchies, like her, respect her, are drawn to

film, theater, and presumably a TV series about her.

DALDRY: Yes, I know. It's amazing. I mean, we've just done it - we did it with Helen Mirren in London and we just opened that on Broadway and now

we've just done it again in London with Kristin Scott Thomas playing the Queen.

[14:20:00] AMANPOUR: How is she?

DALDRY: Fabulous. Just fabulous.

And of course, what's interesting about the Queen is there is no one way of playing her because she is - you know, you think you know who she is, but

actually she is the most invisible woman doing the most visible job in the world.

So you can -- and actually, you can project onto her all sorts of things. And she is amazing. She's been the Queen for so long. You know, she was

Queen with Churchill. You know, she's had 12 prime ministers. We thought there was going to be 13, but it's just -- stays with the dirty dozen and

Cameron continues.

AMANPOUR: "The dirty dozen."

He has a funny way of talking about them doesn't he?

What's your big goal?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

HAZELBY: I want to be a ballet dancer.

AMANPOUR: One of the themes through "Billy," the play and the movie, was how he stayed true to his roots.

Is that important to you?

HAZELBY: Yes, it's very important to stay in touch with all your friends and family, because you always speak to them every night, but it's hard

staying away from home but it's also like fun staying away from home.

AMANPOUR: It's like camp.

HAZELBY: Yes.

DALDRY: But in the story, he's got quite a difficult relationship with his father.

HAZELBY: Yes.

DALDRY: What's your relationship with your father?

Was he always supportive of you?

HAZELBY: Oh, he's always supportive.

DALDRY: Yes?

AMANPOUR: On that note, Stephen Daldry, Thomas Hazelby, thank you very much for being here and joining us.

DALDRY: Yes, thanks, Thomas.

HAZELBY: Thank you.

DALDRY: And thank you very much.

AMANPOUR: Thank you.

HAZELBY: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So and of course Elton John wrote the music for "Billy Elliot" and this week the show has released over 600,000 more tickets and extended

the West End run through to December of next year.

Now when we come back, breaking glass ceilings of another kind: will America see its first female president in 2016?

And what could that mean for women around the world? I'll ask Hillary Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, next.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine a world where a young woman takes the public mantle of her powerful family foundation just as her mother vies

for the most powerful office in the world. Chelsea Clinton is vice chair of The Clinton Foundation, which supports positive economic and social

change around the world by people like Asma Mansour, a Tunisian activist, and Kennedy Odede, who started a groundbreaking girls' school in a Nairobi

slum where he grew up.

During a panel with all three on the next generation in Africa and the Middle East, I also asked them what impact they thought a President Hillary

Clinton would have on women around the world.

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AMANPOUR: You all know that Chelsea Clinton's mother is running for President of the United States? Yes?

(CROSSTALK)

ASMA MANSOUR, PRESIDENT AND CO-FOUNDER, TUNISIAN CENTER FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: I think they do.

(LAUGHTER)

AMANPOUR: OK. So a very simple question: Asma, let's face it, there have been female presidents in the Islamic world, in Scandinavia, so there have

been female leaders in this part of the world.

[14:25:08] But what kind of effect, knock-on effect, do you think it would have if there was a female President of the United States?

Would that make an impression on girls around the world?

MANSOUR: I think it would be inspiring because all around the world it's like most of the countries, they are most of them patriarchal.

AMANPOUR: And what about in Kibera, in the world's biggest slum, all these girls who you're trying to educate, what message do you think that would

send them?

KENNEDY ODEDE, CO-FOUNDER, SHINING HOPE FOR COMMUNITIES: Yes, first of all, I think we have to give Africa credit for this. Just (INAUDIBLE) when

you come to Kenya, you see there are a lot of women leaders, you know what I mean? And that's something very powerful.

When it comes to the American president being a woman, for me, is always America. America is a global democracy. It is a superpower country. And

the message becomes clear that anyone in the world can be whatever they want to be.

AMANPOUR: What do you think, if your mom becomes president? Not only is it history in the United States, but ripple effects around the world.

CHELSEA CLINTON, VICE CHAIR OF THE CLINTON FOUNDATION: Yes, well, I came to Morocco from Liberia, where there is a woman president, President

Sirleaf, who certainly, I think, has been an extraordinary leader in Liberia and particularly in this tumultuous time, kind of leading her

country through the Ebola crisis and into the future.

And when I was in Kibera with Kennedy a couple of years ago, a number of his girls told me that they wanted to grow up and be president of their

country. So certainly, again, to give Kennedy credit, there are no ceilings on the imaginations and the aspirations of the girls at Shining

Hope for Communities.

I absolutely think it's important who is in the political arena and who holds formal political office, not only a prime minister or a president,

but also who is in a Congress or parliament.

You know, in 1995, 12 percent of national parliaments or congresses around the world were women. We saw a 50 percent increase kind of in 2014. Now

that sounds like a lot until you realize that only gets us to 18 percent.

So we still have a long way to go --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Including in the U.S. Congress, not even 18 percent -- oh, is it 20 percent now?

CLINTON: It's at 20 percent. And when we got to 20 percent, Christiane, because it was, you know, before kind of below 20 percent, there were these

huge headlines saying, you know, "Tremendous Progress," you know, women are 20 percent of Congress.

And I thought, "When did 20 percent become parity?"

Like when did we kind of mistake progress for success?

And so I do think it's tremendously important for many of the reasons that Asma articulated and clearly I strongly support my mom. I hope that she

prevails, both because I do think it is important that we crack that glass ceiling in the United States, but even more because of the type of leader

that I believe that she would be.

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AMANPOUR: And you can see much more of the panel online at amanpour.com as well as all our shows, of course.

And that is it for our program tonight. Remember you can always follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

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