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U.S. Officials Believe bin Laden is in Tora Bora

Aired December 15, 2001 - 16:04   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, in his bluntest language yet, the U.S. commander-in-charge of the Afghan campaign says al Qaeda fighters are bottled up in a Tora Bora mountainous area, with no access to food or ammunition and no way out. U.S. officials say there's reason to believe Osama bin Laden is in there as well, but they can't be certain.

And so we turn to CNN's Jonathan Aiken at the Pentagon for the latest on the search for the world's most wanted fugitive.

Jonathan, what makes Pentagon officials believe that Osama bin Laden in fact was on these radio transmissions that they've been overhearing?

JONATHAN AIKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Apparently, Carol, they've been matching up what they've heard over the past day or so with voice prints that are available of bin Laden's voice. That videotape that was found in Jalalabad and released by the U.S. the other day, a treasure trove when it comes to that, being able to compare bin Laden's voice and actually create a visible voice sample that you can compare other reports and intercepts to, and that's one of the items that they've been using to make this confirmation.

The very fact they've been able to confirm, the quote is with "reasonable certainty," that they've been hearing bin Laden in the Tora Bora area adds credence to reports that we've been hearing all week long that he's actually been leading his troops in fighting in that region, in eastern Afghanistan in the White Mountains.

Whether he was there or not, though, the idea that U.S. forces had -- and General Tommy Franks was reiterating, as you mentioned -- was to shrink the amount of real estate that al Qaeda forces are holding in that region. And to that end, there was more bombing in Tora Bora. You see some of it here. The bombing not as heavy as it's been in the past several days. Actually, it's been declining every day since Thursday, but the bombing is more concentrated to achieve a greater effect on specific pockets of al Qaeda resistance.

And in fact, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that U.S. special operations forces are also on the move in the area and they've been going into caves -- part of these cave and tunnel complexes in Tora Bora, specifically going into individual caves looking not only for al Qaeda fighters, but also trying to pick up information that can be used for intelligence. Now, Osama bin Laden's options, now that we know with reasonable certainty that he is there, are relatively few. He's pinned into a relatively small area, a box couple of square miles big, some rugged area, but a small box nonetheless by comparison to the rest of the country. Valleys to the east and west, opposition forces in the north, Pakistani forces and U.S. special operations troops in the south trying to block his access to Pakistani escape routes.

So the job now, Carol, is to continue to deny him options and to let al Qaeda whittle away as much as possible under the U.S. bombing.

LIN: All right, the dragnet is closing in. Thank you very much. Jonathan Aiken reporting live from the Pentagon.

Let's talk more about this bin Laden dragnet. Joining us this afternoon once again is retired NATO Supreme Commander and CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark. Good afternoon again, general.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good afternoon, Carol.

LIN: All right. About 30 minutes ago, I was talking with David Isby. He's a special correspondent for "Jane's Intelligence Review." He is pretty convinced that that was not Osama bin Laden on that radio traffic. In fact, he thinks that these al Qaeda fighters actually have the recording technology to have previously recorded bin Laden and try to feed this over the radio traffic to fool U.S. forces and the opposition. What sort of technology does the Pentagon have to sort of sift through whether this voice is in fact bin Laden's or not?

CLARK: Well, you can take the various components of the voice. You can break it down, you could show it visually on oscilloscope. You could compare it with other recordings. There's always going to be some imperfections in the recordings, and you'd be able to get some confirmation that it is.

Of course, it could be pre-recorded. It could be fed in there as a sort of canned report to be interjected in at the appropriate time. That takes a lot of wherewithal. It's certainly possible. I wouldn't rule anything out in something like this, but I'd say the odds are against it.

LIN: All right. Well, let's go to another hypothetical, because there have been so many reports about bin Laden moving freely around Afghanistan as well as crossing the border into Pakistan. Is there an escape route from where U.S. forces believe that bin Laden might be hiding in Tora Bora? Could he cross over those mountains and get into Pakistan?

CLARK: Given as difficult as that terrain is, it's very hard to conceive that it's totally, let's say, sanitarily sealed off. Military operations just seldom happen that way. You put troops in, they're up all night, they're relieved in their positions at 2:00 in the morning, 3:00 the morning. They get tired. They get drowsy. OK, some of them have night vision goggles. Some of them may not, the night vision goggles. The batteries sometimes wear down. I mean, the chance of a mistake allowing people to slip through is relatively high.

Now, Carol, we've seen reports, written reports, that some of these al Qaeda fighters have been seen trying to slip away on -- with mules and so forth. We've heard no reports from the Pakistanis that these parties have been detected and captured, and so I think we would have heard that had they been detected and captured. Either they haven't reached there, or maybe they did elude its police.

LIN: Yeah.

CLARK: It's hard to believe it's a totally solid shield there.

LIN: Yeah. But think about this, even if he makes it over these mountains, and in theory the Pakistani government has been trying to help the United States seal off that border by massing its army along the border. And yet isn't this the same army that helped build up the Taliban in the first place? So, can they be trusted?

CLARK: It is. I mean, parts of the army did have a role in building up the Taliban. President Musharraf has done a remarkable job in working to solidify his support in the army and the other institutions, and he's had a period of several weeks to do this and with pretty good results, but you can never be certain about something like this. You're exactly right.

LIN: All right, but you've got two major characters now still unaccounted for. The United States is still not sure where bin Laden is. The United States is still not sure where Mullah Mohammed Omar is. Can the United States clearly say that it won this war in Afghanistan if these two men are still on the loose?

CLARK: Well, it might be able to say that, provided that we know that we've got enough information that the networks as a whole have been identified, broken down and the other individuals detained. Chances are, if we don't get these two, we won't say that, because we won't have all of that information.

And I think this is why the president and Secretary Rumsfeld and others have told us this war's going to take a long time. We've got to be patient. We can't let our expectations get up here. Settle in for the long haul. This is difficult

LIN: So take a long time, and at the same time, you know, what are the different scenarios then that U.S. military planners are looking at if Mullah Omar as well as Osama bin Laden escaped the region and they're out there somewhere. Does that mean that this war moves on and these two men are hunted down whether they're in other countries or in other places?

CLARK: I think the war moves on in one form or another, regardless of whether Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are taken or not, because the al Qaeda cells are in 50 to 60 countries, and those cells are going to be taken apart. As you know, this is an organization which is relatively loose. It's a federation, and so we can't be certain that even if Osama bin Laden was taken that these other cells wouldn't independently try to enact revenge on someone. And so, it's important that we understand this is going to go on until that network is taking apart, according to the president.

LIN: All right. We'll see how it manifests itself. Thank you very much, General Wesley Clark.

CLARK: Good to be here.

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