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CNN Live At Daybreak

America's New War: Will Taliban Turn Over Osama bin Laden

Aired September 19, 2001 - 07:40   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: Time now to check in with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, of course, was the former national security adviser under President Carter. Good of you to join us, sir. Welcome.

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Good morning.

ZAHN: Do you expect the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden to Pakistani officials?

BRZEZINSKI: I'm quite doubtful and beyond that, I think we're making too much out of one individual. I think we're over personalizing a large scale, complex chain of cells which operate throughout the world. Many of them operate within the United States and we shouldn't define the war, the campaign against terrorism, largely in terms of Osama bin Laden. I think that sensationalizes it. It also trivializes it.

In fact, I would like to see the president of the United States address a joint session of Congress soon, within the next few days, and explain to the American people the new character of the challenge that we face and the need for a very complex, long-term campaign, partially unilaterally by us, partly based on a coalition, that will command our energies for a number of years and will be very tough.

Unless the president does it, we're going to be judging this largely by whether we find or do not find Osama bin Laden, whether he's caught and handed over or whether he's not, and that really is not central.

ZAHN: All right, well, Secretary Rumsfeld just did an interview with John King and he said clearly what you have just stated, that there is a problem, that there are a number of networks of terrorists around the world. But I want to come back to the point you made. Why do you think that it's trivializing the process when the president has said that Osama bin Laden is the prime suspect? Why shouldn't the administration be going after him or talking about it?

BRZEZINSKI: I didn't say we shouldn't be going after him. But I think spending literally hours talking about him, showing his face over and over again doesn't do justice to the complexity and scale of this problem. This isn't a matter of some bearded chap sitting somewhere in the hills of Afghanistan. This is a large scale organization, very well hidden, camouflaged, operating out of many countries, in some cases with the support of some governments, and we'll have to undertake a broadly based, wide ranging campaign to extirpate it.

That's much more complex. And I think the country has to be educated by the president about the difficulties that we'll face, because we'll have to take on many tasks in many parts of the world. We also have to look hard at some of our foreign policies if we want support from foreign governments. It's going to be a monumental undertaking of a totally novel type.

ZAHN: Well, I do think U.S. administration officials have begun to telegraph to the American public how complex it's to build the kind of coalition the U.S. government is attempting to build now. Where would you start? You talked about this joint session of Congress. You talked about educating the American public. But once you have this coalition built, who are you going after?

BRZEZINSKI: Well, first of all, building the coalition is going to be difficult and I think it's very important for the country to understand what kind of coalitions and under what kind of circumstances are needed. And the president has a bully pulpit which he can use. And a joint session to Congress explaining that this is really a long-term threat would be the beginning.

After that, we'll have to build coalitions probably on an ad hoc basis. I think in some cases we can undertake actions together with the French, the British, maybe the German special forces, perhaps some other countries. In some cases, we'll have to do it on our own.

I would think early on, very soon, in the next few weeks, we probably will have to undertake some action of our own and if we do, I hope we'll not use only stand up weapons, shooting cruise missiles from afar at some primitive targets, but that we'll use our special forces, our paratroopers, in order to stage an in and out operation which will demonstrate that we can go anywhere, reach anywhere and hit anyone. And I think that's very needed to demonstrate American resolve.

ZAHN: All right, you just said the United States may have to take some unilateral action in the weeks to come. Against whom?

BRZEZINSKI: Against either some bases that exist -- and there have been indications of bases in various parts of the world -- or, indeed, even against some government if links have been established that indicate participation by a government in what transpired last week.

ZAHN: If you would, for my final question, make an assessment on the administration efforts so far.

BRZEZINSKI: I think it's pretty good, I think some of the things that have been said lately, trying to put it into a wider context. However, I think the country needs to be given, as I have emphasized, a broad perspective which can only emanate from the president. The president has made some strong, short, punchy statements and a very moving speech at the time of the service. But we need a statement like President Roosevelt's statement after Pearl Harbor. We need a speech by the president which really lays out the new challenge this country faces and how we'll have to respond to it on a prolonged basis, including some very significant changes in the way we live, in the way we define and protect our democracy while taking the necessary security measures.

ZAHN: We're now told that investigators are very carefully looking at the money trail, examining transactions at private banks all over the world. What might that part of the investigation yield?

BRZEZINSKI: I think that's a very good question, Paula. I think one form of international cooperation, but including ourselves as well, would be great transparency in money shifts. What happened last week was planned for several years. I repeat, for several years. It was very well financed and sustained. Where does the money come from? And here again, I come back to a point which I stressed, namely, it didn't come from one man. It came from a variety of sources.

What were these sources? I'll hypothesize generally. First of all, some rich sheikhs probably pay blackmail money because they're threatened, even while professing friendship for us. That is a probable source. Secondly, some governments. We're not in a position yet to identify which ones, but that's quite likely. Thirdly, take into account that some terrorist organizations were being sustained, maintained, armed and trained as recently as 10 years ago by the Soviet government and these organizations operated in many parts of the world. This is an offspring of that, to some extent.

So we're dealing here with a variety of sources and tracing the money, making the banking system report more accurately, including our own banks, would be extremely helpful in detecting who has been involved in this.

ZAHN: Mr. Brzezinski, thanks so much for your expertise this morning. You've given us an awful lot to think about and to debate. Again, thanks for dropping by.

BRZEZINSKI: Thank you.

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