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CNN Live At Daybreak

America's New War: What to Expect From Afghanistan

Aired September 20, 2001 - 08:03   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: Joining me now is Joshua Cooper Ramo, who is the senior editor at "Time" magazine who oversees "Time's" international coverage.

Good to have you with this morning.

JOSHUA COOPER RAMO, "TIMES": Pleasure to be here, Paula.

ZAHN: You have had a chance to listen to what Christiane Amanpour has reported this morning how the Pakistanis are interpreting the clerics' response.

As best you can, what the heck do you think is going on?

RAMO: Well, I think it's still very early days. One thing to remember is that the clerics are very much in Mohammed Omar's pocket. That means that anything that they announce is a part of a plan that he has -- a much larger plan to respond to the U.S. ultimatum to turn Osama bin Laden over.

What we know today is that a statement has been issued, and it says two things: First of all that they reject the U.S. ultimatum calling for Osama bin Laden to be expelled from the country. And that they encourage Mohammed Omar to try and adopt a policy that might let Osama leave the country of his own accord.

The upshot of that is that it may just be a play for time. They have not fallen into the U.S. demand that he be expelled. They have not agreed to the Pakistani request that that happen within three days. And ultimately, this has to be appealed to Mohammed Omar himself, who may yet decide that what he wants to do is keep Osama bin Laden in the country.

ZAHN: And there are varying accounts of where he is this morning.

RAMO: That's right.

ZAHN: Now, that's a pretty convenient thing to have happen, right?

RAMO: Absolutely.

ZAHN: You don't know where he is. RAMO: I think if you can anticipate or think of all of this as a play for time by the Afghan government, what's going on is two things: First, they want to try and avoid an immediate U.S. air strike. And the way that they have done that is by putting this Islamic council into place, which gives them some time. The second thing they're likely to do down the road is take an opportunity to say, hey, we don't know where Osama bin Laden is.

The combination of those two things is going to make it very difficult to have a straight shot for the Bush administration to go in there and start firing missiles. It's going to mean that the Bush administration is going to have to come up with clear, succinct ultimatums of their own, and they're going to have to do so quickly.

ZAHN: In a way, though, isn't this -- doesn't this give a slight advantage to the Bush administration right now? Because they have certainly been told by even one of the German members -- high-ranking members of NATO, don't go into this thing swiftly.

RAMO: Absolutely. I mean, it gives the advantage in the sense that it's going to take some time for them to deploy in any event. We know that the operation orders that were administered out of the Pentagon yesterday for the planes going to Saudi Arabia said that they need to have an active date late next week. So they're going to need those 10 days anyhow to really establish themselves.

The key for the Bush administration now is going to try to be to force the government inside Afghanistan to obey a clear ultimatum about what needs to happen next. Our sources are telling us right now that Osama bin Laden may be helping the Afghan government prepare for a U.S. invasion. So if that's the case, the two may be much more closely linked than we imagined.

It's still early days. We still have a lot to sort out in terms of the details, but I think this announcement this morning is not a sign that this is over. It's a sign that some of the confusion, the diplomatic protocols are really just beginning.

ZAHN: There has also been a tremendous amount of confusion surrounding whether, in fact, an ultimatum was delivered. We had one Pakistani official saying, yes, indeed, we gave Osama bin Laden a three-day -- or gave the Taliban...

RAMO: Right.

ZAHN: ... a three-day ultimatum.

RAMO: I think everybody who went into that meeting from the Pakistani side seems to have had a different description of what exactly went on. We heard also that there was a three-day ultimatum, but then we heard from some other folks that, in fact, Musharraf had tried to send a message -- the Pakistani president -- through his intelligence agencies that they needed to find some way to get bin Laden out of the country, but it didn't necessarily have to be responsive to the ultimatum. And what you may be seeing today is a play out of that attempt. It may be an approach that's sort of a different approach, a way to get him out of the country without feeling like you're caving into a U.S. or a Pakistani ultimatum.

ZAHN: The Pakistani delegation made it very clear that they didn't go to Afghanistan to negotiate. They went to hand over this demand.

What is the possibility of negotiations now at this point between Taliban leaders and the Pakistani?

RAMO: Well, I think you make an absolutely crucial point here, which is the Pakistanis have always seen the government in Afghanistan and the Taliban very much as a quiet state. They put them into power. They were the ones who were responsible for many of their military victories. Some people estimate that 40 percent of the officer core of the Afghan army was made up of Pakistani officers. So they felt they were entitled to deliver an ultimatum to them in a way you might deliver an ultimatum to your children.

What's happened, however, is that the Afghan government has sort of begun to go through its adolescence in a way. To say, you know what? We're not going to respond to something just because it's an ultimatum. And so, I think the Pakistanis may have been hesitant to deliver that, and I think now they're certainly worried exactly how much control they have over what goes on in Kabul.

ZAHN: Joshua, if you'd be kind enough, we'd like for you to stand by throughout the morning as we continue to decipher these reports. Thanks so much for your perspective.

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