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CNN Live At Daybreak
Former State Department Officials Talk About Contacts With Taliban
Aired November 08, 2001 - 05:40 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Before September 11, most Americans knew very little about Osama bin Laden, but the U.S. has been working for years to get the Taliban to turn over the suspected terrorist. Now, in a television first, two former U.S. former officials talk with CNN's Christiane Amanpour about the case against bin Laden and the full efforts to get the Taliban to cooperate.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, and especially since the bombing of Taliban targets in Afghanistan, former U.S. official are now telling the story of public and secret meetings aimed at convincing the Taliban to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
For nearly three years before September 11, they met for talks with the Taliban in Islamabad, Pakistan, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Kabul, Afghanistan, and in Bonn, Germany, as well as in New York and Washington.
Former Clinton administration official, Karl Inderfurth, led many of the meetings.
AMBASSADOR KARL INDERFURTH, FORMER U.S. ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: I personally had, I think, about 20 meetings with Taliban officials at a very senior level, including Mullah Rabanni, who was once number two and has since passed away, Mullah Jalil, Mullah Mutaki, the Taliban representative in New York, Mr. Mujahed (ph). We spent many, hours patiently discussing our concerns with the Taliban.
AMANPOUR: There were dozens of telephone conversations with the Taliban, including the foreign minister, and even once with the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Omar.
INDERFURTH: The fact is that we wanted to establish a direct line of communication to the Taliban. Despite our grave concerns about the direction the Taliban was heading, we wanted to make sure they heard directly from us. And in 1998, there was a telephone discussion that took place between a State Department official, Michael Melanowski (ph), to Kandahar, where Mullah Omar resides, and we believe that Mullah Omar got on the phone and had a discussion, briefly, about this. AMANPOUR: These contacts got under way in earnest only after the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in August, 1998, that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
Armed with evidence against Osama bin Laden, that eventually was presented in New York court, the Clinton administration's ambassador for counterterrorism, Michael Sheehan, says he briefed the Taliban in detail in more than a dozen meetings and telephone calls.
MICHAEL SHEEHAN, FORMER COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIAL: We presented that information after those indictments were concluded in early 1999. The linkage is back to al Qaeda and bin Laden's organization were very strong in the case of the East African bombings. The groups, the cells, that conducted that operation had clear ties to known bin Laden lieutenants. There were links that were well established in communication, faxes, and other means that I think built a very strong case, and I think was well understood by any objective person who reviewed it.
INDERFURTH: In February of 1999, Mike Sheehan and I traveled to Islamabad to tell the Taliban a very important message, which was not only must they expel bin Laden, so that he could be brought to justice. But henceforth, because we had every reason to believe that bin Laden was continuing to plot acts of terrorism; henceforth we would hold the Taliban, itself, responsible for those actions by bin Laden. So they were put on notice two years before September 11.
AMANPOUR: During the three year period that began with the Embassy bombings, through the bombing of the USS Cole, and until just before September 11, first the Clinton and then the Bush administration pursued a two-track policy with the Taliban: sanctions and negotiations. But none of it worked, even though U.S. officials say, at times, the Taliban indicated they might be interested in handing over bin Laden, with a face-saving device. The U.S. said they could convene their own Islamic court as a first step, for instance.
SHEEHAN: We said, you can go ahead and do whatever you want regarding trials internally in Afghanistan, if at the end of the day, you comply with the U.N. resolution that required that bin Laden be turned over to justice, where he could be tried for his crimes.
AMANPOUR: For instance, in Kenya, Tanzania, or Saudi Arabia, places where bin Laden was accused of committing crimes. The U.S. never insisted that bin Laden be handed over to a U.S. court.
INDERFURTH: If they wished to take some other action as a, basically, a face-saving device, that would be perfectly acceptable, as long as it led to bin Laden being brought to justice. So we tried to take into account their problem, and indeed many Taliban officials said that bin Laden was a burden to them. But unfortunately, I think that the key element here was the close relationship between Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, and no matter how much evidence we presented, no matter how respectful we were of their trying to sort through what they called their problem, they were never going to give him up, because Omar and bin Laden were too close. AMANPOUR (on camera): Still, the Taliban claimed the United States was not flexible enough in its negotiations, and U.S. critics accuse the Clinton administration of failing to focus on the threat of terrorism from Afghanistan until it was too late. Indeed, the Taliban was not put on the U.S. terrorist watch list, in part, because the U.S. didn't want to recognize the Taliban as the rightful rulers of Afghanistan.
(voice-over): Karl Inderfurth admits the Clinton administration was initially more focused on ending the civil war and heroin production in Afghanistan, as well as on the rights of women.
INDERFURTH: And we were also concerned about terrorism, but it was the bombings in East Africa in August of 1998 that focused the great attention of the U.S. government, across the board, on what to do about bin Laden's presence there.
AMANPOUR: Christiane Amanpour, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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