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Bergen: Al Jazeera Not Arm for al Qaeda

Aired September 05, 2003 - 14:08   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: By the very nature of the work, journalism puts good people into contact with some rather despicable characters, often under some rather under murky circumstances that can be best described as a world with many shades of gray.
So where in that world is the line between aggressive pursuit of a story, wherever it may lead, and aiding and abetting an enemy? For more on that, we turn to a journalist who we admire greatly who has walked that line with his own interview of Osama bin Laden and in the pages of book "Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret of Osama bin Laden", Peter Bergen, joining us from Washington. Good to see you again, Peter.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Hi, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, you had the opportunity to interview Osama bin Laden. And just by virtue of that fact, you had to come in contact with al Qaeda operatives. That is a difficult path to navigate and I suppose law enforcement on the outside might look at that and look a scance (ph) at it.

BERGEN: Well, in our case, CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden in '97. It was his first television interview. He's given other interviews to "TIME" Magazine, to "The Independent" newspaper, to ABC News.

Clearly law enforcement in the United States has not taken the view that seeking interviews with bin Laden is in some way aiding and abetting. We don't know what the charges are, exactly, against Allouni (UNINTELLIGIBLE). He is one of the journalists who did interview bin Laden, as Al Goodman said, the last person to do a television interview with bin Laden.

But in the course of these things of course you do meet people who by their -- you wouldn't meet bin Laden unless you met people who are associates of bin Laden.

So in the course of producing the first television for CNN I meet people who certainly would described themselves as friends of bin Laden. One of them, the key person who introduced us, really, to the interview with bin Laden was guy called Khalid al Fawaz (ph).

He is now being imprisoned in the United Kingdom for four years now. I met with him in '97. He was -- United States is seeking to extradite him to the United States. He's been in prison awaiting extradition for four years now in London. And also in the course of doing the interview with bin Laden we met with, obviously, other people who are closely linked with him, some of them, albeit, very briefly. And most of the people, by the way, that I met along the way, I have no idea what their names were and certainly they were not about to give you their real names.

But an interesting moment, obviously, to go and meet with him and meet with the people around him.

O'BRIEN: What is your sense? I know you don't know Allouni personally, but you've had a fair number of dealings over the years with Al Jazeera journalist in general. There has been some criticism leveled over the years that they are perhaps shills, if you will, for al Qaeda, for the Iraqi regime which is toppled. All kind of allegations of that nature. Do you see a different picture?

BERGEN: My view is, Miles, having talked to a lot of Al Jazeera journalists, they say -- and I try to take this somewhat at face value, Look, we're interested in doing journalism and we're getting criticized from every side. Obviously the United States government are very critical of their Iraq coverage. But they also say within sometimes when they U.S. government officials on people don't like that.

They're interested in getting scoops, they're interested the same kinds of things any other journalist are interested in. A lot of them came out the BBC before they were at Al Jazeera.

My impression is that by and large the ones I met are very aggressive journalists and have actually done very good coverage of al Qaeda. As an example, Yalsree al Fudah (ph), one of their lead journalists, did a very interview with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the guy who planned 9/11. That was the first time Khalid Sheikh Mohammed explained how happened 9/11.

And in fact, probably, eventually led to his arrest because as a result of saying that he had been interviewed by Al Jazeera it was clear that he was in Karachi. Eventually people -- the noose around him tightened.

Not to say that Al Jazeera somehow led to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led with his interview. But by the very fact that he showed himself to do that interview allow law enforcement, I think, to look around and see where he was.

So, obviously, you can criticize all sorts of channels for their coverage. But I think on balance Al Jazeera is looking to do journalism, are not really shilling for anybody. Obviously they're going to take a different perspective then, let's say, an American news channel because so many people who came from there -- who work on the channels come from the Middle East. They're going to have a different take about let's say what is happening in Iraq.

But I don't they're a propaganda arm of al Qaeda. That would be overdoing it.

O'BRIEN: So you'd be surprised if -- of an allegation that there were people working for Al Jazeera who had direct links to al Qaeda.

BERGEN: Yes, frankly, I am. We don't know -- Al Goodman just reported that supposedly Allouni gave some kind of support to two alleged al Qaeda people. I'm not really -- it's not very clear what that means.

So until it is more clear what that support was, was it financial or was it logisticals, these kind of things -- the charges against him seem pretty obscure. We'll find out maybe more on Monday when he's arraigned.

O'BRIEN: Peter Bergen as a terrorist analyst for CNN and author of the book "Holy War Inc." Thanks for being with us. We appreciate it as always.

BERGEN: Thanks, Miles

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired September 5, 2003 - 14:08   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: By the very nature of the work, journalism puts good people into contact with some rather despicable characters, often under some rather under murky circumstances that can be best described as a world with many shades of gray.
So where in that world is the line between aggressive pursuit of a story, wherever it may lead, and aiding and abetting an enemy? For more on that, we turn to a journalist who we admire greatly who has walked that line with his own interview of Osama bin Laden and in the pages of book "Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret of Osama bin Laden", Peter Bergen, joining us from Washington. Good to see you again, Peter.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Hi, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, you had the opportunity to interview Osama bin Laden. And just by virtue of that fact, you had to come in contact with al Qaeda operatives. That is a difficult path to navigate and I suppose law enforcement on the outside might look at that and look a scance (ph) at it.

BERGEN: Well, in our case, CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden in '97. It was his first television interview. He's given other interviews to "TIME" Magazine, to "The Independent" newspaper, to ABC News.

Clearly law enforcement in the United States has not taken the view that seeking interviews with bin Laden is in some way aiding and abetting. We don't know what the charges are, exactly, against Allouni (UNINTELLIGIBLE). He is one of the journalists who did interview bin Laden, as Al Goodman said, the last person to do a television interview with bin Laden.

But in the course of these things of course you do meet people who by their -- you wouldn't meet bin Laden unless you met people who are associates of bin Laden.

So in the course of producing the first television for CNN I meet people who certainly would described themselves as friends of bin Laden. One of them, the key person who introduced us, really, to the interview with bin Laden was guy called Khalid al Fawaz (ph).

He is now being imprisoned in the United Kingdom for four years now. I met with him in '97. He was -- United States is seeking to extradite him to the United States. He's been in prison awaiting extradition for four years now in London. And also in the course of doing the interview with bin Laden we met with, obviously, other people who are closely linked with him, some of them, albeit, very briefly. And most of the people, by the way, that I met along the way, I have no idea what their names were and certainly they were not about to give you their real names.

But an interesting moment, obviously, to go and meet with him and meet with the people around him.

O'BRIEN: What is your sense? I know you don't know Allouni personally, but you've had a fair number of dealings over the years with Al Jazeera journalist in general. There has been some criticism leveled over the years that they are perhaps shills, if you will, for al Qaeda, for the Iraqi regime which is toppled. All kind of allegations of that nature. Do you see a different picture?

BERGEN: My view is, Miles, having talked to a lot of Al Jazeera journalists, they say -- and I try to take this somewhat at face value, Look, we're interested in doing journalism and we're getting criticized from every side. Obviously the United States government are very critical of their Iraq coverage. But they also say within sometimes when they U.S. government officials on people don't like that.

They're interested in getting scoops, they're interested the same kinds of things any other journalist are interested in. A lot of them came out the BBC before they were at Al Jazeera.

My impression is that by and large the ones I met are very aggressive journalists and have actually done very good coverage of al Qaeda. As an example, Yalsree al Fudah (ph), one of their lead journalists, did a very interview with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the guy who planned 9/11. That was the first time Khalid Sheikh Mohammed explained how happened 9/11.

And in fact, probably, eventually led to his arrest because as a result of saying that he had been interviewed by Al Jazeera it was clear that he was in Karachi. Eventually people -- the noose around him tightened.

Not to say that Al Jazeera somehow led to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led with his interview. But by the very fact that he showed himself to do that interview allow law enforcement, I think, to look around and see where he was.

So, obviously, you can criticize all sorts of channels for their coverage. But I think on balance Al Jazeera is looking to do journalism, are not really shilling for anybody. Obviously they're going to take a different perspective then, let's say, an American news channel because so many people who came from there -- who work on the channels come from the Middle East. They're going to have a different take about let's say what is happening in Iraq.

But I don't they're a propaganda arm of al Qaeda. That would be overdoing it.

O'BRIEN: So you'd be surprised if -- of an allegation that there were people working for Al Jazeera who had direct links to al Qaeda.

BERGEN: Yes, frankly, I am. We don't know -- Al Goodman just reported that supposedly Allouni gave some kind of support to two alleged al Qaeda people. I'm not really -- it's not very clear what that means.

So until it is more clear what that support was, was it financial or was it logisticals, these kind of things -- the charges against him seem pretty obscure. We'll find out maybe more on Monday when he's arraigned.

O'BRIEN: Peter Bergen as a terrorist analyst for CNN and author of the book "Holy War Inc." Thanks for being with us. We appreciate it as always.

BERGEN: Thanks, Miles

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com