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American Morning

America's New War: Bush Cracking Down on Financial Network

Aired September 24, 2001 - 10:04   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.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Now I want to turn to Christiane Amanpour. She's standing by in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

Christiane, the Musharraf government is not likely to like what it just heard there in the Rose Garden, the president of the United States and the secretary of state saying much of this information is classified and therefore will not be turned over. The government there obviously wants to see the evidence against Osama bin Laden.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's in terms of the evidence, yes, but we have been assured by a western diplomat that it is more than likely that the Musharraf government will get what they called, "a detailed briefing" of the status of the case so far. And we believe, from what we have been told by very high-ranking diplomats here, that they will get as much as they can get to convince them that this -- the United States has the goods on the Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda network as they go after them.

In terms of what the president said about charitable organizations and international allies and things cracking down on the financial network, it will mean cracking down on places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, all sorts of countries from which there are many, many reports that individual wealthy people do send a lot of money from those countries to the groups that are fighting in Afghanistan and for the al Qaeda organization. This has been reported many times in public before. And that we even know of many of those sort of charitable organizations in parts of the world that operate under religious cover, that have been accused of using that cover to prove assistance of whatever kind to various groups that are involved in what was -- what's called "terrorist activities."

So, again, the president calling for great cooperation from not only European allies, but allies in other parts of the world from which money is flowing, according to published report, to these groups.

KING: And, Christiane, President Bush refused to answer when posed this question: Is part of U.S. campaign here designed to topple the Taliban, to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan? Is that the perception in the region, that that is one of the president's goals?

AMANPOUR: Yes, frankly, in a word, and certainly those who listen to the president's speech to Congress the other night felt that he outlined a case for overthrowing the Taliban. He used very, very strong words: We condemn the Taliban regime. I mean, that's pretty uncompromising. And then built a case that one of the reasons is, not just for harboring terrorists, as they allege, but also because of the harsh regime that they have brought to the people of Afghanistan. So a lot of people do believe that that is one eventually aim of any kind of campaign.

KING: Christiane Amanpour, in Islamabad, Pakistan, thank you .

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