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American Morning

Target: Terrorism - Targeting bin Laden

Aired October 03, 2001 - 10:05   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Also at this time, getting reports, confirming through CNN, that the CIA two years ago helped to start train Pakistani militia members to possibly take out Osama bin Laden inside the borders of Afghanistan.

CNN's David Ensor working this story for us this morning. David, what more have we found out?

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bill, we can confirm a report in the "Washington Post" this morning. Basically the outlines are as follows:

That the Clinton administration in 1999 was working with the then Pakistani government, the then civilian Pakistani government, and had arranged for the Central Intelligence Agency to train 60 Pakistani intelligence officers. This training was going on, we are told, to plan for a commando raid, some kind of an action in Afghanistan, to seize and perhaps kill Osama bin Laden and some of his senior lieutenants in Afghanistan.

This plan was in place with the civilian government, and the problem -- what stopped it was that there was a coup de tat in Pakistan. The military commander, now President Musharraf, took over and he refused to go ahead with the plan.

So...

HEMMER: David, I'm going to interrupt you here for just a moment. We're going to come back and continue that report.

First though, here in New York, the president has arrived in New York City.

(NEWS BREAK)

HEMMER: David, my apologies. Let's go and pick it up again where you were in Afghanistan, to telling the story.

ENSOR: Well again, that basically two stories, Bill. As I was saying, the first one is that we can confirm that Clinton administration officials working with the then Pakistani civilian government, had arranged for the Central Intelligence Agency to train 60 Pakistani intelligence officers for a raid into Afghanistan, and attempt to capture Osama bin Laden and some of his lieutenants. This was in late '99.

It would have gone ahead, except there was a coup de tat in Pakistan. The civilian government was overthrown. The new leader, the military leader, President Musharraf, who is now in power in Pakistan, refused to go ahead with the plan to have these 60 Pakistanis move into Afghanistan and try to take bin Laden. That plan had to be shelved.

There was another attempt made by the Clinton administration which we can also now confirm. That is, in discussions with the government of Sudan back in 1996, there was an agreement by the Sudanese, and this is now where Osama bin Laden was living at the time. The Sudanese offered to turn over Osama bin Laden to the Saudi authorities, to Saudi Arabia for trial there.

What went wrong there was, is that the Saudis in the end, declined to accept him, fearing some sort of a backlash in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden of course is originally a Saudi citizen. A number of people in Saudi Arabia are sympathetic to his fundamentalist views. The Saudis clearly worried about the domestic backlash that could occur if they had bin Laden on their soil, had tried him and perhaps executed him for the terrorist crimes that were alleged up to that point.

Now, the sad thing is that if the Saudis had accepted him, there might have been no embassy bombings, two U.S. embassies bombed in Africa subsequent to '96. There might have been no USS Cole attack, and needless to say, there might have been no attacks on New York and Washington.

So, these were two important opportunities lost. But the sources on these stories initially were Clinton administration officials. Clearly there is a feeling by the previous administration that it's important to point out to people, they made a lot of efforts to capture bin Laden, to deal with the issue of bin Laden before the Bush administration took over. Some of these are now coming to light. Bill?

HEMMER: Interesting stuff. Hind sight always perfect, perfect looking back into the rearview mirror. If only, and so ifs at this point.

David, thank you. David Ensor in Washington.

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