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American Morning

Latest Message from Bin Laden Turned Up at Offices of Al Jazeera Earlier This Week

Aired December 27, 2001 - 07:05   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The latest message from Osama bin Laden turned up at the offices of Al Jazeera earlier this week.

CNN national security correspondent David Ensor looks at what it could be telling the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice over): On the tape, received Tuesday in Gudder (ph) from Pakistan, according to Al-Jazeera Television, bin Laden can be seen in his usual garb, Kalashnikov close to hand, defending his group's terrorist attacks.

OSAMA BIN LADEN: They condemn terror. We say our terror against American is blessed terror, in order to put an end to oppression, in order for the United States to stop its support of Israel.

ENSOR: U.S. officials say to them bin Laden looks pasty on the tape as compared with previous appearances, as if he hadn't had much sleep, hadn't been out in the sun in days and was under stress.

SAMUEL BERGER, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: This was a bit of an act of defiance in issuing this tape, basically saying, you know, I'm still here even if it's only on videotape.

ENSOR: The statement appears to have been recorded in late November for distribution around December 11, officials say.

BIN LADEN: Three months after our blessed attack against the main infidel West, especially America, and after two months of the infidel's attacks on Islam, we would like to talk about some of the implications of those incidents. These events have revealed many important issues to Muslims. It's very clear that the West in general and America in particular have an unspeakable hatred for Islam.

ENSOR: Al-Jazeera Television released only a fragment of what it says is a 34 minute tape of bin Laden, which it will release Thursday. The tape is clearly designed to influence opinion in the Muslim world. Too late, say some analysts.

EDWARD WALKER, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: This is a man who's been discredited in the region. The people in Afghanistan think he brought a great deal of pain, suffering and anguish to Afghanistan, and that, indeed, this is a guy who doesn't represent them, doesn't represent the Palestinians, doesn't represent Islam. They no longer have any sense of identity with him. And he's a loser.

ENSOR (on camera): U.S. officials say they are under whelmed by the tape. Just more of the usual anti-Western rhetoric, said one official. And it offers no new insights as to whether bin Laden is still alive or not, and if so, where. Still U.S. intelligence will be watching closely looking for clues when the full tape is broadcast.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: The Bush administration is calling the latest bin Laden tape more of the same kind of terrorist propaganda.

CNN White House correspondent Major Garrett is in Crawford, Texas with the president. He joins us with more on that -- good morning, Major.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

The White House reaction can be best summarized as blunt and dismissive. Scott McClellan, who is the press secretary traveling with the president down here in Crawford, told reporters yesterday about the bin Laden tape. This is nothing more than the same kind of terrorist propaganda that we've heard before.

What's the White House going to do when the tape is fully released, 34 minutes of it, in its entirety later on today? Well, no official word from the White House, but you might not be surprised to find former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Chris Ross, responding on Al Jazeera network to that bin Laden tape.

That's what the United States government did when the last bin Laden tape came out on November 3. Ambassador Ross speaks perfect Arabic and is considered a very credible foil to bin Laden's anti- Western propaganda, at least within the United States administration, and to many quarters of the Middle East as well.

A couple of other points worth making, Miles. The Bush administration does not see bin Laden as nearly the menacing figure it did 90 days ago, in part because the Taliban government that used to give him safe haven in Afghanistan is now completely removed from Afghanistan and bin Laden is clearly on the run. His appearance in this videotape, gaunt and drawn, also suggests to senior White House officials that not only is he on the run but he's under a good deal of stress. They say all these things have undermined his credibility throughout the Arabic speaking and Muslim world and that they're very pleased with -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Major Garrett in Crawford, Texas, thank you very much.

Joining us with more on the bin Laden message, reading the tea leaves, as he will, is CNN's terrorism analyst Peter Bergen, who is just out with a new book, "Holy War, Inc.," which takes a very comprehensive look at bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Peter, good to see you again.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Good morning, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk first of all about the content of the message, because I don't think we have to spend too much time on it. In the excerpt that has been released it seems like the same old propaganda and nonsense that we've been hearing from this man all along.

BERGEN: Yes, well he refers to the United States as the head of the snake, which is a formula he's used as early as 1993. So in that sense, there's nothing particularly new. I think there is an interesting kind of confusion about when the tape was made, potentially. There was a reference in there that suggests that -- to an event that happened on November 16, an attack on a Taliban leader which left a number of people dead. And then also at the beginning of the tape he talks about three months ago the events of September 11.

So it's a little ambiguous to me whether the tape was made in mid to late November or perhaps mid December. Obviously there's quite a difference -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, so the release at this juncture, really right on the heels of numerous rumors that Osama bin Laden might, in fact, be dead, it's difficult to say what or who might have released it, whether it was an al Qaeda operative or if, in fact, he might still be alive. What's your best sense of it?

BERGEN: Well, my understanding, Miles, is that it was mailed from Pakistan to Doha, the headquarters of Al Jazeera. And I would guess mailing something from Pakistan and getting it from Afghanistan to Pakistan in the first place, all that would take some, quite some time. So this videotape may have been in the pipeline from Afghanistan to Gudder Al Jazeera, for a period of some weeks.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, now a couple of things that we can look at immediately, his pallor, his beard being much grayer. Clearly this is a person who at the very least is under a great deal of stress. Perhaps, as we look at this graphic showing images from tapes in October, November and the most recent one, perhaps could be ill. Do you know much about his health?

BERGEN: Well, he's not been in great health. For a man who's 44, as you can see, he's looking not in great shape. He has suffered from low blood pressure, diabetes. He also has a, he walks with the help of a cane because he has a slight foot wound. But as you can see with those, the change in his, the pallor of his face and also his beard appears to have whitened in the time that we've seen, and certainly even if you looked at videotapes of him taken in the summer of this year, he was looking in much better shape.

So clearly living in the Afghan mountains and being on the run has taken quite a toll. O'BRIEN: One of the rumors that we heard yesterday came out of Pakistan. One of the newspapers there had reported that he had died of natural causes, which I thought was an interesting coincidence of timing.

BERGEN: Well, you know, the Pakistan newspapers are sometimes full of stuff that isn't exactly correct. And there have been reports in the past that bin Laden had heart disease or lung cancer or some kind of life threatening disease. They've turned out to be apparently untrue.

Certainly he's not in the best shape and anybody running around the Afghan mountains in the middle of winter, it's going to take a toll on your health. But I think that he is unlikely to die from natural causes. I don't think that the problems, the health problems he has are not life threatening.

O'BRIEN: All right, one thing here, you're one of the few people I've spoken to who's actually met the man face to face. Do you know him to be left-handed by any chance? Is he left-handed?

BERGEN: Well, I'm not exactly sure about that. One of the things on this videotape is that he's not moving his left hand around in this five minute videotape. And that might imply that he perhaps has injured it. You know, because he walks with a cane and he's walking around the mountains, perhaps he fell down and may have injured his hand that way. I think when the tape, when we see the rest of the tape today we may get a clearer sense if he doesn't move that left hand around at all that perhaps it is injured.

O'BRIEN: Now, no matter what any of this other, all these other circumstances we have been talking to, however that pans out, you get the sense that this is a person who would have a very difficult time orchestrating this empire of his. But on the other hand if you read your book, it's very clear that al Qaeda is a very decentralized organization.

How much is al Qaeda disabled right now, do you suspect, whether Osama bin Laden is alive or dead?

BERGEN: Well, I think in the long term al Qaeda is out of business. I mean with the top leadership on the run, the terror training camps in Afghanistan, you know, it's over as a going concern.

The problem in the short term is that a lot of people have cycled through those camps before September 11, before October 7 and the attacks by the United States on Afghanistan. So -- and not all of those people have returned to their native countries.

Now, how many of them are willing to undertake anti-American missions? How many of them have anti-American missions in the pipeline already isn't clear. But I think you'd have to be very optimistic to presume that there aren't some other operations in the pipeline.

And as we saw with this man who was arrested on the American Airlines flight, clearly he has links with some of the people in al Qaeda. You know, somebody who's carrying around C4 explosive, Miles, that is not something you buy at a hobby shop. That is something that al Qaeda has access to. It's a very unusual explosive if, indeed, that's exactly the explosive he was carrying, and to me an indicator that again there are other operations out there in the short term.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about that more the next time.

Peter will be back in our next hour. We'll talk a little bit more about the tape and also about that possibility that there are cells out there that are autonomously operating, still under way, if you will.

Peter Bergen, our terrorism analyst, author of the book "Holy War, Inc.," thank you very much for being with us, as always. BERGEN: Thank you, Miles.

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