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American Morning

Report Al Qaeda Has New Chief of Military Operations

Aired February 14, 2002 - 07:33   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There is a disturbing report this morning that al Qaeda has a new chief of military operations. "The New York Times" quotes U.S. officials as saying he is a Palestinian, who replaced Mohammad Atef, believed killed in one of those U.S. bombing attacks in Afghanistan.

For more now, let's turn to Richard Butler, our ambassador-in- residence -- good morning.

RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER U.N. CHIEF WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: All right. This one is a scary one.

BUTLER: Yes.

ZAHN: You have U.S. law enforcement officials describing this man as -- quote -- "dangerous as anyone we are looking for, including Osama bin Laden." What do we know about this guy?

BUTLER: Well, not enough. And, Paula, let me say straight away, extraordinary, he is not even on the published most wanted list of terrorists.

ZAHN: Why?

BUTLER: We don't know enough about him. But what do we know? He is a Palestinian, a very rich Palestinian family apparently, but born in Saudi Arabia. As a quick aside on the Palestinian issue, he has never expressed any interest in the rights of the Palestinian people, like Osama bin Laden. Their agenda is against America, not in favor of the Palestinian people.

Now, Palestinian, born in Saudi Arabia, who joined al Qaeda in the '90s, rose very, very fast in the organization. Osama bin Laden could see his qualities. And this, Paula, this is the core of it, put him in charge of all training, training in the terrorist camps in Afghanistan, in Pakistan. And this man, therefore, knows exactly who went through those camps, and he had responsibility for distributing them around the world to the various terrorist cells. He knows where all the foot soldiers of al Qaeda are, and that's why he is really important to us to find him and talk to him.

ZAHN: And apparently they are very concerned that he is in a position now where he could give instructions to people to carry out further attacks against U.S. interests. Why is this guy so elusive?

BUTLER: Yes, he actually is in a position to awake the sleeper cells, as they are called, in various parts of the world. Why is he so elusive? First of all, he speaks English up to a point. Secondly, his physical characteristics are, you know, median. He is not -- he doesn't look like a classic, you know, the icon or the stereotype that people have of an Arab terrorist. He just looks like a fairly normal sort of person. He has got a variety of passports...

ZAHN: And disguises.

BUTLER: And disguises. He changes his appearance in small ways fairly constantly, travels the world constantly. He has been to Canada, you know, obviously Afghanistan and Pakistan, as I have already mentioned, but he has been in the West. He just keeps in circulation. A simple way of putting it, this guy has made himself very successfully a moving target that has eluded us.

ZAHN: But no one knows where he is...

(CROSSTALK)

BUTLER: No one knows where he is. We know who he is. We know he is important. We really need this guy, but we don't know where to find him.

ZAHN: It's scary!

BUTLER: It's very scary.

ZAHN: I mean, there has been so much talk about the potential for these sleeper cells to be awakened.

Let's move on to the issue of the president and Iraq, probably some of the harshest, most pointed words he has used so far, basically saying that the U.S. will do whatever it takes to...

BUTLER: That's right.

ZAHN: But what did he say? Not bring them under control, but to take...

BUTLER: Take whatever steps we need to take. We talked at some length about Iraq yesterday, Paula, and I think it's worth ticking that off this morning, because we are talking essentially about what Colin Powell had been saying. Now, yesterday the president has entered the issue at a press conference after he saw the Pakistani president. And in answer to a question, he confirmed, yes, we will take whatever steps we need to take against Iraq. He interestingly indicated that he would try a little diplomacy for a while. But in the end, we will take whatever steps he deems necessary.

And in something that I think was very important, he said, but I'm not going to reveal those to Saddam Hussein. I'm going to keep those cards, he said, close to my vest. I welcomed...

ZAHN: Yes. But what are the cards that you play? I mean, those are pretty obvious, aren't they?

BUTLER: Well, I think so, but I welcomed the statement, and I think people should, because although Colin Powell was giving terrific clarification yesterday, I must say I went away and asked myself the question, why are we saying so much of this to Saddam? And the president, in a sense, has addressed that and said, I'll make the choice when the time comes, and no, I'm not going to signal it in advance. And I think that was good clarification.

ZAHN: But one thing to be sure, there's going to be a demand for weapons inspections in Iraq.

BUTLER: Absolutely. Absolutely. And if they are turned down, or if those weapons inspections are shown to be the sort of shell game that they were when I was doing it, I think you can rely on that this administration will say enough, enough. They're not going to go around this track again and take action.

ZAHN: Ambassador, thank you for your insights.

BUTLER: Good to see you.

ZAHN: We covered a lot of territory this morning.

BUTLER: OK.

ZAHN: See you same time, same place tomorrow morning.

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