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American Morning
Interview with Arnaud De Borchgrave
Aired May 13, 2002 - 07:20 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: We're going to talk more now about the search for Osama bin Laden and the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan with a man who is just back from the region. Arnaud De Borchgrave is an Editor-At-Large for both UPI and the "Washington Times." And we're delighted to see you in person for a change -- good morning.
ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE, UPI EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Thank you, Paula.
ZAHN: Do you think anybody will get to Osama bin Laden?
DE BORCHGRAVE: I'm convinced that one, he is alive; and, two, that we will eventually get him. A story I filed from there says that he's in Peshawar now, the capital of the North West Frontier province. That information came from a very important tribal leader that I've known for a long time, because I've been in and out of the area for the last 35 years. And he says that he's been -- Osama bin Laden has been inside Peshawar, a city of 3.5 million, since December 9.
ZAHN: Why December 9? What was pivotal about that day?
DE BORCHGRAVE: December 9 is when they were retreating from the Tora Bora area across the border into Pakistan. I was in the area two days later, on December 11, which had just been occupied by Pakistani troops which have been kept out of there since their independence. The Pakistani troops are not welcome there. They are forbidden from going in by treaty.
And yet it was under U.S. pressure that they did go in, and then they claimed that they had the border hermetically sealed with 4,500 troops, which cannot be done. Even with 100,000 troops it couldn't be done. There are at least 200 different passages in that area to come across the border.
ZAHN: So do you doubt the word at all in terms of the number of soldiers deployed along there, or do you think they even made an effort to seal that area, which you say basically is geographically impossible?
DE BORCHGRAVE: They did make an effort, but don't forget that they were also needed on the Indian front, because the Indians are deployed, practically their entire army, over the terrorist incident that took place in New Delhi on December 13 and which was pinned -- the blame was pinned on the Pakistani Secret Service. ZAHN: Do you see the U.S. acting unilaterally here at a time when unnamed U.S. sources are essentially saying they're not getting the cooperation for Pakistani they need right now to infiltrate that area and better understand what's going on in this population of 3.5 million people?
DE BORCHGRAVE: I doubt it very much, because if we started acting unilaterally, it would be known to the Pakistan army. The Pakistani army would then leak it to some of their favorite newspapers in Pakistan, who -- the papers that are mostly anti-American, and the fat would be in the fire. You'd have riots all over Pakistan.
ZAHN: So tell us about the strategy that Barbara Starr just laid out prior to our interview. The idea of continuing to -- the British troops trying to flush the al Qaeda further south.
DE BORCHGRAVE: I think the al Qaeda have great mobility. They move a lot at night. Not that we can't detect them, but they are in very small groups now. When Osama came across, apparently there were only 50 people with him, and they then got into smaller vehicles to drive into Peshawar.
As for the next terrorist targets, nobody really knows. And I think a lot of this information has been put out by al Qaeda and its operatives to destabilize the United States, to demoralize the United States. My guess is that the next major terrorist movement will take place in the Persian Gulf, either in a Saudi oil terminal, a Saudi -- the nerve center of Saudi oil fields, which is called Abcaque (ph) -- or perhaps sinking a super tanker in the straights of Hormuz, which is very easily done at night from a rubber boat, sticking a bunch of limpid mines on the waterline of a super tanker.
That's my guess, because Osama bin Laden understands that it's the economy, stupid, and anything tampering with oil in the Persian Gulf would discombobulate almost immediately oil markets and stock markets.
ZAHN: What incentive do these tribal leaders have to continue to hide this guy if they have a $25 million reward being waved in their faces?
DE BORCHGRAVE: Nobody believes in the $25 million reward that I've talked to.
ZAHN: Why?
DE BORCHGRAVE: Because they think that it's such a preposterously high figure, and that it's another sneering delusion on the part of the United States, that the U.S. has broken many promises to Pakistan, has applied many sanctions -- diplomatic, economic and military -- since they started building nuclear weapons. They don't believe that it's for real. So I don't think that's going to work in terms of bringing somebody forward.
But insofar as the sympathies for Osama bin Laden is concerned, it's very important to remember that the last poll taken among adult Pakistani males showed that 83 percent of them thought that Osama bin Laden was a freedom fighter.
ZAHN: Terrified to even think of that. A final question for you: In spite of the pressure that's being put on Musharraf to assist the CIA and any covert operation that may take place, he's in a box, isn't he? His economy is in shambles.
DE BORCHGRAVE: He's between a rock and a hard place, especially insofar as Kashmir is concerned, because many of the people that the Indians and the United States consider terrorists were actually trained by Musharraf when he was strictly army chief of staff before he became president.
ZAHN: Does he have control of the security forces?
DE BORCHGRAVE: I think he has control of the security forces. I don't think he has total control of the famous or infamous ISI, Inter- Services Intelligence agency.
ZAHN: And do you think that's the agency that's protecting Osama bin Laden right now?
DE BORCHGRAVE: I don't know about protecting him, because I think that in Peshawar, a city of 3.5 million, he has zillions of supporters and people willing to hide him. But that ISI has a rough idea of where he is, I have no doubt.
ZAHN: Mr. De Borchgrave, thank you very much for dropping by in person. Appreciate your time.
DE BORCHGRAVE: Thank you.
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