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American Morning

Bin Laden Could Have Slipped into Iran or Other Area

Aired August 29, 2002 - 07:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: As the reports continue about a possible war against Iraq, the U.S. military continues its pursuit of Osama bin Laden and its pursuit of al Qaeda. There are now reports that bin Laden is alive and so, too, are key members of the top level of his terror team.
Retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark was the NATO supreme commander. He is our guest this morning in D.C.

General, good morning to you.

Good to see you again, my friend.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: Listen, reports this week that U.S. forces right now are working that border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, possibly reports that bin Laden and leading members of his team moving by horseback at night. Your take is very different. You don't think he's there. Why not?

CLARK: My guess is that he doesn't have a reason. I would say he doesn't have a reason to stay there. My guess is he has moved on. He would be there if it was required to hold the organization together there, if he had some physical assets, something he couldn't move, something he couldn't transport or groups of people that he had to be with personally.

But with the base gone in Afghanistan -- and I don't think they see a real likelihood of reestablishing that base any time soon -- he may well be in other countries. He could be in Iran. He could even have slipped back into the Yemen-Saudi Arabia border area.

HEMMER: I have to think, though, for the U.S. military to be satisfied it's going to take months to get through that terrain, right? Would you not agree?

CLARK: I think it's a very difficult piece of ground to work. And the problem is that they can't be everywhere at once. They've got to have intelligence. They've got to follow the intelligence leads. They've got to have long range surveillance. But eventually we will put a net around that piece of ground and we will take him down if he's there.

HEMMER: Move from that area to Iran. Reports also that indicate leading members of al Qaeda, top key leaders could be taking refuge right now in Iran, moving maybe from Afghanistan into Pakistan then crossing over into Iran, however they got there. Two men of particular interest, one a religious voice of al Qaeda, the other an operational planner from Egypt.

I don't think this is much of a surprise to somebody like you. Am I wrong?

CLARK: No, it's not a surprise at all, Bill, because first of all Iran has been involved with terrorists and terrorism for 20, over 20 years now. And they have even supported attacks on the United States. We know that there are many, many informal contacts between the intelligence services of various Middle Eastern countries and Saddam, and Osama bin Laden. And so it's not surprising that there would be some there.

Whether they're there with Khatami's support and understanding or not really is irrelevant. They're there. They may be being milked for intelligence. They may be being supported. Maybe there's some joint planning going on. We just don't know.

HEMMER: Move further west to Iraq, if you could, for a moment here. Apparently this argument continues at the highest level of the administration. How does the White House pull in the U.N. in the month of September regarding inspections on the ground in Baghdad? How does the administration pull in Congress moving forward on this when the members of Congress return to D.C. next Tuesday? With that as a backdrop, how does Iraq right now fit into the whole scheme right now? Your perspective on the war on terror.

CLARK: Well, my perspective would be I'd like to see us slow down the rush to go after Saddam Hussein unless there's some clear convincing evidence that we haven't had shared with the public that he's right on the verge of getting nuclear weapons.

He's been trying to get nuclear weapons for 20 years. He's had chemical weapons. He's had biological weapons. Of course he's trying to improve the biological weapons. But where's the sense of urgency coming from? That's really the issue. Our primary problem is...

HEMMER: You know, General...

CLARK: ... al Qaeda.

HEMMER: Yes, go back to Donald Rumsfeld from this week, who said that it is just a question of time before Iraq is nuclear capable. And the issue is do you go now and prevent it before it happens or do you wait until he has it and then he becomes, in the words of the vice president, Dick Cheney, he says and then he becomes a nuclear power and then you can't go in.

Your take on that?

CLARK: I think it is a question of time. I think eventually the containment regime will leak. But it could be a year. It could be two years. It could be five years or more and we don't know that. That information hasn't been made available to the public. The latest information that most of us have heard about is that he's trying very hard to assemble the components. He doesn't have nuclear materials. We've got lots of efforts in many places in the world to prevent him from getting those nuclear materials. And I think we would have some notice were we about to have a breakdown in this containment regime. There would be some leakage. There would be some word.

So I think we need to get a little bit deeper into the discussion. We may not be able to do it in a public way, but I think that's what the issue is going to be, what's the urgency?

HEMMER: Right. It's not going away, we know that.

Thank you, General.

Wesley Clark in D.C. for us.

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