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American Morning

Discussion With George Crile

Aired July 11, 2003 - 07:37   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: There's a new book out now revealing stunning details of how the CIA helped funnel billions of dollars to arm the Afghan struggle against the Soviet Union back in the 1980s.
A former Texas congressman said to have teamed up with a rogue CIA operative to set up a massive covert operation. "Charlie Wilson's War" tells that story. That's the title of the book. It shows how it gave rise to Islamic fundamentalism in that country.

The author, George Crile, also a producer for "60 Minutes" on CBS, is our guest here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Nice to have you, George.

GEORGE CRILE, AUTHOR, "CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR": Thank you very much, Bill.

HEMMER: Well done. A lot of work in this.

Who's Charlie Wilson?

CRILE: He's a Texan who has literally changed the world we live in. You know, if you were a Muslim, it probably would come as a surprise to you to discover that the man who funded, or at least sponsored the greatest jihad in modern history, is former Congressman Charlie Wilson, and the CIA.

HEMMER: You make a heck of a claim in there -- single-handedly changed the world.

Overstated?

CRILE: No. Had it not been for Charlie Wilson, there would not have been a -- the largest CIA campaign in history that resulted in, which was the last campaign of the cold war, and it resulted in giving the Soviets their Vietnam in Afghanistan.

HEMMER: What motivates, then, a man from Texas to funnel millions, if not billions, of dollars to Afghanistan?

CRILE: Maybe it's the Alamo. This was a man who went to Afghanistan or to Pakistan and became the first congressman during the 1980s to, after the Soviets invaded that country and traumatized the West, he was the first congressman to go and take a look at the then what we called the freedom fighters. And he was moved by these Afghans. He saw them as the embodiment of freedom. They were fighting our cold war enemy, who we were frightened of and they weren't.

And he decided at that point that he was going to use his power on the Appropriations Committee -- he was one of the 11 men that fund the Pentagon and the CIA. And he thought he would use Ronald Reagan's great popularity and his call for supporting anti-communist guerrillas and just force the CIA into a war it didn't want to fight.

HEMMER: Do you think that -- does the Mujahedeen defeat the Soviets without Charlie Wilson?

CRILE: No.

HEMMER: No chance?

CRILE: Not a ghost of a chance.

HEMMER: How much money, then, did he enable to be funneled from the United States or other parts of the world into Afghanistan to help this war?

CRILE: Well, we're talking about the difference between having a force of Medieval men, basically -- you've been there -- who were armed with lots of rifles versus an army of Muslim fundamentalists who the CIA would come to call techno holy warriors, maybe 150,000 of them all organized with every conceivable kind of weapon. And ultimately they would get upwards of, what -- you know, while the contras were being wiped out, they were getting upwards of, getting close to a billion dollars a year in covert support. And that, you're talking here about numbers and size of an effort which dwarfs anything that had ever been imagined possible.

HEMMER: What did -- George, what did you find -- we've got about a minute left here. What did you find out about the possibility that Charlie Wilson funding this war enabled the Taliban, ultimately enabled al Qaeda to take root in Afghanistan and prosper?

CRILE: You know, this is an odd situation. It was a, it was actually a CIA secret war that succeeded. It met all of its objectives. It gave the Soviets their Vietnam. The Berlin Wall came down very soon afterward. There were no, there was no opposition on either side of the aisle in Congress to this huge campaign. And then the United States did everything possible wrong. And it didn't act like it did after WWII when it had the Marshal Plan and rebuilt Germany and Japan.

And this is a very good cautionary tale about what we have to face today in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military victory is one thing. It's great. We can do that now. But where we'll be measured is in what, how we perform after that. Do we leave something positive or do we leave anarchy, into which the unintended consequences can flow?

HEMMER: The book is called "Charlie Wilson's War."

George Crile, you did a lot of work and a lot of travel.

Good to see you in person.

CRILE: Thanks, Bill.

HEMMER: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired July 11, 2003 - 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: There's a new book out now revealing stunning details of how the CIA helped funnel billions of dollars to arm the Afghan struggle against the Soviet Union back in the 1980s.
A former Texas congressman said to have teamed up with a rogue CIA operative to set up a massive covert operation. "Charlie Wilson's War" tells that story. That's the title of the book. It shows how it gave rise to Islamic fundamentalism in that country.

The author, George Crile, also a producer for "60 Minutes" on CBS, is our guest here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Nice to have you, George.

GEORGE CRILE, AUTHOR, "CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR": Thank you very much, Bill.

HEMMER: Well done. A lot of work in this.

Who's Charlie Wilson?

CRILE: He's a Texan who has literally changed the world we live in. You know, if you were a Muslim, it probably would come as a surprise to you to discover that the man who funded, or at least sponsored the greatest jihad in modern history, is former Congressman Charlie Wilson, and the CIA.

HEMMER: You make a heck of a claim in there -- single-handedly changed the world.

Overstated?

CRILE: No. Had it not been for Charlie Wilson, there would not have been a -- the largest CIA campaign in history that resulted in, which was the last campaign of the cold war, and it resulted in giving the Soviets their Vietnam in Afghanistan.

HEMMER: What motivates, then, a man from Texas to funnel millions, if not billions, of dollars to Afghanistan?

CRILE: Maybe it's the Alamo. This was a man who went to Afghanistan or to Pakistan and became the first congressman during the 1980s to, after the Soviets invaded that country and traumatized the West, he was the first congressman to go and take a look at the then what we called the freedom fighters. And he was moved by these Afghans. He saw them as the embodiment of freedom. They were fighting our cold war enemy, who we were frightened of and they weren't.

And he decided at that point that he was going to use his power on the Appropriations Committee -- he was one of the 11 men that fund the Pentagon and the CIA. And he thought he would use Ronald Reagan's great popularity and his call for supporting anti-communist guerrillas and just force the CIA into a war it didn't want to fight.

HEMMER: Do you think that -- does the Mujahedeen defeat the Soviets without Charlie Wilson?

CRILE: No.

HEMMER: No chance?

CRILE: Not a ghost of a chance.

HEMMER: How much money, then, did he enable to be funneled from the United States or other parts of the world into Afghanistan to help this war?

CRILE: Well, we're talking about the difference between having a force of Medieval men, basically -- you've been there -- who were armed with lots of rifles versus an army of Muslim fundamentalists who the CIA would come to call techno holy warriors, maybe 150,000 of them all organized with every conceivable kind of weapon. And ultimately they would get upwards of, what -- you know, while the contras were being wiped out, they were getting upwards of, getting close to a billion dollars a year in covert support. And that, you're talking here about numbers and size of an effort which dwarfs anything that had ever been imagined possible.

HEMMER: What did -- George, what did you find -- we've got about a minute left here. What did you find out about the possibility that Charlie Wilson funding this war enabled the Taliban, ultimately enabled al Qaeda to take root in Afghanistan and prosper?

CRILE: You know, this is an odd situation. It was a, it was actually a CIA secret war that succeeded. It met all of its objectives. It gave the Soviets their Vietnam. The Berlin Wall came down very soon afterward. There were no, there was no opposition on either side of the aisle in Congress to this huge campaign. And then the United States did everything possible wrong. And it didn't act like it did after WWII when it had the Marshal Plan and rebuilt Germany and Japan.

And this is a very good cautionary tale about what we have to face today in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military victory is one thing. It's great. We can do that now. But where we'll be measured is in what, how we perform after that. Do we leave something positive or do we leave anarchy, into which the unintended consequences can flow?

HEMMER: The book is called "Charlie Wilson's War."

George Crile, you did a lot of work and a lot of travel.

Good to see you in person.

CRILE: Thanks, Bill.

HEMMER: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com