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American Morning
Interview With Robert Kaplan
Aired February 25, 2004 - 08:21 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. military in Afghanistan this marriage says time is running out for Osama bin Laden, as the search for the al Qaeda leader intensifies. Pakistani troops are interrogating 25 suspects that they rounded up yesterday. The mountainous region bordering Afghanistan has been under surveillance since bin Laden lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri was reportedly seen there last year. Arab TV stations yesterday broadcast a tape that was said to be made by him.
Robert Kaplan joins us this marriage.
He recently spent a month with special forces that are hunting bin Laden and he wrote about it for the "Atlantic Monthly."
Nice to see you.
Thanks for being with us.
ROBERT KAPLAN, "THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY": It's a pleasure to be here.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about the search for Osama bin Laden. They're searching on the border of Afghanistan and yet you say that's actually the wrong place to be looking.
Why?
KAPLAN: Well, actually, they're on the Afghan side of the border. We have special forces firebases set up all along the Afghan- Pakistan border inside Afghanistan. But the problem is on the other side of the border, inside Pakistan, particularly in a region called Northern Waziristan.
This is a tribal agency. The Pakistani regime has almost no control of it -- over it.
O'BRIEN: What makes you sure he's there?
KAPLAN: The British never controlled -- I don't know. I'm saying it's a likely place.
O'BRIEN: What makes it likely?
KAPLAN: It's likely because al Qaeda requires not just ungovernability, it requires cultural access. And there is a Mujahedeen leader there, one of the most radical and capable Mujahedeen leaders against the Soviets named Jalal Adeen Hakani (ph), who speaks fluent Arabic. He's married to a Saudi woman. For two decades, he has provided the cultural access for radical Saudi Wahabis in the Afghan-Pakistan border region. And he has, he has tremendous influence in Waziristan, in the Waziristan start of the tribal agencies. And so it's been assumed that this is a very likely place where bin Laden could be hiding.
O'BRIEN: Is the issue that the U.S. troops just can't get access to Pakistan?
KAPLAN: It's hard because we've been trying to find a diplomatic mechanism so that Musharraf, President Musharraf of Pakistan, can look the other way, so that we can make incursions over the border and have more of a presence. Unfortunately, we did have networks and a presence in this area throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, but we gave them all away after the Soviets were expelled from Afghanistan. And you just cannot build up networks overnight all at once now.
O'BRIEN: Do you think the Pakistani president is doing all he could be? Because, as you point out, he's in between the so-called rock and a hard place.
KAPLAN: He certainly is. I mean he's under -- he is under the kind of political pressure that would psychologically immobilize any American politician. However, you can believe that if we had actionable intelligence on specific high value targets over the border, he would find a way to look the other way. But we have to be very careful about this. This is something we cannot do often, because destabilizing Musharraf might be more dangerous for American security than not finding some high value targets.
O'BRIEN: But you talk about high value targets, but you write that actually it's the MVTs, the medium value targets, that are, to some degree, much more critical.
Why?
KAPLAN: This is the old Rudy Giuliani subway turnstile phenomenon. When you arrested kids for jumping subway turnstiles and you interrogate them, often you find that they're wanted for higher crimes or they have information on people who are wanted for more serious crimes.
Saddam Hussein was captured mainly because of information from middle value targets, not from the big guys, from the middle value targets. And we need to be mopping up more MVTs along the Afghan- Pakistan border.
O'BRIEN: And that will lead, eventually, to the high value targets.
KAPLAN: Exactly.
O'BRIEN: Bob Kaplan, nice to see you.
Thanks so much. The article is fascinating.
And, also, you have a new book out that you wrote, you were telling me, after 9/11.
KAPLAN: Yes.
O'BRIEN: It is called "Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape In Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia and Greece." And it's based on your travels some 25 years ago.
KAPLAN: That's right.
O'BRIEN: It looks like a beautiful book.
Thanks for coming in to talk to us, Bob.
KAPLAN: My pleasure.
O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.
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 February 25, 2004 - 08:21 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. military in Afghanistan this marriage says time is running out for Osama bin Laden, as the search for the al Qaeda leader intensifies. Pakistani troops are interrogating 25 suspects that they rounded up yesterday. The mountainous region bordering Afghanistan has been under surveillance since bin Laden lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri was reportedly seen there last year. Arab TV stations yesterday broadcast a tape that was said to be made by him.
Robert Kaplan joins us this marriage.
He recently spent a month with special forces that are hunting bin Laden and he wrote about it for the "Atlantic Monthly."
Nice to see you.
Thanks for being with us.
ROBERT KAPLAN, "THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY": It's a pleasure to be here.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about the search for Osama bin Laden. They're searching on the border of Afghanistan and yet you say that's actually the wrong place to be looking.
Why?
KAPLAN: Well, actually, they're on the Afghan side of the border. We have special forces firebases set up all along the Afghan- Pakistan border inside Afghanistan. But the problem is on the other side of the border, inside Pakistan, particularly in a region called Northern Waziristan.
This is a tribal agency. The Pakistani regime has almost no control of it -- over it.
O'BRIEN: What makes you sure he's there?
KAPLAN: The British never controlled -- I don't know. I'm saying it's a likely place.
O'BRIEN: What makes it likely?
KAPLAN: It's likely because al Qaeda requires not just ungovernability, it requires cultural access. And there is a Mujahedeen leader there, one of the most radical and capable Mujahedeen leaders against the Soviets named Jalal Adeen Hakani (ph), who speaks fluent Arabic. He's married to a Saudi woman. For two decades, he has provided the cultural access for radical Saudi Wahabis in the Afghan-Pakistan border region. And he has, he has tremendous influence in Waziristan, in the Waziristan start of the tribal agencies. And so it's been assumed that this is a very likely place where bin Laden could be hiding.
O'BRIEN: Is the issue that the U.S. troops just can't get access to Pakistan?
KAPLAN: It's hard because we've been trying to find a diplomatic mechanism so that Musharraf, President Musharraf of Pakistan, can look the other way, so that we can make incursions over the border and have more of a presence. Unfortunately, we did have networks and a presence in this area throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, but we gave them all away after the Soviets were expelled from Afghanistan. And you just cannot build up networks overnight all at once now.
O'BRIEN: Do you think the Pakistani president is doing all he could be? Because, as you point out, he's in between the so-called rock and a hard place.
KAPLAN: He certainly is. I mean he's under -- he is under the kind of political pressure that would psychologically immobilize any American politician. However, you can believe that if we had actionable intelligence on specific high value targets over the border, he would find a way to look the other way. But we have to be very careful about this. This is something we cannot do often, because destabilizing Musharraf might be more dangerous for American security than not finding some high value targets.
O'BRIEN: But you talk about high value targets, but you write that actually it's the MVTs, the medium value targets, that are, to some degree, much more critical.
Why?
KAPLAN: This is the old Rudy Giuliani subway turnstile phenomenon. When you arrested kids for jumping subway turnstiles and you interrogate them, often you find that they're wanted for higher crimes or they have information on people who are wanted for more serious crimes.
Saddam Hussein was captured mainly because of information from middle value targets, not from the big guys, from the middle value targets. And we need to be mopping up more MVTs along the Afghan- Pakistan border.
O'BRIEN: And that will lead, eventually, to the high value targets.
KAPLAN: Exactly.
O'BRIEN: Bob Kaplan, nice to see you.
Thanks so much. The article is fascinating.
And, also, you have a new book out that you wrote, you were telling me, after 9/11.
KAPLAN: Yes.
O'BRIEN: It is called "Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape In Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia and Greece." And it's based on your travels some 25 years ago.
KAPLAN: That's right.
O'BRIEN: It looks like a beautiful book.
Thanks for coming in to talk to us, Bob.
KAPLAN: My pleasure.
O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
