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CNN Sunday Morning

Reporter's Notebook: The War Against al Qaeda

Aired February 24, 2002 - 08:13   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's do "Reporter's Notebook," shall we? We have a couple of subjects on our minds this morning.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Good stuff today.

O'BRIEN: Daniel Pearl and that tragedy, and the investigation -- the hunt for the people who killed him continues at this hour. Meanwhile, there's a report in "The New York Times" this morning Osama bin Laden might, in fact, be alive. These reports get -- well, it's very difficult to determine what is -- has more veracity anymore.

PHILLIPS: Sure, there's been so many leads, nothing has come through. It's hard to hold on to reports like this.

O'BRIEN: Yes. You know, one minute it's kidney disease, he needs dialysis -- whatever the case may be. That's what's on your mind this morning. We've gotten a lot of e-mails, so hopefully you will call us at 404-221-1855 and participate. At the other end of these e-mails and phone calls, a distinguished panel indeed.

Joining us from Herat, Afghanistan, Nic Robertson of CNN. From Karachi, Pakistan, Chris Burns, who has been working diligently on both the Pearl case as well as the bin Laden case. Certainly, Nic's introduction needs not be elaborated upon given his yeoman's effort during the whole course of the war. And, finally, in Washington, Major General Don Shepperd, our military analyst who has been helping us out since -- really almost since day one here. Helping us try to understand the military options, the intelligence options.

Good to have you all with us, gentlemen. Let's get right to an e-mail. Ed Massey has this: "In a recent "New York Times" article by Douglas Jehl, he writes that Mrs. Pearl stated she would one day tell her son that his father "worked to end terrorism." Since when do journalists "work to end anything?" And what Mr. Massey is referring to here, Nic, is there's a -- he makes -- Mr. Massey makes the contention that maybe Daniel Pearl put himself in jeopardy by the way he did his job. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that. How journalists become advocates and whether that puts them in jeopardy.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, I think what we are, are people who try and purvey the truth and find the truth and tell it to our audience. It's up to the audience to how they interpret what we find out. But we are the eyes and ears of the world. We travel in good faith to parts of the world -- Herat in Afghanistan or Karachi in Pakistan, wherever it may be to try and find out what's happening there and to relay that back to our audiences.

I think our job is to find and tell the truth. We are advocates of nobody. We are advocates of the truth, if anything, Miles.

PHILLIPS: We got a phone call from Mike in New York. What's your question, Mike?

MIKE: My question is that -- is it really appropriate to give Daniel Pearl as much media exposure than we give to, say, Michael Spann, who is really a hero? My sympathy does go out to Daniel Pearl's family, his unborn child. But there seems to be an emphasis on the media becoming the story in this -- in this war coverage, and I don't think the media is the story here.

PHILLIPS: Chris Burns, why don't you answer that.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well I would say that the -- the Daniel Pearl incident and tragedy, it raises a wider context because he wasn't trying to investigate possible links between the alleged shoe bomber, Richard Reid, with possible al Qaeda groups still operating here in Pakistan. So -- and what perhaps -- what is the activity of the militant groups here? What are perhaps possible links between rogue elements within the ISI, the intelligence organization here in Pakistan. So it raises a lot of questions, and I think that is perhaps what is most important, and that is obviously what Daniel Pearl was trying to get to the bottom of.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go to an e-mail. John Holstein has this one -- this is for you, General Shepperd. "A few months ago it was suspected the Taliban and Osama bin Laden used steganography, the science of hiding messages in pictures and other electronic media to transmit information to different cells. Have you learned anything more concerning this?"

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: No, Miles, this was basically speculation, along with lots of other speculation about where and when he is and if he is and if he isn't. And, as a matter of a fact, if you remember the last videotape that would be al Jazeera -- the infamous al Jazeera videotape that was played on CNN, basically Osama himself laughed at this. Now whether or not that's true or not -- but I don't think he needs to use this type of thing in communicating. He's got a lot of other ways to communicate undercover and he doesn't need these hidden messages.

PHILLIPS: All right. Continuing with the e-mails, still wanting you to call if you can -- 404-221-1855. This question comes from Mark Phalen in Dallas, Texas. "Can you explain the impact Daniel's death is going to have on the tough decisions other journalists must make in covering these type of events?" -- Chris.

BURNS: Well journalists in potential conflict situations make difficult decisions, sometimes just about every day. And you do have to evaluate your risks. You evaluate what kind of protection you have around you, what kind of options, what kind of escape options. Those are all things that go around in your head as you're trying to get to the bottom of a story. So it perhaps might give pause to a lot of journalists who are in this kind of realm to think twice.

If anything, perhaps that's what some of us have learned about. However, hopefully that does not stop our intense curiosity in trying to get to the bottom of any story, be it conflict or be it anything else.

O'BRIEN: Nic, Karen Snyder asks pretty much the same question a slightly different way. "Will the murder of Daniel Pearl stop you and others from following dangerous story leads?" Be honest now.

ROBERTSON: No -- no, it won't. We will continue to try because we think it's the right thing to do. We think this is a good profession; it's an important profession. But we will really very carefully evaluate just how we do it. We will take on board more security if it's necessary. We will take very careful measures in proceeding with our work.

Just yesterday, we traveled 360 miles by road from Kandahar to Herat in western Afghanistan. Now the United Nations hasn't traveled that road since one of their staff members or workers was murdered on it just over a month ago. But what we did was send people out in advance, arrange for security from both ends of the route to meet us in the middle. And were very, very careful and took as many precautions as we could.

So I think perhaps the lessons that are learned in this region and other regions of the world remind us that we have to be careful, reinforce it, and make sure that we don't miss out any vital steps. And in short, trying to ensure our own security. But the bottom line is, we will continue to do our work where we believe it's prudent and safe to do so.

PHILLIPS: Nic, maybe for those who don't recall -- I honestly don't recall -- Daniel Pearl when he did pursue that story, what kind of precautions did he take? Did he take any?

ROBERTSON: I think that perhaps is a better questions for Chris Burns to answer who is there in Karachi and has been better following the events there -- Chris.

BURNS: Yes, Nic, as far as -- as far as we know, he went on his own. There's no indication that he went with any kind of protection. He was just like any other journalist. He was trying to go to an interview that had been promised him. He was obviously drawn into a lion's den. He had been lured into what had been promised to be an interview with the leader of a Muslim group. However, that did not turn out to be.

And apparently, there were e-mails, there were phone calls exchanged between Daniel Pearl and those who eventually did kidnap him. So this is something where apparently -- and according to what we've heard, is that he did check to see whether this was really true and whether it was a safe thing to do. And apparently he was duped. That can happen to any of us.

O'BRIEN: A cautionary tale there. We're going to take a quick break and leave our panelists standing by to take further questions from you. We invite you to call in. There are some phone lines open -- 404-221-1855 is the number. We've got a good group of people here. We'd love to hear from you. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: "Reporter's Notebook" rolls on. We don't want to waste any time.

PHILLIPS: No, let's get right to it.

O'BRIEN: Let's get right to it. Kevin Hefner has this -- we'll start with General Shepperd. "Why, in your opinion, has the $25 million reward for Osama bin Laden not been effective in helping apprehend this man. And why doesn't the government commit more forces so that we can finish the job over there?" -- General Shepperd?

SHEPPERD: Well the last part, first. Committing more forces -- there's just thousands of places to search and we only have a small number of forces in the area. So we have to do it through others as well as through our own forces. The other two things about money, one of them is $1,000 on the spot may mean a lot more than $25 million, which is something very few of us can even imagine.

And then the people that are doing this -- looking for bin Laden -- say they are getting tens of reports daily, perhaps hundreds weekly about, "If you'll just give me $1 million of the $25 million, I believe he's in that village over there." And, of course, the response is, "We'll give you the full $25 million if you can lead us to him," which is very hard to do and very dangerous, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. Chris, you want to add to that one?

BURNS: Well in my conversations with some observers here, when I was in Afghanistan even, they told me that a lot of these people there didn't even believe that that is the case. They don't believe they would get the money. There's a rather -- a great amount of skepticism apparently by a lot of people.

And then I think, also, the question of how we're committing more forces -- the question is, too, it is important to track down bin Laden, according to Washington. However, perhaps equally important and for us much more important is going after the network itself. What you -- you can cut the head off any organization, but there's still that organization you have to go after.

O'BRIEN: Nic, you want to add in on that one?

ROBERTSON: Miles, we've been talking to people here who are searching for the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. They even speculate that he may be in the same place as Osama bin Laden, though they wouldn't tell me why they thought that might be the case. They did say they were getting a lot of people coming to them with information. However, so far, their problem has been getting reliable information. And I said, "Well what about the reward," because there's $10 million reward for Mullah Omar as well. They said that maybe a lot of this reward would actually in reality go to paying off the people who are actually protecting these leaders at the moment. So perhaps it's a case of doing a negotiation essentially with this reward up front that buys off the people around him to get to -- or around them -- to get to the leaders. So perhaps -- by the time you get to him, the reward is already spent, if you will.

PHILLIPS: Gentlemen, another phone call. Brian (ph) is on the line from Newport, Rhode Island. Brian (ph), what's your question?

CALLER: Yes, I was wondering how the murder of Daniel Pearl has sort of played out in the Pakistani public? Has this death in anyway cost the extremists sort of the sympathy of the average person on the street in Karachi? And has it also sort of strengthened Musharraf's struggle against the fundamentalists?

O'BRIEN: Good question.

PHILLIPS: Chris Burns -- yes.

BURNS: A double-barrel question. I think the first part is that there certainly is no -- no expression of support for the kidnapping and killing of Daniel Pearl -- certainly not that. And the newspapers across the country have condemned it. They've also supported President Musharraf's crackdown.

However, there are people who are pro democracy people in this country who do point out that this is still a military regime that's been in power for just about three years now. And they believe that more democracy is really the answer to defeating extremism, to defeating militant groups, and to bringing an end to the military regime, which Musharraf is a moderate and does at least express the intention to bring democracy back.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's take another e-mail. This one is not specifically related to the two questions we are addressing, but it's a good question nonetheless. "What is the U.S. doing to prevent this war in Afghanistan from becoming a guerrilla war? What is to stop them..." -- that is to say, the remnants of the Taliban in al Qaeda -- "from laying low until we..." -- the U.S. -- "and the peacekeepers pull out?" Let's start with you, Nic.

ROBERTSON: Well we found a Taliban -- a young Taliban member just the other day. He told us that he came from a village where there were other Taliban. But he said that they were just waiting and sitting this out. There was no indication, though, that he was making any threat about a resurgence of the Taliban.

But the way that it's being tackled -- that we see on the ground here -- is that there is a lot of intelligence being gathered. There are a lot of operatives out, special forces, all over Afghanistan, involved in a number of activities. And, clearly, top of their list is ensuring that within their areas they know the political landscape, they know what's happening, they know the contacts that are being made, and therefore can try and feed back in a timely fashion any information about the resurgence of any group.

But, again, it has to be said, this is a huge country. There are vast areas where there is no intelligence, where there are villages. Who could be hiding out there is not clear. How low can the Taliban lie, not clear. But, certainly, we've seen in the past few weeks that even senior Taliban leaders have been essentially let off the hook, let go by some commanders in some regions of Afghanistan.

In Kandahar, recently, the Taliban just -- a real hard-liner in the Taliban -- was let go by the governor there. So it is possible for the Taliban to lie low, and who knows if they'll come back. Intelligence gathering, I suspect, is the real key to keeping a finger on that pulse, Miles.

O'BRIEN: General Shepperd, would you like to amplify on that one?

SHEPPERD: Yes, indeed. I think the guerrilla attacks will be a fact of life in Afghanistan for a long period of time. But the key, basically, is to keep our troop strength low, so American and coalition forces do not prevent -- do not present big targets.

And the other thing is to spread security -- a police force -- across that nation through the -- through the help of the International Security Assistance Force, and then to establish an Afghan army. And why you're doing that, to disarm the population. All of that will lead to security and make a long-term guerrilla warfare less possible. But it's going to be a long time before all those pieces fit. And the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) coming up is key to making all of that happen, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right.

PHILLIPS: Gentlemen, we just got a phone call from Steve Goldstein, spokesperson for the "Wall Street Journal" and he wanted to make the point that Daniel Pearl was a very cautious reporter, one of the most cautious reporters he's ever known. And, also, that he has many times refused assignments. And we wanted to make that point. Do we have Steve on the phone still, by chance? We do not? OK. We do not have him on the phone.

But, you know, it brings up a good point. Chris, maybe you can...

O'BRIEN: Well as I understand it, he refused to go into Afghanistan for that very reason, so...

PHILLIPS: That I don't know. Steve (ph) didn't say anything about that. But, Chris, I mean, when do you decide to refuse an assignment and when do you refuse an assignment?

BURNS: That's a very good question. I've never refused an assignment on security reasons. But, of course, I've never been asked to do something kamikaze up until now. However, I have gone to places like Afghanistan, like Rwanda, like Macedonia. You just -- you have to be careful. You really have to be careful and not push the envelope too far.

That, of course, even cases where people who are very experienced who have walked into the line of fire. You just have to be -- it's a combination of assessing your risks and a bit of luck as well.

PHILLIPS: Nic?

ROBERTSON: I must say, when I hear this about Daniel Pearl, my stomach does a flip, because we all try to be cautious. And to hear that he was a cautious journalist and this happened to him obviously gives us cause for concern. We do our best to be cautious.

So we -- we truly feel it. When a colleague is lost, obviously it's very hurtful for the profession, it's very hurtful for his family. But we all do feel it. It does give that confidence that we perhaps move around with a little kick. And certainly just to hear that it made my stomach just do a little flip. We aim to be cautious. And to know that he was cautious and this still happened is very disturbing.

PHILLIPS: General Shepperd, as a flyer, an aviator, a soldier, a man of war, you too are put in a situation, you know. There's a lot of things you can't refuse.

SHEPPERD: Yes, that's true. On the other hand, the special forces are put in much the same situation as the reporters. We found that a lot of courageous people around, in addition to people that are in uniform in the military, correspondence all over the world, diplomats being those. Again, if you are specifically targeted, it's very difficult. All you can do is make sure that you're using your good common sense, your experience, and make sure you don't make yourself an easy target. But if you're targeted, it's very, very difficult.

PHILLIPS: I'm told we do have Steve Goldstein from the "Wall Street Journal" on the phone with us now. Steve, are you -- are you there?

STEVEN GOLDSTEIN, VICE PRESIDENT, DOW JONES: Yes, I am. Thanks.

PHILLIPS: We appreciate you calling in. You say you're a spokesperson for the "Wall Street Journal." Do you write for the Journal?

GOLDSTEIN: I'm the Vice President of Dow Jones, which is the company that owns the "Wall Street Journal."

PHILLIPS: Well I can imagine you have some thoughts to say. This discussion has been pretty heavy this morning.

GOLDSTEIN: It has been. And the first thing I want to do is I want to thank everyone for their kind regards and wishes regarding the death of Danny. Danny was a wonderful person and our hearts are broken and we all miss him greatly, as do his wife Mariane and his family. Secondly, I know you've had a number of callers who questioned the risks that Danny took, and I have to tell you, Danny Pearl was an extremely cautious reporter. He would never have gone into a situation -- and several times refused assignments, because he thought the risks were too great.

The people that murdered Danny were very sophisticated terrorists. And as Chris Burns and Nic said on TV just a few moments ago, Danny was duped. He was duped. He was an honest and caring person. And one of the things he wanted to do was to report on the wars' effect on the region. And that's why he was there. But he would never have gone to meet the sources that he was going to meet if he thought that he would have put himself in any risk at all. And I think that's an important point to note.

O'BRIEN: You know, it's probably worth noting too, how -- how is the "Wall Street Journal" family doing this morning, and more specifically, Danny Pearl's family. It's got to be an incredibly tough time.

GOLDSTEIN: It is a tough time. It's a very tough time for Danny's wife, Mariane, who's a very strong person. And I know you quoted from the statement that she wrote, and I also want to note that she wrote that herself and for his family.

O'BRIEN: They were incredibly powerful words, Steve.

GOLDSTEIN: I think they were.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

GOLDSTEIN: And Danny (ph) is doing as well as can be expected. And as Paul Steiger (ph), the editor of the paper; as Peter Cromm (ph), the chairman of the company; and as Mariane said, Danny's spirit will live on. And that's an important note. And we're going to celebrate his good work and the good things that he did in our own private way. But, unfortunately, sometimes very bad things happen to very good people.

O'BRIEN: I think we've got to leave it at that.

PHILLIPS: Steve Goldstein, thank you so much. That was sort of an unexpected call and we sure appreciate you sharing all your thoughts with us this morning. We appreciate it.

GOLDSTEIN: Sure.

O'BRIEN: All right. General Shepperd, Chris Burns, Nic Robertson, we're going to leave it at that. I don't think there's anything more to say or to amplify upon beyond that. Thank you very much for all of your time today. And thank you out there for your excellent questions -- e-mail and on the telephone.

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