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CNN Saturday Morning News
Pakistani Journalist Reports Interview With bin Laden
Aired November 10, 2001 - 09:18 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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: An interesting development overnight coming to us from Islamabad, Pakistan. A Pakistani journalist claims he has gotten the first interview with Osama bin Laden since the September 11 attacks. There are two different versions of the interview, and they were published this morning. The English-language "Dawn" published one version in which bin Laden says that if the U.S. uses chemical or nuclear weapons against him, he will respond in kind. He's also quoted as saying that he possesses chemical and nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
While local newspapers headlined the nuclear issue, Hamid Mir (ph), who claims he met with bin Laden in the mountains north of Kabul, says the more important thing for him in the interview was bin Laden's apparent reversal of his thoughts toward attacking American civilians.
It is this part of the interview that is causing concern with Western analysts. Previously bin Laden has said any American is a target. Now, according to Mir's account of the interview, he says there are some good Americans. There is no independent confirmation that the interview, in fact, took place, and the audiotape, Mir says, has not been released.
CNN has spoken directly with Mir, and we are working right now to check out the details that he has provided to us -- Kyra.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: More insight now into the bin Laden reports. We turn to CNN's terrorism analyst, Peter Bergen, who joins us live by phone from New York. Hi, Peter.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Hi.
PHILLIPS: Martin brings up a good point. How, in fact, do we know that this interview even took place?
BERGEN: Well, my understanding is that CNN will attempt to acquire the -- listen to the audiotape, and has done an interview with Hamid Mir and will try and independently verify the interview. Hamid Mir is a Pakistani journalist who has previously met with bin Laden, and is apparently at work on what is called an authorized biography of bin Laden. So certainly he has links with bin Laden.
Some of the things that bin Laden says in this interview are certainly new, if true, for instance, reversing his call to attack all American civilians, which he's had -- been a pretty constant theme since 1998.
The additional news in the interview appears to be that he has claimed he has nuclear and chemical weapons. That does fit a pattern of statements he's made in the past, that it's not a crime for Muslims and his organization to try and acquire nuclear and biological or chemical weapons. And it also fits a pattern of the group experimenting in an amateur way with chemical weapons and making attempts to buy bomb-grade uranium.
However, that's still a long way from claiming you have a nuclear weapon, which, after all, is not something that is easily built by anybody in Afghanistan. It's something that requires a cadre of scientists, et cetera, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Peter, how do journalists like Mir get access to Osama bin Laden? How does that process even work, especially a time right now?
BERGEN: Well, obviously it's very tricky right now. Speaking from my personal experience in 1997, I was able to arrange an interview for CNN which Peter Arnett was the correspondent for. In that interview, I was -- basically went through contacts in London and then contacts in Pakistan, and went to Afghanistan and had a process where we were basically transferred through numerous different vehicles and blindfolded to get to bin Laden, a process that Hamid Mir describes in his article that appeared today.
But obviously that process is infinitely harder now. You know, the one question in mind is, it's, why does bin Laden feel it necessary to give an interview when in the past he's now released several videotapes, which basically make some of his own statements and don't require the security problems of introducing somebody not part of his organization into his company at a time when he's the world's most-wanted man?
PHILLIPS: Does it concern you that there might be some type of hidden message or messages within this interview?
BERGEN: You know, on the question of hidden messages, it's always seemed to me on this question of, are there coded messages in what bin Laden's saying, that he's rather explicit, and he's -- usually it's attack Americans, which seems a very uncoded message to me.
You know, I'm not in a position to understand if there is a code in these messages, because obviously if there is, I wouldn't be privy to the code. It just seems to me that his statements usually speak for themselves, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen. Sorry about that, had a little failing in communication. Peter, thank you so much.
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