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CNN Live Sunday

New Osama bin Laden Videotape Surfaces

Aired May 19, 2002 - 18:04   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.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN ANCHOR: A brief videotape of Osama bin Laden previously not seen on TV has surfaced in Britain. It is not known whether it was made before or after September 11. The Sunday Times of London says it obtained the videotape from an Islamic news agency in Britain. The agency says it got the tape from a Pakistani operative who claimed it was made back in March. If that is true, it would be the latest evidence that bin Laden was still alive this spring.

In the video, the excerpts with bin Laden last just two minutes long, and he appears talking to supporters gathered around him about holy war. White House officials say they are eager to look at the new tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: These videos appear from time to time. We'll clearly want to analyze it and understand it better, but we don't know its sources, we don't know its character. But they do appear from time to time.

QUESTION: Do you believe he is still alive?

RICE: We have no reason to believe that he's not, and we continue to act against the al Qaeda leadership to try to disrupt their activities and to try to destroy their home base.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: The new videotape also shows what appears to be al Qaeda operatives, as well as other propaganda. So how forthcoming should the White House be about possible terror attacks? Will the information help the public or simply cause undue panic? CNN's Patty Davis has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Renters at this apartment building in San Francisco warned by the property manager this weekend about new U.S. intelligence. Osama bin Laden's terrorist group may target buildings such as theirs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can be vigilant. I can be aware of my neighbors and my surroundings and if I do see something suspicious, I can report it. DAVIS: Also over the weekend an administration officials says the U.S. is picking up an increased level of al Qaeda chatter and activity that could mean another terrorist attack is in the works. Both threats (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that Bush administration fights charges that should have warned Americans about possible attacks prior to September 11th.

CHENEY: What's the right point at which you want to alert everybody and at what point do you hold off on the grounds that that would be more disruptive or the quality of intelligence at this point is vague?

DAVIS: In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, a dilemma for the White House, what to tell Americans about new terrorist threats, even if they're vague.

RON BROWNSTEIN, POLITICAL ANALYST: It is a little bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. At times they've been criticized for scaring or frightening the public with threats that didn't bear out. On the other hand, the cost of not going forward with information that does bear it out could be politically enormous.

DAVIS (on camera): Some terrorism experts say the warnings, including those for possible attacks on banks in the northeast, on malls, and the possibility of dirty bombs are useful to the public.

BRIAN JENKINS, TERRORISM EXPERT: The information may have some utility even when it is vague, if nothing else to remind us to be vigilant, to remind us that we are at war.

DAVIS (voice-over): Many of the threats now being passed along to help prepare Americans for another terrorist attack, which the Bush administration says is not a matter of if but when.

Patty Davis, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL: All right, joining us now to talk about these latest developments, CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark. He's in Little Rock, Arkansas. General Clark, how are you?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Just fine thank you, Jonathan.

KARL: Right off, this new bin Laden tape or apparently new bin Laden tape, when something like this comes across the transom, what can be done to try to see if there's any useful information to get out of this thing?

CLARK: Well, of course, there's questions about the authenticity. There's no indication of when it was made, but we'll be looking at the surroundings. We'll be looking at the person. We'll be looking at the other people in the tape, trying to identify and place and determine when it was made, what it means. Certainly at face value what it means is there is still organized resistance. There is still an intent to do the United States harm, and this is an effort not only to embarrass and attack the United States, but also to rally support among his followers around the world. So it's significant just at face value.

KARL: Now if we can look at that tape again, you can see it appears to be somewhere it's certainly not the dead of winter, and it's the bin Laden that we've gotten used to seeing since September 11th, much more gaunt.

CLARK: Right.

KARL: Grayer, not looking as healthy. I mean does this and obviously this is just, you know, a quick analysis here, but does this look like this is evidence that he was around in the spring?

CLARK: It's very possible it's spring. You'd have to look at really the plants in the background. My question is what kind of trees are they and how soon do them come out in that part of Pakistan. You've got mountains in the background. If it's at high altitude, I'd like to know where the trees bud and come out.

That was my first question when I saw it because early March sounds too early to me. It's possible, I suppose, that tape was made in the autumn, and so I think we want to take a careful look at this.

KARL: And if he is still alive, as it seems to be the running assumption, possibly in eastern Pakistan, what is the activity on the other side of -- I mean in western Pakistan, what is the activity in eastern Pakistan? I mean we have what seems to be a state of virtual war now between India and Pakistan.

CLARK: Well there's been -- this is part of an ongoing conflict, but it's clear that the fundamentalists, the radicals would like to cause difficulty for Musharraf, because Musharraf is helping the United States and Musharraf's forces are helping the United States go after bin Laden.

So this is at minimum a useful diversionary tactic and if it has its greatest impact, it could result in an Indian attack against Musharraf and possibly even be aimed at forcing Musharraf from power. So it does pose a risk to the United States' effort to pursue bin Laden.

KARL: And if he is there in western Pakistan over the Afghanistan border, how much freedom does the U.S. realistically have to kind of unilaterally U.S. troops go in and take action in that part of Pakistan?

CLARK: Well we have some degree of understanding with the certain elements of the government in Pakistan because we know we've had some forces, Special Operations Forces operating in there on the ground.

On the other hand, the results apparently are mixed and clearly when you put forces in, even when they are dressed as locals, the word spreads. In this part of the world, people talk and they spread information by word of mouth and it goes quickly and they're accustomed to doing it and so it's difficult to gain surprise in these areas.

But I would guess we will continue to take action and as a minimum, it's going to keep the al Qaeda leadership, if that's where they are, off balance and perhaps on the move and make it more difficult for them to plan and organize operations against us.

KARL: I'm really interested to get your take on the latest controversy here in Washington about what the President knew, when he knew it, what could have been done. Is it clear that at least something more could have been done prior to September 11th given all the warnings that were coming through intelligence?

CLARK: Well one doesn't really know what has been done, but the news that's been made public thus far is that when the chatter on the net built up that Richard Clark who was then the terrorism czar in the White House did summon the agencies together. He tried to bring focus on this.

In other words, you've got to get each agency to go back and comb through its records, through the history, through current intelligence, go to its sources and do everything they can to develop leads, and this was apparently done and then the effort tapered off in August, and we don't really know why.

Now what's surprising to me about the current controversy is we don't know if the White House has or has not done a full investigation of all of the circumstances that surrounded this. It apparently has not because surely if there had been an investigation done, they'd want to say well we've done our own investigation. We'll make it available to informed congressional sources or authorized people, but they haven't said this.

And you know in the United States Army, we found at the end of the Vietnam War as we looked at our force and tried to rebuild our army that we had to have one crucial process that we did put in place. We called it an after-action review.

We put it in place at the training centers and we use it in combat, and after every significant activity in training or in combat, we call the whole team together from the commander on down and we ask ourselves three questions. What happened? Why did it happen? And how can we do better the next time?

And by learning that process and really going through it in the United States Army, we've opened up the culture and made it an honest, a more honest, more open culture, and I don't know if that's been done in the government or not but I would hope that it will be.

KARL: Well certainly those are three questions that need to be answered. Thanks a lot, General Clark.

CLARK: Thank you.

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