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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports
Unreleased Interview With Osama bin Laden Goes Public
Aired January 31, 2002 - 19:00 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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, a special edition of WOLF BLITZER REPORTS. It's the interview with Osama bin Laden you haven't seen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OSAMA BIN LADEN, AL QAEDA LEADER (through translator): The battle has moved inside America. We will work to continue this battle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: The wraps are off. We'll have an exclusive report.
A kidnapped American journalist gets a brief reprieve, but his fate hangs in the balance. We'll go live to Karachi, Pakistan. And I'll speak live with Dr. Jerrold Post, the psychiatrist who has profiled Osama bin Laden, and CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen.
Good evening. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting tonight from Washington. Welcome to our special report.
Tonight, an extraordinary piece of videotape, a secret scoop, an interview with Osama bin Laden recorded back in late October by the Arabic language Al-Jazeera television network. They didn't air it, saying it wasn't newsworthy.
CNN has now obtained it, and parts of the one-hour interview CNN found to be very newsworthy, portions that we now present in this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Late October, in the only television interview with Osama bin Laden since the September 11 attacks, broadcast here for the first time, he makes clear the war of terror is not finished.
BIN LADEN (through translator): The battle has moved to inside America. We will work to continue this battle, God permitting, until victory or until we meet God.
BLITZER: And he paints a grim picture for life under his terror threat. BIN LADEN: I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people and the West in general into an unbearable hell and a choking life.
BLITZER: The interview with Osama bin Laden was conducted by the Kabul reporter for the Arabic language Al-Jazeera television network. It took place just before the U.S. and its allies began their final route of the Taliban, before bin Laden and al Qaeda's leadership fled for their lives. The reporter's first question: about bin Laden's role September 11.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER (through translator): America claims it has convincing evidence of your collusion in the events in New York and Washington. What is your answer?
BIN LADEN: America has made many accusations against us and many other Muslims around the world. Its charge that we are carrying out acts of terrorism is unwarranted.
BLITZER: That may sound like a denial, but listen to what he says only moments later.
BIN LADEN: If inciting people to do that is terrorism and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists.
BLITZER: A slightly different translation was quoted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a speech to Parliament last November.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Bin Laden himself said on October the 20th in an unbroadcast videotape that, and I quote, "if avenging the killing of our people is terrorism, let history be a witness that we are terrorists. Mr. Speaker, they are terrorists and history will judge them as such.
BLITZER: Blair's speech is evidence that copies of this videotape have circulated for some time in intelligence circles on both sides of the Atlantic, though until now, it has never been seen in public.
Intelligence sources tell CNN the U.S. government independently obtained the interview shortly after it was completed. CNN obtained this copy of the tape from a nongovernmental source.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(on camera): Al-Jazeera says it does not know precisely where the interview was taped. It has not aired the tape. Early on, the network even denied its existence. It says it was offered the chance to do the interview in person after the news organization submitted written questions to bin Laden, including some questions from CNN. But CNN did not know about the taping until a "New York Times" story revealed the interview's existence.
In a December statement to CNN, Al-Jazeera said it did not air the interview because it did not meet its standards and was not newsworthy. In the interview, bin Laden was asked directly whether he was responsible for the anthrax attacks in the United States and elsewhere, but his answer is vague.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BIN LADEN (through translator): These diseases are a punishment from God and a response to oppressed mothers' prayers in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and everywhere.
BLITZER (voice-over): The reporter seems to have a professional rapport with bin Laden and even interrupts him to ask questions as in this exchange.
BIN LADEN: We kill the kings of the infidels, kings of the crusaders and civilian infidels in exchange for those of our children they killed. This is permissible in Islamic law and logically.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER (through translator): So what you are saying is this is a type of reciprocal treatment: They kill our innocents so we kill their innocents?
BIN LADEN: So we kill their innocents and I say it's permissible in Islamic law and logic.
BLITZER: This tape is different from a series of taped addresses bin Laden delivered to Al-Jazeera. During this one-hour interview, bin Laden ridicules White House requests to the U.S. news media to show discretion in broadcasting those addresses.
BIN LADEN: They made hilarious claims. They said that Osama's messages have codes in them to the terrorists. It's as if we were living in the time of mail by carrier pigeon, when there were no phones, no travelers, no Internet, no regular mail, no express mail and no electronic mail. I mean, these are very humorous things. They discount people's intellect.
BLITZER: Bin Laden himself discounts the possibility of the defeat of his forces. Remember, this was late October, before the street celebrations that marked the fall of Kabul, well before the new head of Afghanistan's interim government was saluted at President Bush's State of the Union address.
BIN LADEN: We believe that the defeat of America is possible with the help of God and is even easier for us, God permitting, than the defeat of the Soviet Union was.
BLITZER: To back that up, bin Laden cites the 1993 U.S. experience in Somalia, when 18 U.S. special operations forces were killed during a raid against a warlord faction in Mogadishu.
BIN LADEN: Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested the Americans. And together, with some of the Somali mujahedeen, God granted them victory. America exited, dragging its tails in failure, defeat and ruin.
BLITZER: These words, evidence of bin Laden's miscalculation. Throughout the tape, bin Laden appears confident of success, confident of victory. He apparently did not foresee that within days, he would be running for his life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(on camera): And Al-Jazeera has responded to our airing of this interview with a statement. It reads as follows: "Al-Jazeera refuses to appear on CNN to discuss its unaired interview with Osama bin Laden. Al-Jazeera denounces the fact that CNN resorts to such illegal ways to obtain this tape. Al-Jazeera would have expected CNN to use its judgment and respect its special relationship with Al-Jazeera by not airing material that Al-Jazeera itself chose not to broadcast. Al-Jazeera does not feel it's obligated to explain its position and its reasoning of why it chose not to air the interview. Al-Jazeera will, nonetheless, respond to CNN's airing of the interview using its own means and its own ways. Furthermore, Al-Jazeera will sever its relationship with CNN and will take the necessary action to punish the organizations and individuals who stole this video and distributed it illegally."
BLITZER: And here is what CNN has to say about obtaining and airing this tape: "CNN did nothing illegal in obtaining this tape and nothing illegal in airing it. Our affiliate agreement with Al-Jazeera gives us the expressed right to use any and all footage owned or controlled by Al-Jazeera without limitation."
And Eason Jordan, CNN's president of news gathering, discussed the process the network went through to decide to show the bin Laden tape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EASON JORDAN, PRESIDENT OF NEWSGATHERING, CNN: Sometime later after that, the actual videotape was provided to CNN. And once that videotape was in our possession, we felt that we had to report on it and show it because it's extremely newsworthy and we really were dumbfounded as to why Al-Jazeera would decide not to air or even acknowledge the existence of this videotape.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: So, what should we make of this televised interview? Can Osama bin Laden still carry out his threats? Joining me now: Dr. Jerrold Post of George Washington University, he's a former analyst for the CIA, he's done a psychological profile of Osama bin Laden; CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen, he's the author of the best-seller, "Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden"; and Ronald Wolfe of Arablex, Inc., an Arab-language consulting firm. He helped CNN translate this interview into English.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. Dr. Post, give us your impression of the Osama bin Laden we saw on this videotape obviously now just more than three months ago.
DR. JERROLD POST, TERRORIST PROFILER: Well, he is certainly on a roll. He's really almost euphoric after this great triumph in his eyes of the events of September 11. I'm struck -- "we will defeat the United States even more easily than we did the Soviet Union" -- much more explicitly in the prepared statements, he takes responsibility for this and, in particular, says that it is defendable under Islamic law to kill innocents.
Well, it isn't. I have talked to Muslim cleric after Muslim cleric. Allah liketh not the transgressor. And he's talking about the limitations here. And he really transgresses Islamic law here.
I'm also struck by the reference to Somalia and the false impression, and we will crumble quickly -- somehow we turned tail and ran in Somalia, and we will do it again in the face of his might.
BLITZER: Interesting. Peter, you have obviously -- you've spent some time with Osama bin Laden. You are the only one on this panel, of course, that has actually met him. You have studied him and you wrote a book, what is different, if anything about the Osama bin Laden on this Al-Jazeera interview?
BERGEN: I think the fact that he really, rather, almost explicitly takes credit for the Trade -- I mean that's obviously the main kind of news there, and to me as a journalist it's absolutely mystifying why Al-Jazeera would choose to basically sit on what is the scoop of the -- certainly the decade, if not the last 20 years, which is the only television interview that existed. It's puzzling, I think it was newsworthy. He takes a bit of a pass on the anthrax question. These are things, I think, the public would have been interested in knowing at the time. And still are of interest now.
BLITZER: Ron Wolf, you helped us translate this interview. You have spent your whole career, your obviously totally fluent in Arabic. You have gone through the whole interview, what did you come away with? Your impression of Osama bin Laden, at least as he was in October 21, or 20.
WOLFE: Well, I had the advantage of seeing a tape from much earlier, back in I believe it was January, something that Al-Jazeera did and in this --
BLITZER: January, a year ago you mean?
WOLFE: January a year ago, that's correct. This tape, he looked weaker to me. He frequently stopped and took a rather deep breath. He frequently stopped to take -- drinks of water from a bottle he had with him. And he, overall he was very much in command. He is an excellent speaker. His Arabic is very good, but I think two weeks into the war, it was wearing on him somewhat. That was my sense.
BLITZER: Did you get the impression, and this was remember the air war started on October 7. This was October 21, did you get the impression that he was ill when you say he was stopping, taking breaths, drinking water?
WOLFE: That was my impression. It looked like a progression towards the latest tape that we saw, the last tape that we saw. This tape he put out himself, in which he looked physically very weakened. BLITZER: The whole notion, Dr. Post, and you have profiled him, you have done a psychological profile of him -- the whole notion of the cockiness that seems to come through in his answer to the reporters' questions, that parts of his psyche, isn't it?
POST: Very much so. And he sees himself -- especially in this tape -- as commander-in-chief of radical Islam, contesting George W. Bush commander-in-chief of the corrupt modernizing secular West. And he is really on a roll here. In items of your comments about the illness, it is striking having looked closely at the very last tape we saw, though. He's almost the picture of robust health by comparison. There he was really gaunt and pale, and the question of his health and his continuing decline is a very serious one, indeed.
BLITZER: And Peter, you know, the President Musharraf of Pakistan suggests he is dead of kidney disease. Is there anything in his background that would confirm that to you?
BERGEN: I think the fact that Musharraf said it. Musharraf didn't quite say he is dead.
BLITZER: That he might be dead.
BERGEN: He might be dead. This thing about being on dialysis and having kidney disease has been out there. And I think the fact that Musharraf is saying it definitively suggests that it is true. Whether he is dead or not, who knows? But I think he may not die of natural causes at the end of the day. My belief is that he is probably still alive, but I think that Musharraf saying it takes it to the next level, in terms of it being factually true.
He has other health problems, by the way, diabetes and low blood pressure. And anybody running around the Afghan mountains is not going to be in great shape.
BLITZER: Any stark impressions, of this tape compared to the other tapes that we saw of him?
BERGEN: I think, I agree with the other panelists. It is part -- you see that progression downwards and it seems to be rather quick. If you go back to the summer of 2001 there was a videotape, you see the pictures of bin Laden shooting off the automatic weapon. He is in great health.
BLITZER: And the whole notion, though, that he was granting interviews at this time. He gave an interview to a Pakistani journalist, a print interview, Hamid Mir from Pakistan. What does that say to you?
BERGEN: I think that it puzzles me why Hamid Mir got the interview. Just because it is such a breach of security to bring somebody outside the circle in. The question is, to what extent, you know, Hamid Mir is a sort of official biographer? To what extent the Al-Jazeera relationship -- correspondent had a good relationship with bin Laden, wasn't regarded as an interloper, maybe that was the reason he was brought in. But it does seem like a big breach of security to bring in somebody from the outside.
BLITZER: Now, early on "The New York Times" reported, when they reported that this videotape existed, that and Al-Jazeera did not air it. The speculation in "The New York Times" was that perhaps the reporter who conducted the interview was intimidated, did not come across in a professional manner. You have watched the whole thing, you see the exchange, the interchange between the reporter -- the Kabul based reporter for Al-Jazeera and Osama bin Laden, what was your impression?
WOLFE: At least two points. Number, one, and I think this was justified at the end of two weeks of bombing. He seem somewhat cowed, and it may have been a difficult trip, just to get to the point where he took the interview. And he may have been unsure of just where he was and what he was doing in that sense, but I felt that he was not overly deferent to Osama bin Laden. In fact, at at least two points, he presses him very hard on specific issues, on the issues of killing innocents, it was actually the interviewer who forced Osama bin Laden to admit yes, Islam forbids the killing of innocents. But he said, later on he said but there are other texts under which this might be permitted. And then at another point, he was forced into basically saying that anyone who with a single word, any ruler in the Arab word, follows Bush in his campaign, has basically rejected Islam.
BLITZER: Interesting. Ron Wolfe, thanks for helping us to translate this interview, we appreciate it very much. Dr. Post, as always. Peter Bergen, our colleague, thank you very much.
And when we come back, have terrorists been scouting out new targets in the United States? Federal authorities send out a warning to the nation's nuclear power plants. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back. Information uncovered in the interrogation of a senior al Qaeda operative has led to a nationwide warning to nuclear power plants. A government memo talks about the possibility of a terrorist attacks on those facilities. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins me now live with more -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Wolf. Well, yes, it was apparently late last year when the FBI first began to warn the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the nation's nuclear power plants were possibly being targeted by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network. In a threat message sent out by the FBI, they said that in their interrogation of a senior al Qaeda operative, that they were detaining, that this man had indicated there was possibly a second airplane attack being planned. And that the plan called for flying an airplane into a U.S. nuclear power plant.
Now, today, a senior FBI official says they were never able to actually substantiate, to completely verify the information. But government officials in several agencies do tell CNN that although they have no specific information about the timing or location of some new terrorist attack, they are concerned because photos and documents found in Afghanistan during searches of al Qaeda safehouses have turned up some very distressing information. The U.S. has found a number of photos of very famous U.S. landmarks, including Seattle's famous Space Needle, and diagrams of nuclear power plants were found.
CNN has also learned that a new classified report from the intelligence community does conclude that the al Qaeda, in fact, had the intent to possibly launch more attacks against U.S. targets and nuclear power plants, and a U.S. Navy warship in the Persian Gulf were considered especially vulnerable. And U.S. intelligence took a lot of note of this because it came months after that first attack against the USS Cole that Navy warship in Yemen that was attacked in October 2000.
And today, FBI director Robert Mueller warned that he believed there were sleeper agents in the United States, possibly available and ready for another attack -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thank you very much.
Meanwhile, a group claiming to hold a "Wall Street Journal" reporter in Pakistan has extended a deadline for its demands to be met. But the group still threatens to kill Daniel Pearl. CNN's Ben Wedeman has the latest now from Karachi, Pakistan. He joins us live. Ben, what is the latest?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you mentioned, the deadline has been extended by only one day. And in the e-mail in which that extension was contained, they reiterated their threat to kill Danny Pearl if their demands are not met.
Now the "Wall Street Journal" managing editor, Paul Steiger, has responded to that extension. I will read briefly from that statement. He said that, "Danny Pearl's wife and I are thankful for the additional time. I also hope that you and we can use that time to start a true dialogue."
He continues to say, "A captive or killed Danny cannot speak for you, cannot help you or your cause. Again, please release Danny or contact us to continue this dialogue."
So, as you see, Wolf, there is just another day to that deadline, encouraging in some respects, but certainly the e-mail in which the extension was contained did not otherwise sound very reassuring. The e-mail which has -- it has been confirmed that that is from the group holding Mr. Pearl, it said, for instance, don't think that this will be the end. It is the beginning and it is a real war on Americans.
So still very much concern about the situation of Mr. Pearl and the group that is holding him -- Wolf.
BLITZER: And, Ben, what about the safety of Americans in Pakistan? There are plenty of them running around the country, including presumably in Karachi. What is the latest?
WEDEMAN: Well, essentially, any American journalist in Pakistan at the moment is probably taking quite a lot of security precautions and procedures, as we are at the moment. But we have to continue operating and you just have to be more cautious than usual in where you go, who you go to see and how you do it. So, just taking commonsense precautions and hoping that this is an empty threat, but that threat was made at this point now locally a day before yesterday. So technically, this is the last day before American journalists will be targeted, as the group is saying -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Ben Wedeman in Karachi, please be careful over there. Thank you very much for that report.
And the secretary of state, Colin Powell, addressed the plight of the kidnapped American journalist. He says the United States is deeply concerned about Danny Pearl's safety.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We are doing everything we can to try to locate him and rescue him. I have spoken to President Musharraf in Pakistan about the situation and I know that he is doing everything he can. The demands that the kidnappers have placed are not demands that we can meet or deal with or get into a negotiation about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: And we have got a check of the top stories just ahead, including a U.S. Air Force plane coming under fire during a military exercise. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: And topping today's "News Alert", small-arms fire hit a U.S. military aircraft, narrowly missing a crew member on board. The special operations cargo plane was flying over the Philippine island of Luzon today, part of an exercise with the Philippine military. After the plane was on the ground, it was found to have been hit twice. There were no injuries reported.
That's all the time we have tonight. Please join me again tomorrow twice, at both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.
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