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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Did Missile Attack Kill Osama bin Laden?; How Long Will War in Afghanistan Last?

Aired February 07, 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 on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, THE WAR ROOM: Poised unseen above an al Qaeda convoy, a Predator strikes. Is there a chance the missile attack killed Osama bin Laden?

How long will the war in Afghanistan go on?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: As long as there is credible threat from puddles or pockets of al Qaeda or residual hard-core Taliban.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: A late meeting at the White House, Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush. Can the cycle of terrorism and retaliation in the Middle East be broken? Is Yasser Arafat the odd man out? We will go live to the White House and to the Pentagon, and I'll speak live with Senate Intelligence Committee vice-chairman Richard Shelby, former assistant defense secretary Frank Gaffney, and retired general Wesley Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO, as we go into THE WAR ROOM.

Good evening. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting tonight from Washington. It's now been three days since the Central Intelligence Agency unmanned plane fired a laser-guided Hellfire missile at a convey believed to include al Qaeda leaders. There has been open speculation that Osama bin Laden himself might have been in that convoy in eastern Afghanistan. But the weather in the area remains poor and there's still no word on who may have been killed.

The U.S. military wants to know and wants to know what that missile hit. Our Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, joins us now live with more -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, in the bluntest terms, Wolf, the bottom line is the U.S. still doesn't know who was killed in a direct hit by that Hellfire missile fired from a CIA unmanned Predator on Monday. Heavy snow in the area, in fact, blizzard conditions have made it difficult for U.S. military forces to get to the site. If they do get there, there may be little evidence left five days after the attack. The U.S. intelligence believes that three people were killed by the missile fired in the southeastern part of Afghanistan as they were standing by a convoy of SUVs. They were described as wearing white robes. One was taller than the other two. That description could fit Osama bin Laden but it could also fit other al Qaeda leaders. One senior defense official today downplayed the idea, though, that bin Laden was killed in the raid, saying, quote, "we have no reason to believe, at this point, bin Laden was killed in the attack."

And no mention of the strike was made today by General Tommy Franks as he testified before a Senate committee. But franks said the al Qaeda network has been disrupted, not destroyed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKS: The networks are not free to operate on their own terms. A great many of the terrorists themselves have been captured or killed. There are al Qaeda left inside Afghanistan and they remain the subject of our ongoing military operations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCINTYRE: Meanwhile, the head of Pentagon intelligence testifying at a separate hearing indicated that at least six top al Qaeda leaders have been killed, two others captured. But Vice-Admiral Tom Wilson said there are still dozens of al Qaeda on the loose in Afghanistan -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jamie, getting back to that Hellfire attack on that convoy, how do they know that three people were apparently hit in that strike?

MCINTYRE: Well, the CIA version of this Predator, which is equipped with a Hellfire missile, also has the standard video camera which sends back live images of what it is looking at. And in this case, they actually could see three people get out of this convoy, gather to the side. They could see the Hellfire missile heading toward them and scoring a direct hit. So they're pretty certain that those three people are dead. They just don't know who they are.

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thanks very much for that report.

And let's turn now to the situation in the Middle East. Within the past few minutes, President Bush has wrapped up a meeting with Israel's visiting prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Topping the agenda: terrorism, with both leaders demanding that the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, do more to combat it.

Let's go live to our White House correspondent Kelly Wallace. She's standing by on the North Lawn -- Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, as you know, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came here hoping to encourage the Bush administration to sever ties with the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. Mr. Sharon is not getting that wish, but what he is getting, more public pressure coming from this White House when it comes to the Palestinian leader. You see the two men sitting in the Oval Office following their 45 meeting.

President Bush saying that he believes that Chairman Arafat still has not made a 100 percent effort to crack down on terrorists and get back to the peace table.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mr. Arafat's heard from us. I can't be any more clear in my position, and that is that he must do everything in his power to fight terror.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Now, tougher talk coming from the Israeli leader, who just this weekend, called Mr. Arafat irrelevant. Today, he went a step further, calling him an obstacle to the peace process.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIEL SHARON, PRIME MINISTER, ISRAEL: I personally, myself and my government, regard Arafat as an obstacle to peace. Arafat has chosen a strategy of terror and formed the coalition of terror.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Now, Mr. Sharon also though said something that will be encouraging to Palestinians. He said something he has said before, that he definitely believes there will be the creation of a Palestinian state at the end of the peace process, but only if the violence comes to an end. Mr. Sharon did meet with some Palestinian officials before coming to Washington and the sense is he will meet with Palestinians when he heads back to the region.

Wolf, another message though coming from both men, President Bush, in particular, expressing his concern about the plight of the Palestinian people, encouraging the Israeli leader to take steps to ease the economic and travel hardships on the Palestinian people. This did appear to be a message to get out to the Arab world, to send the message that this administration is not being one-sided, that it is concerned about Israeli civilian casualties and also the plight of Palestinian civilians as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Kelly, as you know, on another subject, the White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, made a special appearance at the podium in the briefing room to announce what appears to be a significant shift as far as those Afghan detainees being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Tell our viewers what happened.

WALLACE: Right. It's being billed here at the White House as an important legal distinction, but one that really won't have any practical difference. What the president has decided is that the 1949 Geneva Conventions should be applied to the Taliban soldiers who are being detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but not to the al Qaeda operatives, not to any individuals believed to be belonging to the al Qaeda network who are being detained.

The administration saying that Afghanistan is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and that is why it should be applied when it comes to Taliban soldiers. But the bottom line, Wolf, the administration saying all the detainees still won't be classified as prisoners of war, meaning they won't be any titled to any rights afforded to POWs, so they really say there's no difference when it comes to the handling and treatment of these detainees. The sense is by some that the administration was trying to quiet some of the criticism coming from human rights groups and even from U.S. allies, but as you saw, even on your show just a little bit today, some human rights groups are not satisfied, saying the administration took a step, but it's not going far enough -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Kelly Wallace at the White House, thank you very much for that report.

And we will discuss the Middle East crisis in a few moments, but first the missile attack on a suspected al Qaeda leadership convoy. What are the odds that Osama bin Laden was indeed killed? Joining me here in the CNN WAR ROOM: Senator Richard Shelby, he's the vice chairman of the intelligence committee; CNN military analyst, retired general Wesley Clark, the former supreme allied commander of NATO; and former Pentagon official Frank Gaffney, he's the president of the Center for Security Policy.

Remember, you can e-mail your WAR ROOM questions to us. Go to my Web page, CNN.COM/WOLF. That's also, of course, where you can read my daily column.

Senator Shelby, what's the latest on this convoy, the Hellfire missile attack? Do we know anymore about who may have been killed in that attack?

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL), INTELLIGENCE VICE CHAIRMAN: We don't know anymore at this moment than what you just related on the show, but I'm hoping we will know. It's important that we know. We know they were important figures, whether it was Osama bin Laden among them, I don't know that. I'll believe it once we verify.

BLITZER: But what is the evidence that possibly, possibly Osama bin Laden could have been among those hit in that attack?

SHELBY: I can't comment on that other than to say that we believe those were very important leaders.

BLITZER: And is it possible though, technically, that he was one of them?

SHELBY: It's possible, but I wouldn't believe it until it was verified.

BLITZER: You want the hard evidence.

SHELBY: Absolutely.

BLITZER: General Clark, you can't blame him because there have been some false hopes in the past.

RETIRED GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Well, that's exactly right. And it's ironic that we are talking about this only a day after the Pentagon has admitted that we made some mistakes on some earlier raids and we may have bombed a convoy that really wasn't the convoy we thought it was.

BLITZER: The bottom line as far as the accuracy, though, of these Hellfire attacks from these CIA unmanned planes, they have video camera that they can see what's going on, but you really have to get on the ground and touch and feel the actual bodies to know who was killed?

CLARK: That's right. They will hit what they aim at. The question is what and who are they aiming at.

BLITZER: When you take a look at all this, Frank Gaffney, the speculation all the attention we are focusing on Osama bin Laden, are you frustrated?

FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: Well, I had think we are demonstrating an impressive capability. It certainly has sent a message to all of the al Qaeda: don't travel with short people. We are looking at a guy who is a marked man and we are able to put firepower on anybody we think is him. Is that appropriate?

BLITZER: The point being that Osama bin Laden is about 6'4", or 6'5", unusually tall for that part of the world.

GAFFNEY: But, you know, it's relative to the people you're with, if you're traveling with short people, you could be 5'10" and still be a target. The point is we've got the capability to put ordnance on people with an extraordinary precision and speed. Whether we are going to get this guy or not, I don't know. But we certainly should be continuing to go try.

SHELBY: I believe we will get him. I don't know when and I'm not sure, as I said a minute ago, that we have gotten him and we should not try to claim things until they're verified. But if we haven't gotten him yet, we will get him. He will reappear, he always has and we have the means, but more than that, this administration's got the will to find him and destroy him.

BLITZER: You believe he's still alive?

SHELBY: I believe he is, but I don't know that. But I will believe that, until we have some kind of pathological finding that he is dead.

GAFFNEY: The point is that whether he's alive or not, we are continuing to find and put ordnance on guys who are influential figures in this organization, and that's what we are going to have to be doing around the world, not just in Afghanistan.

CLARK: It's kind of a dilemma because if you don't talk a lot about al Qaeda, it's a very difficult war to fight. It's the war that has to be fought and you have to keep the American people in it, and it's frustrating. But when you do talk about it, then you go through a series of ups and downs and you think you may get him. You know, we had the report that he was in Tora Bora, someone had heard his voice and it turned out, well he wasn't there. So there are frustrations in this, but it's absolutely essential to keep the pressure on al Qaeda, that is the real threat. It's not the war that a lot of us would rather fight, but it's the war we have to fight.

BLITZER: There have been reports that the al Qaeda and the Taliban have had these decoy convoys, and it sets up an e-mail question that Kay from Tempe, Arizona sent us. Senator, maybe you can handle this one.

"Is it possible that al Qaeda is setting us up for embarrassing missile strikes on the wrong targets?"

SHELBY: Well, I guess it's possible, but I think that with our ordnance is good, our information is good. Is it perfect? No, but we've demonstrated what we can do, and we are going to continue to get better at it.

BLITZER: The other point, that I want to ask you, you were at that hearing when the CIA director, George Tenet testified yesterday. First time we heard from him since September 11 and he made the point, very openly, that there was no intelligence, law enforcement failure in advance of September 11. Did you buy his explanation?

SHELBY: Oh, absolutely not. I don't know where he's coming from, except he's the director and he's in denial. It was absurd. Nobody in the building believed it, not even the people who were cleaning up the room.

BLITZER: I want to play an excerpt from what he said, just to get a flavor of how he came across. Our viewers, most of them had not heard from him much earlier. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE TENET, CIA DIRECTOR: Where did the secret for the planning reside? Probably in the head of three or four people, and at the end of the day all you can do is continue to make the effort to steal that secret and break into this leadership structure. And we have to keep working at it. There will be nothing you do that will guarantee 100 percent certainty here. It will never happen.

BLITZER: Clearly the intelligence has gotten better since September 11, but there have been -- some people who have said that no one in this administration in the intelligence community really has been held accountable for the failure of September 11. Do you have confidence in the CIA director, George Tenet?

SHELBY: Well, I have to say, give him some good marks for what he's been doing since September the 11th. As far as his overall tenure as the top man in our intelligence community, I think he could grow a lot and I hope he will. But we have had a number of intelligence failures and our inquiry with the House Intelligence Committee, which we will announce next week will get into all of this. I think we can do better, we must do better. Otherwise we are going to pay a price.

BLITZER: Do you have confidence in George Tenet?

GAFFNEY: No, not really. I think what we are sort of glossing over here is was that there was a failure, and the absence of the capability to get in and steal that secret -- not when it was in the heads of three or four people, but when it had proliferated beyond that to the operational types, was a failure based on an absence of people on the ground, and the importance that we should have been assigning for the past decade on human intelligence. And I hold him accountable in part because that was largely done on his watch.

BLITZER: Very briefly, the president appears to still have a great deal of confidence in George Tenet.

CLARK: He does, and as the senator said, Tenet's done some great work, the CIA's performance over there has been courageous, it's been innovative, it's been highly effective. And there are gaps in any intelligence system. The problem with intelligence is you never know what you don't know, so no matter how elaborate the system is, there's always the chance that something is going to slip through the cracks. When we say it's a failure, it doesn't mean necessarily that there was any human negligence involved. It's simply that the net wasn't wide enough. We didn't -- we are all doing our best but maybe we didn't think of everything.

GAFFNEY: But the system failed. Getting that intelligence was a failure, I think.

BLITZER: We are going to pick this up in just a second. We have to make a quick break. I want to hear about your hearings that are coming up, the announcement next week. Also, when we come back, the topic will be as we've talking about, terrorism.

This time the Israeli prime minister, he visits the White House. We get an assessment of the impact of this visit on the U.S. war on terrorism.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to the CNN WAR ROOM. Senator Shelby, you say you're going to announce hearings next week on the intelligence failure, the events leading up to September 11. We are hearing from White House officials they would urge Congress to go slow right now. They're in the middle of a war, there will be plenty of time to look back later, but right now is not a good time for you to do this.

SHELBY: Well, I haven't heard that. I've talked with Vice President Cheney about it. We are going forward with the hearings. They're going to be joint hearings with the House and the Senate.

BLITZER: Open hearings?

SHELBY: We are going to have some open hearings. Congressman Goss who is chairman of the committee, Nancy Pelosi, who is the ranking Democrat, Senator Graham who chairs our committee and I am, of course, the vice chairman, we will be announcing this probably Wednesday or Thursday of next week and we will set out the parameters.

BLITZER: Is this a good time to look back on what may have been an intelligence failure?

CLARK: Think it's a great time to look back. First of all, the war is still going on, and we've got to have the very best system we can have. And secondly, the American people need confidence that we can work our way through this thing and learn from our mistakes. I think this is part of democracy. You have to hold hearings like this. You have to hold people accountable and you have to move ahead.

BLITZER: And the senator says he's not going to just hold hearings on the events immediately preceding September 11, but going back to the Clinton administration, maybe even earlier.

GAFFNEY: Well, I think that's right and I hope that it will be rigorous and that as much of it as is responsibly done in the open can be done because, as the general says, there's a need to know on the part of the American people how we got into this fix, not only to find out who was accountable, but to make sure we don't make the mistake again in the future.

SHELBY: Learn something for the future. We've got to do whatever we can to do better in strategic intelligence.

BLITZER: As you know, only a few moments ago, President Bush wrapped up a meeting with the visiting Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Do you believe that Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, is doing everything he can to stop those suicide terrorists attacks against Israeli civilians, as he says he is in that "New York Times" op-ed piece?

SHELBY: No, I don't believe he's doing everything. Now, it might put him as risk politically in the Palestinian area to do everything, but he's not doing everything.

BLITZER: What else could he be doing, that he is presumably not doing?

CLARK: He could have come back and worked more closely with the United States and other nations in the region to learn the names of the terrorists. There's a lot of different things that can be done undercover to take care of this problem. He can also get his own security apparatus out of the business of conducting terrorist attacks. And they are doing it. They're taking credit for it. So that's got to stop.

BLITZER: You think the Bush administration is handling this impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process effectively?

GAFFNEY: I'd prefer to see more transparency.

BLITZER: What does that mean? GAFFNEY: It specifically means when you ask what could Yasser Arafat be doing that he's not doing now, he could stop inciting terrorism. It's not just that he's got people working for him who are engaged in terrorism, in Arabic, practically every day, he is extolling terrorists as martyrs. He is encouraging and he is asking his people to expect as the outcome here the elimination of the state of Israel. Look at the Palestinian Authority's Web site. It's a map right there with no Israel on it.

BLITZER: You are privy to the most sensitive information. Do you have any doubt that Yasser Arafat knew that shipment of arms heading towards his territory, Iranian shipment of arms, was in fact destined for the Palestinian Authority?

SHELBY: Oh, I would believe that he knew, and if he didn't know he didn't want to know. He knew, you know, he's that way. He had to know.

(CROSSTALK)

GAFFNEY: He had to authorize the payment.

CLARK: These things are covered from the top and come down right down from the top. That's the way organizations work.

SHELBY: Absolutely.

GAFFNEY: And it wasn't the only incident. This is one of a series of ongoing efforts to smuggle -- it's like stopping cocaine at our borders. We catch some of it and the rest of it is coming through.

SHELBY: But this is not the first shipment from Iran.

GAFFNEY: Not by any means.

BLITZER: All right, we'll see. All right, Frank Gaffney, Senator Shelby, we will look forward to your announcement next week. General Clark, as always, thanks for joining us.

And remember, I want to hear from you as well. You can go to my Web page at CNN.COM/WOLF. Click on the designation for comments. They will be read by me and my producers. And don't miss THE WAR ROOM tomorrow night. We will have a special look at those elite U.S. commandos who take on the most dangerous missions. The best-selling writer, Tom Clancy, will join me along with the retired general Carl Stiner, a former commander of those special forces. They co-authored the new book, "Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces." They'll join me live tomorrow night, 7:00 Eastern, only here on CNN. You can e-mail some questions to them as well on my Web site.

And just ahead, the plane's cockpit was the scene of a midair crisis. We will hear how passengers and crew averted a disaster. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: An unruly passenger on an international flight tops tonight's "News Alert". That passenger, a 28-year-old banker from Uruguay, kicked in part of the cockpit door on a United Airlines flight today. The co-pilot hit the man in the head with a small ax as the man tried to get into the cockpit. The man is headed back to Miami to face charges. Flight 855, a Boeing 777, was traveling from Miami to Buenos Aires. Passengers and crew helped hold the man until the plane landed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IAN ROVER, PASSENGER ON FLIGHT 855: I asked him what was doing, and he said he wanted to talk to the captain. And before I knew it, he had inserted himself into the cockpit through the lower part of the door which was, you know, had been kicked in by him. So we all jumped on top of him. Several of the crew members and passengers, actually three of us, and we were restraining him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And here in Washington, four current and former Enron executives took the Fifth and refused to talk to a House panel looking into the company's collapse. Members of the panel called them economic terrorists who had made themselves rich. Other company executives and experts said Enron leaders ignored warning signs on questionable deals. Former CEO Jeffrey Skilling did testify, but said he had no idea that the company was in any trouble.

And 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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