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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Key Leaders to Miss Arab League Summit; Al Qaeda Splits Into Smaller Groups

Aired March 26, 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.
ANDREA KOPPEL, GUEST HOST: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, THE WAR ROOM: Empty seats at the Arab Summit. Some key leaders won't attend, but we will take you to Beirut.

Harder to find, harder to fight. Al Qaeda breaks into smaller groups.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIG. GEN. JOHN ROSA, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: It makes it a little bit more intense from our perspective.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: With more reported sightings, has Osama bin Laden become just a mirage?

After months of war, is there a way out? We'll speak live with Haron Amin, Afghanistan's top diplomat in Washington; former Pentagon official Frank Gaffney; and retired General Wesley Clark, former supreme commander of NATO, as we go into THE WAR ROOM.

Good evening. I'm Andrea Koppel reporting tonight from Washington. Wolf Blitzer is off.

U.S. forces in Afghanistan remain ready to fight, but may have a tougher time targeting the enemy, let alone its leader. We'll ask our guests if the war against terrorism risks being sidetracked by a drawn out war in Afghanistan.

But first, we turn to the Middle East. International observers were killed and one was wounded when their car was raked with bullets in the West Bank. The survivors said the assailant wore a Palestinian police uniform, a claim disputed by Palestinians. The observers, Turkish and Swiss nationals, were members of an unarmed group monitoring conditions in the city of Hebron.

The latest bloodshed comes on the eve of the Arab Summit, which has a peace proposal on its agenda, but will also be missing two key leaders. More now from our Beirut bureau chief, Brent Sadler.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Two major non- appearances at the Arab Summit, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, add dramatic dimension to the gathering. Many heads of state are however attending this summit, which is focusing on building unanimous Arab support for a Saudi peace initiative, calling for Israel to withdraw from land occupied since 1967 in exchange for normal Arab relations.

Mr. Arafat's announcement that he isn't showing up came as no real surprise to delegations of foreign ministers already here. But the decision by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to skip the summit was not expected. Mr. Arafat, on the other hand, had no clearance to leave his West Bank headquarters because Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the time was not right, given Mr. Arafat's failure to crack down on terror. However, Mr. Arafat will still be able to address summit leaders using a teleconference system that will reportedly enable him to link into the summit live.

Palestinian officials say that in itself will dramatically illustrate that Mr. Arafat is a hostage, they say, who refused Israeli conditions to travel. Still, the aim of the summit, launching the Saudi peace initiative, remains on track.

Brent Sadler, CNN, Beirut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL: Now to the war in Afghanistan, where the U.S.-led campaign is facing a new challenge: finding the enemy. Let's go live now to CNN military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Good evening, Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Andrea. Well, the U.S. military has been flying hundreds of reconnaisance flights over an area of southern Afghanistan southeast of where the most recent fighting took place of rugged mountainous area near the border with Pakistan where it's believed up to 2,000 al Qaeda and Taliban may be located.

But this time, unlike in Operation Anaconda, where they gathered in one central area, this time they're spread out in small pockets all across the area, vastly complicating the mission to find them and kill them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSA: When folks break up into small pockets, it's like -- it's more difficult. Obviously, you'd like to have them in one big cluster and be able to mount an attack and do as much damage as you can. When they get in smaller clusters, it makes it a bigger challenge to locate them, to track them and each one of those small pockets you have to develop a plan of attack. It makes it a little bit more intense from our perspective.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MCINTYRE: Another factor, the change of weather. The coming of spring means that the snows will be melting. It will be a little bit easier for U.S. troops to get around, but it's also easier for the enemy forces to be more mobile. So the Pentagon says that they don't think the weather is going to be much of a factor. The big open question now is the timing and the scope of the next phase of the operation which could come at any time -- Andrea.

KOPPEL: Jamie, what about these reports of some more sightings of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan? What is the Pentagon making of those?

MCINTYRE: Well, there was another report from a local Afghan commander who claimed that there had been a sighting of Osama bin Laden in southern Afghanistan. The U.S. considers these reports to be unverified and unverifiable. And it puts them in a category of dozens of other similar sightings in recent months that have also been unable to be verified.

KOPPEL: There's also another report...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICTORIA CLARKE, PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: It's almost a weekly occurrence, though, that there seem to be a couple of reports. But what has stayed very, very consistent is we get reports that they're here. We get reports that they're there. We get reports that he's alive, and we get reports that he's dead. But we just don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCINTYRE: Andrea, it's basically, they keep saying, they don't know where bin Laden is. If they did have some good intelligence, they would move against him -- Andrea.

KOPPEL: Jamie, I understand that the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Hugh Shelton, has suffered some kind of a terrible injury at his home. What can you tell us about that? Obviously, this man's extraordinary military career.

MCINTYRE: Well, it sounds like it might not be as bad as we initially thought. General Hugh Shelton, the most recent retired chairman of the joint chiefs, fell off a ladder while working at his house in Fairfax County on Saturday. He suffered some partial paralysis after an injury to his spinal cord, but apparently he is recovering.

We're told, the latest bulletin from Walter Reed Army Medical Center that he's experiencing weakness in his right leg and both arms, but is showing some improvement. He had no problems with speech or breathing. He's alert. He's sitting up. He's talking to his wife, Carolyn. And the prognosis is that with some rest, he may recover most of the movement. So it doesn't look like it was a catastrophic spinal injury.

Nevertheless, a freak accident for a battle-hardened veteran, 38 years in the military, survived Vietnam, led the invasion of Haiti, and of course was here at the Pentagon on September 11 when the Pentagon was attacked. And then to have a freak accident, a fall from a ladder, that looked like it was potentially going to be crippling. Now the doctors are hopeful that he will recover most of the movement -- Andrea.

KOPPEL: Jamie, it's good to hear that he'll recover quickly. Thank you so much. Jamie McIntyre reporting from the Pentagon.

Thousands of U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan. When will they be able to come home or move on to other targets? Will Afghanistan ever achieve security and stability? Joining me here in THE WAR ROOM: Haron Amin, Afghanistan's charges d'affaire in the U.S. He fought both the Soviets and the Taliban; retired General Wesley Clark, CNN military analyst and a former supreme commander of NATO; and Frank Gaffney, a former deputy defense secretary, now president of the Center for Security Policy. You can e-mail your WAR ROOM questions to cnn.com/wolf.

Haron Amin, I'd like to begin with you. Your king, the former king, was supposed to return to Afghanistan yesterday. Cancelled his trip for the second time due to security concerns. Your own head of the interim government, Mr. Karzai, really doesn't travel outside of Kabul. What is it going to take to make Afghanistan safe and secure?

HARON AMIN, AFGHAN CHARGES D'AFFAIRE: Well, I think for the king, it's very important to note that the security reason is one factor among a constellation of factors for not returning. It's logistics. The commission for the loya jirga, they are working on a few different issues. When the right time then comes, he is going to return and indeed, sometimes maybe, by first or second week of April. That's what the government has decided.

In terms of Chairman Karzai, he's gone to numerous places. For the new year, he was in Mazar. Before that, he was in Jalalabad. He was welcomed by thousands of Afghans. He went to Herat. He went to Kandahar.

KOPPEL: But certainly, you're not disputing the fact that there are warlords back in power in various parts of the country. There is crime. There is -- a lot of people are being hurt in their homes by some of these vandals and criminals. So what is it going to take?

AMIN: Well, I think security is one of the problems. There are a lot of other problems. I'll give you another example. The ministries haven't been able to pay some of the civil servants. I spoke to the womans' affairs ministry yesterday to the deputy. They, of course, the chair of the ministry is in Greece. And she told me that they have computers and yet, sadly, there's no electricity. A lot of the ministries don't have windows. So the capacity building of the ministries is important. Enhancing the government is important. Out of the $4.5 billion that was promised in Tokyo, nothing has been delivered yet.

KOPPEL: We want to pick up on that point. But first, Wesley Clark, I want to turn to you. Peacekeepers, obviously, an important point. Do you agree that the country is secure?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), MILITARY ANALYST: I don't think that the country is secure. I think that's very clear. And I have been among many who felt it did require an expansion of the international stabilization and assistance force. They've got to go into areas other than Kabul.

They've got to be strong enough, robust enough and have the right mandate to be able to extend the authority of the central government. Now, obviously, we want to coop the warlords there, not to oppose them in every case. It's going to take a much more substantial commitment than any of the countries have made and without U.S. leadership I don't see that commitment being made.

KOPPEL: Frank Gaffney, more U.S. troops on the ground. Do you think that the United States should be participating in the peacekeeping force already there?

FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: I think we ought to go back to what you asked earlier which is, is the place secure? It's not. I think it's ridiculous frankly to think that it would be given the underlying conditions.

Are there criminals at work, vandals? Are there war lords? Yes. And all of that has been part unfortunately of Afghan's sorry history and many recent decades. What is hopeful, though, and we ought to keep this in mind, is that what we're now dealing with are pockets of al Qaeda or Taliban who are being hunted down and wiped out.

They are not an organized force. They are not controlling the country. They are not operating not only inside the country, but outside the country from Afghanistan as they were before. That's a very positive thing. And whether we need more forces to do that job is, I think, the immediate focus, not personally do we need more American forces to do a larger peacekeeping mission.

KOPPEL: Let's go to an e-mail from Jamie from Greensboro, North Carolina. "During his campaign, George Bush repeatedly spoke against what he refers to as nation-building. Doesn't this position now put his administration between a rock and a hard place?" Frank Gaffney.

GAFFNEY: Iraq and a hard place?

KOPPEL: A rock...

GAFFNEY: Oh, a rock...

KOPPEL: We'll get to Iraq another night.

GAFFNEY: I think the president was making a very important point. And that is, do we want American military personnel to have as one of their principle missions, going around and creating institutions that will allow countries to have, hopefully, a Democratic style of government. He said in the campaign, and I think he was right, no. That's really not what American military forces should be used for. And I don't think that's what he's using them for now, and I hope he won't.

KOPPEL: Haron Amin, do you feel that with the European force and the Turks who are on the ground in Afghanistan that that is enough to not only secure Kabul, but to secure Kandahar, Jalalabad and other cities and outreaches in Afghanistan?

HARON AMIN, AFGHAN CHARGE D'AFFAIRES: The choice is very clear for the international community. It's between justice and democracy versus terror and tyranny. In this context I could say that the international community must remain on board. We are happy the British are doubling the size of their forces. The Turks are coming on board, but the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) leadership whether present or not present is key to all of the stability in Afghanistan.

CLARK: Andrea, can I add one thing on the nation building peace? Nobody believes that the U.S. military can do nation building. It can't. But the question is can nation building be done by anybody, the United Nations or anyone else without a certain modicum of security in the country. The answer is no. It has to have a certain degree of security.

KOPPEL: Which it doesn't have right now. Gentlemen, let's go to an editorial. "The Washington Post" last week. "Were Afghanistan to implode or deteriorate again into chaotic warlord-based violence, it's hard to imagine why anyone elsewhere in the world would join with the United States in the next stages in the war against terrorism." General Clark, do you agree?

CLARK: I think that many nations are going to be looking at how we conduct this next phase of the campaign. Now it's been three months or a little bit more since the Taliban fell. And we've been chasing isolated pockets of al Qaeda.

I think we have to understand that, hopefully, we've also been using our initiative in other ways by building relationships and friendships and gathering intelligence and information sources among the broader area of the Afghan people. Because we can be sure al Qaeda is learning from us. That's why they broke it up into small groups. The next thing they'll do is move in amongst the population. We've got to have beat them to the punch by developing the relationships, getting the information sources there so when they come in, we know they're there.

GAFFNEY: But the right answer is to be sure that the Afghans take the lead wherever possible, because one thing is sure; a lot of Afghans will oppose Americans if they think that we're an occupying power like the Soviets. We don't want to play that kind of role.

KOPPEL: That's something that's probably months if not years down the road. Before we get to that let's go to a break. When we come back, new sightings of Osama bin Laden? We'll ask Afghanistan's top diplomat in Washington whether they're true when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back to the WAR ROOM. There had been a rash of supposed sightings, but the Pentagon says it doesn't have a clue to Osama bin Laden's whereabouts. Does it matter? Joining me here in the WAR ROOM, Haron Amin, Afghanistan's charge d'affaires in Washington. Retired General Wesley Clark, former supreme commander of NATO and Frank Gaffney of the center for security policy. So Haron Amin, anything to these sightings of Osama bin Laden?

AMIN: If there would have been anything that would have been passed to central government and the minister of information to intelligence, to the allied forces. I called today. They were more busy with the earthquake issue up in the north than actually sighting of Osama bin Laden, as of today.

KOPPEL: Want to talk with you about the earthquake, but first gentlemen, I want to go to another editorial in yesterday's "Washington Post." It says "if billions flow to that country in the absence of stability and the rule of law, the main beneficiaries will be the warlords." Do you agree?

AMIN: I don't agree. I say the money should go to the central authority. The central authority doesn't have the money.

KOPPEL: How can you assure the international community that the money is not going to go to the warlords?

AMIN: Check with your embassy in Kabul. You have an embassy in Kabul. Check with them to see if the money has been delivered. But what good is a government if it can't even pay its own civil servants? That's the situation. And the rumor on Voice of America and BBC saying $4.5 billion, a person in some village hears that $4.5 billion calculates that into Afghani and sees nothing has been delivered. Is he going to be pro Karzai or against Karzai?

CLARK: Andrea, we've had a lot of experience with this in the international community. In our work in the Balkans, in Bosnia and Kosovo, we heard pledge after pledge of billions of dollars to be delivered. And it takes months and years. And it takes the creation of programs in which you then lay out the program for an approval by experts.

KOPPEL: Sounds like a huge bureaucracy.

CLARK: It's a huge bureaucracy. This is a multi-year. And what this government needs is the money to pay its own civil servants and make a difference in the lives of Afghan citizens immediately.

GAFFNEY: There's a chicken and egg here. If the government doesn't have the money, it complicates its ability to get up and running and to exercise the kind of control it needs to exercise in order to ensure that the money is well spent. It's got to start somewhere.

KOPPEL: And we're three months away...

GAFFNEY: I think investing in the institutions that will produce a sound, stable and pro-Western government is a proper investment. KOPPEL: I was just going to say we're three months away from the loya jirga. And, presumably, Hamid Karzai is not going to have much of a shot if he isn't delivering right now. But I want to ask you about the immediate crisis that's taking place in Afghanistan, the earthquake. What can you tell us?

AMIN: Well, the latest I found out today, and I spoke to a few ministers within the government, one was that at least some close to 5,000 people have been killed, more than 5,000 injured and over 20- 25,000 people displaced. The entire township of Burka as well as Nahrin, the old town and the new town that I fought even when I was there again fighting against the Soviets, the entire thing has been leveled. And now, we were appealing for international assistance because this is beyond the scope of our ability. We're asking for medicine, triage teams, food, blankets, rescue and also tents.

KOPPEL: Well, is it -- are you going to be able to get it to the people in the...

AMIN: Well, already, IOM and others are delivering some 50 tons of material, but it's not going to be enough. We've deployed the military, the civilian as well as the ministry of interior to basically put everything else aside and this takes priority.

GAFFNEY: I would argue you can very usefully use American military transportation and logistic skills to try to provide relief. It's a real tangible evidence of how we can influence and win hearts and minds.

CLARK: Well, I think that's very important. And I think it's very important that we bring in Arab news agencies like Al-Jazeera and let them see the tangible work done by the United States, because really this is the proof positive of what is the relationship between the United States and the Arab world. And We should be showing it.

GAFFNEY: If they'll cover it.

CLARK: If they'll cover it.

AMIN: Well, they'll cover it because it's very important. Six months ago, the international community was really concerned, alarmed, that 7.5 million Afghan lives would be lost. Hence, they were able to cover that. Afghans have not been lost. They can do this again, I'm sure. And the international community ought to know that they have come through again.

KOPPEL: Haron Amin, obviously, our hearts go out to and our condolences to you and your countrymen. And, hopefully, the international community will rise to the challenge. Thank you for coming in. Frank Gaffney and General Wesley Clark, thank you.

Remember, we want to hear from you. Go to Wolf's web page at cnn.com/wolf and click on the designation for comments to Wolf and his producers.

Coming up, the postal service intends to finish the job at its anthrax-tainted facility. Details when we return with a check of the top stories. Please stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back.

In this hour's "News Alert", officials in Afghanistan estimate 5,000 people were killed today in a major earthquake centered some 90 miles north of Kabul, but officials fear the final death toll may not be known for weeks.

In Washington, the postal service is getting ready to rid the Brentwood postal facility of remaining anthrax spores. The decontamination process could begin within weeks. Two area postal workers were among five people killed in last year's wave of anthrax attacks. Stay tuned for a CNN special report, "The Anthrax Mystery" tonight, 8:00 Central, 5:00 Pacific.

A heartwarming homecoming at the Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia as some of the fighter pilots from the USS Theodore Roosevelt returned home. There's sure to be more hugs and kisses tomorrow when the carrier itself returns from six-month deployment in the war on terrorism.

Well, that's all the time we have tonight. I'm Andrea Koppel in for Wolf Blitzer. Please join me again tomorrow night at 7:00 Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.

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