Transcripts For CSPAN2 Booknotes 20140906

From an early age, it sort of defies common sense. Cspan i found it interesting you actually named the publications and went specifically to the point they were making. Janes intelligence review, which reported that bin laden may have obtained an engineering degree in the United States and was financed by the cia you even call it respectable. Why would they publish Something Like that . Guest i think that, you know, its because bin laden is libelproof, incommunicado. His family isnt speaking, largely incommunicado and you know, hes public enemy number one, you can write anything that kind of occurs to you. And, i mean, i think the bar about you know, if lets say, janes intelligence review is writing about, lets say, jim woolsey or some wellknown intel you know, they would be able to check these things. I mean, they would find out where did mr. Woolsey go to school. And, you know, janes just repeated something that was sort of hearsay and, you know, its a very good publication, but i think i wasnt trying to single them out. Im just saying that theres been a lot of stuff written about bin laden, not all of it very accurate. Cspan you mention yossef bodansky. Guest yeah. Cspan . Who had a bestseller for a while. It was on the it may still be on there as far as i know. Guest yeah. Cspan you say, one of the examples of misinformation about bin laden can be found in the tome by yossef bodansky, who enjoys the title of director of Congressional Task force on terrorism. do you know what that is . Guest its a Republican Task force on terrorism. Cspan it says, in bin laden the man who declared war on america, bodansky described the teenaged bin laden visiting beirut to drink, womanize and get involved in brawls. never did that . Guest not according to people who know him. Cspan those who know bin laden, however, describe a deeply religious teenager who married at the age of 17. Bodansky makes another fantastic assertion that the 1996 crash of twa 800, which killed 230, was a joint operation between iran and bin laden. guest yeah. Cspan no proof at all that that ever happened . Guest i mean, you know, twa 800 went down for reasons that the ntsb or the National Transportation safety board and the fbi concluded was an accident. Its not really exactly clear why the accident, but, i mean, trying to pin bin laden, you know, for the twa 800 or iran is just its i dont think its very responsible for somebody who works, you know, for congress. Cspan how did you then go about making sure that and youve got so many connecting points in this book that it was accurate . Guest i tried to you know, like any book, i mean, there are probably you know, there are probably errors of you know, in there, but, you know, i try to be somewhat responsible about what i put in or you know, basically, the threshold had to be, lets say, sufficiently high. You know, having worked at cnn, you know, for, say, working at cnn i mean, thats the sort of tradition i come out of. So i try to sort out some of the myths and some of the rumors and try to really actually report and actually go and meet the people who met and knew bin laden or, you know, were involved in his group in some way or the people who were tracking him and rather than relying on secondary sources. Obviously, i do rely on secondary sources, but i try and rely on secondary sources that are either, you know, reputable publications or books or, you know, trial transcripts. I mean, i think Court Testimony is a very useful in the un the Embassy Bombing attacks, the subsequent manhattan trial, there was about, i dont know, must be every page generated 150every day generated 150 pages of testimony. And there were about 70 days. So there was a wealth of information in those in those court transcripts. I used those and trying to talk to as many people on the different sides of the story as possible, whether they were American Government officials, people who were reportedly sympathetic with bin laden, arab journalists who met with him or know about him, pakistanis. You know, i mean, the way to get a complete picture is to talk to as many people as possible, obviously. Cspan you went to his fathers village. Guest yeah. Cspan when did that happen . Where is it . What did you find . Guest its a beautiful place in hadhramaut, which is a very remote area of yemen, in eastern yemen. And it looks perhaps a little bit like arizona. Its sort of mesas almost as cliffs and theres honeycolored cliffs, and in one of the end of one of these valleys, you can find the town of alribat, which is bin ladens ancestral village. And its, you know, about 5,000 people. It doesnt you know, if you go there as a westerner, its you know, youre kind of a big deal. I mean, the all the kids in the village just, you know, start running after you. And, you know, its not something its not a place thats regularly visited. Bin laden left, bin ladens father left the village when he was a young man to go and seek his fortune in saudi arabia, but the family retains some links to the village. They gave some money for irrigation projects, and there is a house there which is the bin laden street, which is this rambling old, decrepit place which now houses kind of an extended family, some of the more distant relatives of Osama Bin Laden, and its so big that part of it is the village school. But i went there with john burns of the New York Times, who is a wonderful reporter, and we went to go and talk to some of the remaining cousins who were who were there. Cspan what does it mean if youre from yemen . Whats that in that part of the world over there, where is it located . What borders yemen . Guest ok. Well, to the south, its the arabian sea, and then to the north, its saudi arabia. So a lot of yemenis went to saudi arabia because basically, to get i mean, yemen is a very, very poor country. I think its the poorest country in the middle east, probably. And so you get a lot of immigration, and one of the people who immigrated was mohammed bin laden, the father of osama. But he was part of a pretty big movement. And one thing thats interesting about bin ladens organizations, youll find that some of the key people are saudis, but they actually have yemeni backgrounds like bin laden himself. For instance, the person whos regarded as being the mastermind of the bombing of the uss cole in yemen last year is somebody whose family originates in yemen, but grew up in saudi arabia, fought in afghanistan, like bin laden, against the soviets. Cspan how close is yemen to afghanistan . Guest yemen is, i mean, quite some distance. I mean, youd have to go youd, i mean, it would be youd have to fly, you know i dont know, its about 1,500 i mean, im guessing 1,500 miles, about 1,000 miles, perhaps. Quite some way. Cspan whats the population of yemen . Guest the population of yemen is 17 million, 18 million. One interesting thing is that they and i might be getting confused. I think the i think the number of guns in yemen may be that number, and then the population may be there im a little con. Cspan i think you remember the statistic 65 million guns and 18 million people. Guest right. Thats exactly right. Thats right, 65 million guns, 18 million people. So like afghan i mean, yemen is a lot very similar to afghanistan in its i mean, physically, its very beautiful. Theres mountains, theres deserts. You know, its tribal. There is quite a theres been quite a tourist industry in yemen, except that has been impacted, obviously, by terrorist events and kidnapping of tourists. But, you know, its one of the seven wonders of the world is this bazaar in sanaa, yemen, literally one of the seven wonders of the world. I think unesco called it so. And its really like stepping back into the middle ages. You see camels wearing blinkers, and theyre trying to theyre making sesame oil in these giant mortars and pestles. And you see its like a scene out of some medieval painting. But its real. I mean, its its happening now. And its its a wonderful its a wonderful place. Unfortunately, you know, bin ladens group managed to function just, you know, pretty well there. I mean, they were able to bomb the uss cole. There were plans earlier this year in june for some of bin ladens followers to bomb the us embassy there. So it remains a place where pockets of alqaeda exist, although the Yemeni Government has been apparently quite cooperative with the United States government in terms of trying to close alqaeda down there. Cspan you point out in the book that there was an attempt at bombing the sullivans. Guest yeah. Cspan . Ship. The sullivans. When did that happen, and how much of that do we know now . How much of its public . Guest well, i think, quite a lot. The uss the sullivans, which was a dress rehearsal for the cole, and that occurred on january 3rd, 2000, which was towards the end of ramadan in that particular year. And basically, what happened is that the bombers overloaded their boats with explosives and it sunk. But they learned from their mistakes and they came back and they did the uss cole. But the interesting thing about the sullivans attack was that the planned attack on the sullivans was that it was going to be part of a terrorist spectacular involving the bombing of Los Angeles International airport, lax, and also bombing tourist sites in jordan. And all of these things were going to be related for the millennium, for the new millennium, and none of them actually worked out, either because of the incompetence of the plotters or good police work. But it shows, a, that, you know, alqaeda has had its share of failures, as it were, luckily. But, b, it shows you know, these rather grandscale plans. I mean, this was this was a plan to kind of not simultaneously but within the same time period, you know, blow up an airport in america, blow up a us warship in yemen and also blow up places associated with american tourists in jordan. And it would have been pretty devastating. Cspan where do you think the Us Intelligence has been in all this . Guest well, i mean, you know, itsits very easy to monday morning quarterback because, obviously, september 11th was the biggest failure of intelligence gathering in american history. And you know, no one can argue with that fact. On the other hand, it has to be said that us Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community knew that bin laden was a pretty serious character quite early on. As early as 1995, the prosecutors in the Southern District of new york, which has basically handled a lot of the terrorism cases, worked for the initial trade Center Bombing in 93, for instance, they were asking people in some you know, in terrorism trials, do you know Osama Bin Laden . that was in 95. And, you know, lawyers who were in the case at that time said they were kind of mystified who was this Osama Bin Laden . Even though they knew a lot about the case, why was it the prosecutors were asking about him . So his name was beginning to surface in 95 for american Law Enforcement and prosecutors because his name was came kept cropping up too often, i think, is what happened, you know. And by 96, the Us State Department was calling him the most significant financier of islamic extremism in the world and actually had a very detailed white paper about who this guy is; he has Training Camps in afghanistan, sudan. And also, i think, around about the same time, the cia founded its own separate unit devoted to bin laden, which is sort of an interesting you know, there was a Counterterrorist Center within the cia. And, you know, to have set up this specialized unit, which is allowed to function, apparently, given quite a lot of latitude to function without having to deal with the washington bureaucracy so much. You know, so, i mean, the United States government was well aware that bin laden was a very dangerous man. On september the 10th, you know, he was already on the ten most wanted list and he had a 5 million reward on his head, so unprecedented. So its easy to sort of say, well, that was a huge failure and aon the other hand, i mean, both statements are true. It was it was an intelligence failure, but also the Us Government had you know, had put a lot of effort into going after him. I mean, the fact is that his group were sort of sui generis, i mean, very unusual, in the sense that it was very disciplined and very organized. And, you know, if you think about the terrorism that happened against american targets in the 80s, it was the Marine Barracks bombing that killed more than 200 americans in 1983. Well, that was but it was nothing never on the scale, you know the you know, i mean, the thing about this group is they kept making their plans more and more complex and more and more deadly as time went on. One can only hope that you know, that the trade center represents the apex. Cspan before i go on, let me ask you some questions about you. Guest yeah. Cspan where were you born . Guest i was born in minneapolis. Cspan what year . Guest 1962. Cspan how long did you live there . Guest my parents my parents and the family moved to paris when i was three. And then we moved to london when i was five or six, think. Cspan how long did you stay there . Guest lived in london my basically my entire life, went to high school in yorkshire, in the north of england, and went to university at oxford, and then returned to the United States after i left university. Cspan and why did you go to oxford . And what did you study . Guest i studied history. Cspan what kind of history . Guest modern history, which at oxford begins with the anglosaxons. So and why i mean, why did i go there . I mean, its an incredibly beautiful place. It was a wonderful time to go. And. Cspan college . Guest new college. Cspan new college . Guest yeah. And which is across the street. And new college is, i think, founded in 1369 or whatever, so but you know, i had a great time there. I didnt really you know, there werent that many requirements to work really, so and everybody you know, it was funny because at that time, you know, the english government actually paid for you to go to university. They gave you you know, i mean, now you have to pay or something yourself, but at that time, not only was the education free, but they actually gave you money to like kind of a spending money. So its a kind of a very different philosophy than the kind of but, of course, now the British Government is asking people to pay, but its still, relatively speaking, very inexpensive. Cspan british citizen or american citizen . Guest im american. Cspan did your parents move back here with you . Guest my mother stayed in england for another, i guess, 10 years, and then shes moved to washington relatively recently. And my father now lives in the United States as well. Cspan so when you came here from oxford, whered you go . Guest yeah. I moved to new york. Cspan what did you do . Guest i became a messenger, or i had a job called desk assistant, which basically meant at abc news. And that was my first job. But it was a it was a, a, very good way to sort of get to know manhattan because you sort of, you know, take your packages here and also kind of a good way to get to know the business because you kind of, just by process of osmosis, you kind of began to learn a little bit about business. Theres no reason to employ somebody it doesnt matter where theyve been to school, if they dont know you know, so it was kind of like thats the opening job you get. And then, you know, you kind of get promoted as you go along. Cspan whatd you do how longd you stay at abc . Guest five years. Cspan and what did you end up being at abc . Guest i worked my last job was at 20 20, where i was, you know, like a production assistant, associate producer, whatever, on different projects. You know, 20 20 was a very nice place to work. They were very nice people. And i was able to get Ronald Reagan and nancy reagan after they after Ronnie Reagan had retired, which is pretty amazing, you know, as a kid to spend a day with him. He was exactly how i you know, he was exactly how everybody said he would be. He was very charming and very pleasant. And nancy seemed to completely run the show. Cspan and and when did you decide to leave abc, and whered you go . Guest i got aa job offer at cnn, which was early in 1990. And from a wonderful my boss, pam hill, at the time. And she was setting up a unit pam hill, at the time. And she was setting up a unit at cnn to do, like, you know, documentaries, you know, investigative pieces, etc. And i decided to go there. And it turned out to be quite good timing because the gulf war then happened, and it was a great time to be at cnn. And, you know, i feel very lucky that i was at cnn, in a way, because, you know, i mean, if youre interested in news, where else better to be . I mean, thats what they do. Cspan so in 1990, you would have been how old . Guest i think i was 27 27 . Yeah. Cspan so youve been there ever since . Guest yeah. Well, except i resigned to write the book two years ago. Cspan go back to the first time you ever thought about Osama Bin Laden. Guest i think the first time i really thought about it seriously was an article by Judith Miller and jeff gerth is in the New York Times, round about the time the state Department Released this kind of rather detailed fact sheet about him. And i thought, well, thats kind of interesting, because it always seemed to me that the bombing of the World Trade Center was the you know, when youre a prosecutor, theres a rather narrow set of things youre looking for. I mean, who bombed the trade center . And that question was solved by the trials. But who was behind the bombing wasnt ever really asked very seriously, it didnt seem to me, perhaps because it just didnt seem that necessary or whatever, but here was something kind of odd about the people. They came from peshawar, pakistan; you know, ramzi yousef, the mastermind. They seemed to have money from somewhere. They must have had training to build these explosives. I mean, who is doing all that . They didnt just suddenly show up in brooklyn and know how to build a huge bomb. And, you know, it turns out, you know, the more that you look at that case, the more its clear that it was sort of a pro alqaeda operation. I mean, that. Cspan what year was all this that you read that article . Guest oh, when i read the well, the reason that i when i read the article, it was 96. It just the Judith Millerjeff gerth piece just sort of said it looked at these middle eastern businessman, and including bin laden, saying, you know, kind of, who are they . so i went to my bosses at cnn, pam hill and john lane at the time, and i said, id be very you know, i think we should really look at this guy. and they had previously encouraged a documentary that i was involved in which looked at the trade Center Bombing and the connections to afghanistan. So they encouraged me to go and do the to try and find out if we could meet with bin laden. Cspan and . Guest and well, i mean, ill that was quite a performance. It was a we went to well, initially, i had called this contact in london, somebody by the name of khaled alfauwaz. And i said we were interested. He said, fine. i said, i have certain things i dont want to chat about on the phone. so i went to london, and i spent about a week with him and basically kind of laid out that we would give bin laden a fair hearing. Cspan again, what year are you doing this . Guest this is early 97. Cspan ok. Guest and about a month i also met with somebody that was going to take us to bin laden if we met. But anyway, there was sort of like there was a certain sort of screening process that was going on. They wanted to make sure that we werent agents of the American Government in some way or they also wanted to make sure that we would kind of give him a fair hearing; you know, explained that we would give everybody a fair hearing. And oh, about a month later, i went back to washington. We got the call saying, youre on, and i myself and the correspondent, peter arnett, went to london. We met up with our cameramen and two other people who knew kind of related to bin laden, and they took us to pakistan, where we you know, we kind of kept going through a series of different hoops about each stage of the way. And finally, we get to afghanistan, which is the final hoop. And we were in jalalabad, not too far from where you know, from tora bora, of course, where alqaeda is presently holed up. Cspan now were had you been to afghanistan before that . Guest yes. Cspan when . Guest i went in 93 for quite some time during the there was a war you know, the war in afghanistan between the forces of i mean, it was a civil war in afghanistan, even after the communists the afghan communists were defeated, which is ripping you know, the ironic thing is kabul, the capital, had basically survived the whole communists without being destroyed. It was the afghans themselves who destroyed it, principally, the gulbuddin hekmatyar, who was the Prime Minister at the time, who was probably the only Prime Minister in history to be shelling his own capital on a daily basis. So i was there in 93 during that period. We interviewed hekmatyar. We also interviewed ahmed shah massoud, who, of course, is now dead, unfortunately. And we and that was in the context of trying to find out how the trade Center Bombers oh, in 93, how you know, what their connection was to the afghan war against the soviet union had been. So in 97, that was id been once before and 97 was the second time i went. Cspan did you sense at that time, and based on your study at oxford and the history and all that, that this was a bigger thing than most people were paying attention to . Guest no, i dont think so. I mean, i did all the things that ive done because i was interested in them, rather than sort of thinking that this was going to turn into a big story. Because, i mean, who and i got interested in afghanistan and pakistan in 1983 when i was a student at university. A couple of friends and myself made a documentary about the afghan refugees in pakistan who. Cspan who were you doing this for . Guest we kind of did it in our own steam and then we showed it on channel 4 in england after we kind of got it together. And, i mean, the two people i was we kind of knew more than we didnt know anything, really, between ourselves, but kind of the innocence engendered by, you know, being very young and optimism and we sort of thought we could do this. So we shot it on film, and then it was shown on english television. But anyway, that got me interested in afghanistan and pakistan. I went back at it with abc news through we did a story in pakistan about the legal status of pakistani women, which was obviously pretty bad, even under benazir bhuto, who was then Prime Minister at the time, who, you know, wasnt really able to get the religious parties to get off, as it were, and liberalize the situation. But so my general my interest really started with just being interested in the country, the places, rather than sort of an interest in terrorism. Cspan so go back to 97, youre on your way, youre in pakistan, youre on your way to youre in afghanistan. Guest right. Cspan how long did all that take, by the way, from the time you leave here to the time they finally got you in country . Guest i dont know. It must have been because each of these phases, by the time we actually i mean, it must have taken at least two weeks from washington to meeting bin laden. At lea id say at least two weeks. Cspan and its just you and peter arnett and a camera person . Guest yeah. Peter jouvenal, the camera person, who actually is a former british army officer. Hes spent more time in afghanistan as a journalist than anybody else. Hes the sort of person who really you know, peters line is, you know, any fool can get into a difficult situation. Its, like, getting out of it that is the complicated part. you know, some and id been peter arnett and peter jouvenal, the cameraman, and i had been to afghanistan before. And they were exactly the right people in case something you know, arnett obviously has, you know, been in many war situations. And they were the right people to have around if anything did go wrong. And with one of the things that went wrong almost immediately was that the week before we went to see bin laden, the taliban banned the photography of any kind of person. So we were sort of in a quandary about whether to whether to go to the country illegally and be thrown out because we didnt have visas or, you know, if you apply for a visa, theyre going to ask you, what are you doing . and, you know, so in the end, we decided not to apply for a visa and to just go in and take our chances. And like a lot of things that are never very clear in afghanistan, it was never clear to me that the taliban knew that we were there to interview bin laden and then and sanctioned it or that they just couldnt care less. I mean, they didnt really werent that interested in who we were. I mean, we were you stick out like you know, its pretty youre pretty obvious if youre living in jalalabad in a hotel for several days, not really doing anything. Its, like, who are these people . but they never really asked us. It was just kind of odd. Cspan so how did you get to the man himself . Guest that was after we had a meeting with his media adviser, who basically said he looked at our camera equipment and said, you cant take any of this, because were concerned about bin ladens security and any kind of Electronic Device that might give away his location. They were very paranoid, basically. And so he said, well, you can do your interview, but itll have to be with our equipment. and there was no point in arguing the matter. I mean, it was either that or no interview. So, you know, we had a sort of series of different trucks we went and we had a van and then a sort of jeep, and we were blindfolded and it was the middle of the night. And, you know, we were went through various concentric rings of security around bin laden. We were searched in a professional manner. They basically made it clear at a certain point if we had a tracking device that if we told them now, it wouldnt be a problem, but if we told them later, it would be definitely a problem. Cspan were you at all afraid for your own life in this situation . Guest no. For several first of all, theyd invited us. You know, they werent going to screw around with us. And secondly, you know, i mean, i rather than being frightened, i was actually quite thrilled. I mean, not thrilled is the wrong word. I was happy that this was coming off. I mean, i spent a lot of time and effort trying to organize this, and we were there. We were going to we didnt really know how the whole thing was going to end, but it was you know, something that wed all spent a lot of time and effort trying to get to that point. So the fact that we were now going up the mountain, we were in we didnt know exactly where we were, but im pretty sure we were in the White Mountains where that alqaeda base is located, near somewhere near there. Cspan and how long were you i mean, at what time of day did you travel and how long would you travel at any given time . Guest they arrived at dusk, and so it must have been around 5 pm. And we werent allowed to even take watches, so we werent we had no idea of what time it was exactly. But i estimated it was sometime before midnight when bin laden finally showed up. And he wasnt going to hang around. He just wanted to do the interview and go. I mean, he was i think he was with his entourage. He. Cspan how many in his entourage . Guest i think i counted a total of maybe 30 people that i saw over the course of the night, maybe, around him. In the direct entourage, there were maybe, i dont know, 10. Cspan armed . Guest yeah. Everybody was armed and, you know, some of them spoke pretty good english. Cspan and what was your sense of the kind of people you were around . Were they smart people . Guest well, i think they divided into two groups. There were some kind of people who seemed not that smart who were, like, kind of the protection people, more they just seemed like foot soldiers. And they seemed there were a group of some middle eastern faces and some african faces. And then there were some people who were kind of in charge. They spoke very good english. They seemed to be saudi. There was a translator who spoke impeccable english, and who appeared maybe to be a cleric. And, yeah, so i think they divided up into kind of the people who were just, you know, kind of the muscle and then the people who were running the show. Cspan the interview itself taped for how long . Guest about an hour. Peter arnett and i had worked up a lot of questions for bin laden, and he didnt want to answer anything about his personal life, his family, his finances. He just wanted to talk about, you know, why he was declaring war against the United States, which after all was the reason that we were there. We were it wasnt about his family history; we were trying to find out who this guy is. Why has he declared war against the United States . And, in a nutshell, you know, the main thing his main gripe is the continued presence of american troops in saudi arabia, which he regards as infidels trespassing on the holy land. Cspan what did you see up close, in person, that you cant see on video . Guest i think he has a sort of almost like feline aspect. I mean, hes hes not a kind of very macho kind of guy at all. Hes more he was pretty low key, and he didnt strike me as being particularly charismatic. I dont speak arabic, so maybe theres more charisma when you can understand him in the native tongue. But, you know, he didnt have a he doesnt have this, like, you know, lightbulblike personality, or he doesnt swagger. Hes very hes very he was very he was almost you know, you could barely hear him speaking cause he was so low key. I mean, i think he i think he had a cold at the time, but he just came off as being mildmannered. Cspan and what did cnn do with the interview once you were finished . Guest well, we went back and we edited we put the text of the entire interview on the internet, but we i mean, we edited it down into a 20minute, really, profile of who is this guy, and what is he doing, or what has he done . What is he being accused of doing . And we used the best stuff from the interview. I mean, the interview was you know, i mean, youve seen bin laden. Hes sort of he can ramble on a lot about stuff that isnt that sort germane in a way, but so we that interview this profile aired in may of 1997. Cspan this is really off the subject, but every time you when i see these stories about folks like you going up into the mountains and hours and hours on the road, one question thats never answered is where do you get your gas . Guest well, they were driving us. Cspan but where do they get it . Guest oh, you see. Cspan i mean, are there gas stations along the way . Guest well, you know. Cspan you ever run out of gas over there . Guest i guess they must keep gas in the car. I mean, there arent i have few i mean, there arent many gas stations in afghanistan. Thats a good question. I dont know where, but they certainly were driving around a lot at night. I mean, they must keep jerricans in their jeeps or whatever. But it hadnt really occurred to me. But. Cspan go back to mohammed. Guest yeah. Cspan . Bin laden, the father. Guest yeah. Cspan back to yemen. What year did he go to saudi arabia . Guest 1930, and he founded the Family Company in 31, and then the kingdom of saudi arabia was founded in 1932, although, you know, the saudi family had been sort of gathering pieces of the puzzle to make the kingdom. And he became very close to king faad and was able to, you know, build palaces, and the family renovated mecca and medinah. Cspan what year did he die . Guest he died in 67. Cspan 1967. Guest . When bin laden was 10. Cspan and how many wives did he have . Guest well, only four at any given moment, but i think my understanding is perhaps up to 10 or 11. Cspan and how many children total did he have . Guest around 50. Cspan and where did Osama Bin Laden fit into that . Guest hes supposedly the 17th son. Hes the only son of one of the mothers, so there was a syrian mother, and bin laden has two full sisters, but the familys pretty a large one, i mean, you know, 50 50 siblings of one stripe or another. And now, of course, theres another generation, so those kids have all had kids. So, you know, somebody was saying to me that there are like 200plus First Cousins who now make up the bin laden family. Cspan and Osama Bin Laden himself, you talk about in the book, had i think got a fourth wife after you saw him or was that. Guest yeah. He got a fourth wife in early 2000. Cspan how do they when you have four wives, how do you deal with them . Guest well, the koran says sort of you know, you dont youre only supposed to take as many wives as you can actually support, and four is the maximum. So, you know, if you i mean, obviously, bin ladens got the resources to support four wives. But, you know, who those wives are exactly the most recent one is a yemeni, but theres not a hell of a lot of information about bin ladens family. There is a son called abdullah who lives in saudi arabia, whos the oldest, whos sort of rejected his father, and theres also a very young daughter, i believe, n saudi arabia, who may be four. Cspan what do you know about his mother . You said she was syrian . Guest yeah. She apparently divorced osamas father at some point and since remarried. Shes in pretty close touch with her son. She has visited him in sudan, when he lived there between 91 and 96, and she was also at her grandsons wedding, which happened early this year in afghanistan. So she keeps in touch with her son. Cspan any idea what shes like . Guest no. Cspan ever seen a picture of her . Guest no. I mean, one thing youve got to understand is that, you know, the notion of a sort of i mean, say the notion of a picture of osamas wife or where you just, you know or an interview with osamas wife or Something Like that is just you know, its not going to happen. I mean. Cspan what countries in the world did Osama Bin Laden live in . Guest well, afghanistan, pakistan, sudan, saudi arabia. Cspan whered he get his education . Guest saudi arabia at the he studied economics and public administration. Cspan and when did he get his money . Guest well, the dad his father died in 67. All the kids are pretty young, but even osamas oldest brother at that time would have only been only 20. And so the Family Company was sort of put in trust, and the estate was only divided in the 80s, and bin laden apparently got about 35 million. And i know that because i talked to somebody whos somewhat privy to the division of the estate. Its less than you know, there are estimates that he had a lot more money than that, but, still, 35 million is 35 million. And then, you know, at a certain point, he becomes probably the biggest businessman in sudan between 91 and 96. Its really a very intense period one of the you know, i say in the book, it was almost holy war, inc. It really was holy war, inc. , in the sense that he had this huge array of businesses, from tanneries to bakeries to banks to construction businesses to Trucking Companies to, you know, importexport, basically cornering the market in certain of sudanese agricultural products, but at the same time running these paramilitary camps. And so, you know, when i called the book holy war, inc. , that was one of the reasons. I mean, partly also a play on the murder, inc. Notion. But also, you know, bin laden comes out of a business background. You know, he studied economics. His familys business is very successful. He established himself as a very big businessman in sudan. Alqaeda, the business of terrorism, almost was set up in a pretty rational manner. You know, there were political arms and religious arms and business arms and media arms and i mean, all thats gone now, of course, because alqaeda is about to go out of its about to go out of business for the long term. Cspan whats osama mean in english . Guest lion. Cspan what does alqaeda mean . Guest the base. cspan and when did he start it . Guest 1989. You know, the basis of the base, as it were, is that after the soviets withdrew in february of 89 from afghanistan you know, bin laden recruited all these people from around the world for holy wars, and they all got some sort of military experience and rubbed shoulders and got to know each other. And this sort of this International Cast of sort of holy warriors, as it were and all of them wanted to do other, you know change their governments in their native countries, like egypt, or, you know, foment you know, rebellion in various other places or eventually, in bin ladens case, attack the United States. So alqaeda became the basis that alqaeda sort of sprang out of those people who traveled to afghanistan. Well. Cspan go back to the reason that he hates the United States. Guest yeah. Cspan when did you figure that it all actually started . Guest it starts on a date august 7, 1990. I mean, not that it happened overnight. Bin laden had been antiamerican for a long time. But. Cspan where was he living then . Guest he was living in saudi arabia, and it was the day that president bush announced operation desert shield, which meant which effectively meant the introduction of several hundred thousand americans into saudi arabia. Bin laden you know, there were women you know, that was his worst women soldiers trespassing on the holy land of saudi arabia, that was terrible, as far as bin laden was concerned. And the reason that its you know, one thing that makes it very clear to me why several things is, you know, eight years later to the day, bin ladens men blow up two us embassies in africa within nine minutes of each other, and that was sending a very clear signal. I mean, this august the 7th moment was very critical because eight years later that causes bin ladens biggest sort of terrorist outrage to date. So he was sending a message. And, you know, hes been very consistent about, you know, these people are along the lines of the prophet mohammed and they need to be expelled. And its been very its very hes been very explicit about that, whether it was in the videotape, that indicates that his guilt in the trade center where he mentions this, you know, this kind of thing or all of his public statements usually mention this. Cspan go back to the beginning again. Guest yeah. Cspan you said he had been given 35 million, and then weve seen all kinds of figures along the way. How much do you think hes been worth over the years after the Construction Company and all . Guest yeah. Its hard to tell. I mean, hes always had access to some money, but at the end of the day the moneys sort of a bit of a red herring in the sense that, you know, you cantits not about money. Its about belief. And the people that he recruits to him arent paid. You know, theyre volunteers, theyre not mercenaries. And the people who die in these operations, clearly you cant theres no amount of money you can give to somebody like mohamed atta who came from a prosperous egyptian family himself anyway, to persuade him to fly a 747 into the World Trade Center. So i think the money has been important but its not been vital to bin ladens project. Whats been vital is his ability to transfer a lot of rage against the United States, perhaps, you know, taking the sort of localized rage of people against you know, there are all sorts of middle eastern governments which are authoritarian and corrupt, etc. , etc. But somebody else saying some are making the analysis, its all the United States fault for all these problems, and getting people to go along with that idea and being able to organize them and recruit them and giving them the training to become quite deadly, these are all bin ladens genius. Its not his money. Cspan have you met alzawahiri . Guest no. He kept a low profile. Cspan the number two. Is he number two . Guest yeah. And hes g. Cspan do you think hes alive . Guest he shows up in the videotape, of course, the trade center, where bin laden takes responsibility for the trade center. Its hard to tell. I mean, there were reports that he was dead and they seem to be not that accurate. But. Cspan but his familys dead . Or part of it. Guest yes. The family is dead. Apparently they took out a death notice in some egyptian newspaper. So. Cspan you say in the book you met atef. Guest yes. Cspan who was he . Guest yes. No, no, no. Well, actually, i didnt, actually, meet with him. I corresponded with him. Cspan who was he . Guest hes now deceased military commander. But, i mean, i didnt when i was dealing with him, i never really i wasnt quite sure if he was the military commander or not. There was that he was simply one of the media advisers. But apparently hes one in the same person. And we corresponded after the attacks on the us embassies in africa, and the subsequent Cruise Missile strikes against bin ladens camp in afghanistan. And i was trying to get another interview. But we corresponded by fax from the kabul post office to my hotel room in pakistan. And in the end, the message came that it wasnt they just didnt think it was a good idea. Cspan what about this book . When did you get the idea to do this book . And i know it was finished in august. Guest yeah. Cspan and then, of course, now youve changed it a lot by the time i got my hands on it. Guest well, i got the idea to write the book i mean, i always wanted to write a book, and it just seemed like a good i mean, to me, the main thing was i was interested in the subject, and that kind of subject is you know, bin ladens an interesting obviously, it was an interesting hes an interesting personality and phenomenon. Of course, you know, i didnt when i was starting it, i had no idea that, you know, wed be talking about september 11th or events like this. But i just thought that if i was interested in a subject and that somehow other people would be, too. And, you know i mean, ii think its a general proposition. I think thats a good way to operate. I mean, if youre not interested if the writer isnt interested, particularly, then who else is going to care . I mean, you have to you have to think its an interesting subject. You have to be engaged in it. Cspan let me ask you some minor book questions. Guest yeah. Cspan when you originally wrote the book and finished in august of this last year, how many copies of this were they going to publish . Guest im not sure, but they told me they read the manuscript, they said, were going to double projections. now doubling it from a probably very low number, you know. It would have been i dont know. But the. Cspan its free press. What . 10,000, 15,000 . Guest i think they were going to i think they were going to double it from 10,000 to 20,000, maybe, lets say, hypothetically. And then they never told me the figures. They said they were going to double it to something beyond what they previously thought. Cspan the book was done and you had it at the publisher in august . Guest it wasnt done. It was i handed in my manuscript and it needed work on august 30th. Cspan so what happened on september the 11th . Guest i think at a certain point i spoke to my editor, rachel klayman, and said to her i mean, i dont know if it was on the 11th or not. But it was that whole day was so mad. But we talked about, you know, what are we going to do . and, you know, the obvious thing to do is you know, of all the times to get the book out it was now. I mean, people wanted for a lot of people, bin laden, you know, could have been schmin laden. I mean, theyd never heard of the guy. They didnt the events of september 11th came like a bolt out of the blue. I mean, it was the most it was a very Beautiful Day and it just suddenly this thing happened. It was like how did that happen . it was almost inexplicable. But the fact is it was explicable to some degree. I mean, as soon as the second plane hit, to me, it was i mean, it was who else had who else would have had the motivation and the kind of organization to pull this off . So we talked i mean, rachel, my editor, was i cant remember very much of the conversations because there were so many things going on, but we basically, you know, agreed, well just have to get this done. And then rachel, my editor, very kindly came down to washington for about four or five days, and we just basically worked. I mean, at a certain point, its like you cant have these conversations over the phone. You just have to be with your editor. And we just worked around the clock to get it out. Cspan and youve gone as far as to add this note at the bottom of the flap both author and publisher will donate a portion of their proceeds from this book to united ways. Guest yeah. Cspan september 11th fund. Whats the percentage youre going to give it . Do you know . Guest i think its some routine percentage, which is i mean, industry standard. Cspan but what happened about the printing of this book . How many copies then did youyou originally print . And it has been on the bestseller list. Guest i think they announced a print run of 250,000. That doesnt mean anything. I mean, it doesnt i mean, that doesnt mean youre going to sell 250,000. I mean, there might be, you know, a lot sent back. I mean, i know more about publishing than i used to now, which is the point youre going to print more than youre gonna because the worst thing is not to be able to have it in the shops when you need it. But, you know, i think that i mean, im doing something of a service in the sense that the book may help people understand the you know, september 11th did not emerge out of a vacuum. This guy has been planning these kinds of attacks against american targets since the early 90s. And his organization has been involved in attacks against americans since the early 90s. And, unfortunately, what happened, is that these attacks just got more complex and more and more deadly and theyve sort of you know, they sort of it was a kind of accelerating curve upwards of attacks. And, you know, hopefully, the book will make that clear. I think that if you read the book, at the end when you put it down, i hope you say to yourself, now i kind of understand how that wasnt entirely a bolt out of the blue. i think that bin laden, by the way you know, i think september 11th he wanted to provoke some sort of trash of civilization. So it was a total failure. The striking thing to me but you cant justify the september 11th attacks islamically you know, in islam. Because there is no language to justify it. And bin laden doesnt even try and justify it. I mean, when he says people ask why the assault on american citizens, he says, well, theyre american they pay taxes and, therefore, theyre complicit. thats hardly a sort of justification, religious justification. And, you know, his message has had zero resonance, or very little in the muslim world. You have not seen millions of people getting on the streets saying, osama, osama, osama. on the contrary, you know, the demonstrations have been tiny, and youve seen every middle eastern government lining up to help against bin laden because they understand hes a threat to them. And i think the videotape you know, if there was any doubt that he was involved, surely that would expunge it. And it makes it clear that hes a you know, a rather i dont know. Hes its hard to find the words. But it certainly a not a very its its a real his joviality on the videotape was really pretty unpleasant. And i tell you what, brian, what i think about him, weve seen a lot of his type in the past century, which is i know how to create the perfect omelet, and it doesnt matter how many eggs are necessary to break to make that an omelet. And weve seen that again and again and again. Im not talking about, you know, whether that was pol pot or stalin or mao. These are all very different people. I mean and i cant compare bin laden to all these people in the sense that his victims are i mean, his victims are his victims. But they all share one absolutely common thing, which is i know how to create paradise on earth, and im absolutely certain about it, and if other people dont understand that, you know, sort of theyre wrong. And not only that, we should be able to kill them. And you see that again and again. The worst person in my view is the person who thinks that they can have the perfect answer, because theyre almost without they think theyre going to create paradise here on earth if their solutions are implemented. As it happens, they tend to create hells on earth for people. Anybody with that level of certainty is almost certainly wrong, and will probably do a lot of damage. Cspan so what is in the book that would help somebody understand a postbin laden period, a postzawahiri, you know, atef, all these people that you write about in here . Sheik rahman show many of his sons were killed . Guest a couple of sons, yeah. Cspan oh, really. Guest one of thems dead. One of thems been killed apparently. Cspan hes in jail here . Guest hes in minnesota. Cspan prison, i mean . Guest yeah. Sheik rahman. Cspan yeah. And he. Guest after bin laden and i think they were such an unusual phenomenon. I dont see i think when bin laden and his top leadership are eliminated or captured or whatever and the terrorist Training Camps in afghanistan are closed permanently, which they are in the process of being, you know, youre going to revert to a situation that existed before, which is terrorism was aa major irritant, but it wasnt like the major Security Threat facing the United States, which it became on september 11th. Cspan what did you think of the decision then on the part of this government to go after the network . Guest they did i think theyve done a brilliant job. I mean, its very hard to fault them on anything. I mean, you know, it is clear from bin ladens statements that he possibly possesses some sort of radioactive weapon, not an atomic weapon, in a conventional i mean, with this group, all bets are off. So, you know, in a very aggressive effort to kind of get them i mean, its quite clear, bin laden has no qualms about killing civilians, including muslim civilians, because hes killed a lot of them, whether it was in the World Trade Center attacks or in the us Embassy Bombing attacks. You know, the us Embassy Bombing attacks killed 200 africans, and kenya and tanzania are about 30 percent muslim. So up till then you know, he certainly killed a lot more muslims than americans up till september 11th. You know . And so he doesnt have you know, there are no there are no checks for bin laden. Theres no i think, you know, he and his followers are ready to do as much damage as they can. And so at that point its a pure matter of selfpreservation. I mean, im not a sort of militaristic sort of person, but, you know, if theres ever a reason to go to war, the catastrophic death of, you know, thousands of civilians and on doing it in a very aggressive way, i mean, how could you fault that . Cspan well, go back to when we started talking about your life at abc as a. Guest yeah. Cspan what was your what was that what did you call that first job . Guest desk assistant. Cspan oh, just a desk assistant. You were a you were basically a gofer . Guest gofer, yeah. Cspan and how many short years . What was the date of that again . Guest i was in i started 85. Cspan 85 to 2001. Whats this impact on your life. Guest this book . Cspan . Today . This book, your knowledge about that part of the world, this story . And what are you are you back with cnn fulltime . Guest no. No, no, no. I mean, id liked to continue working with cnn assort of in a parttime capacity. I mean, ive worked for 15 years now for other organizations for and to the extent that it would be possible to be independent, id like to do that, and write other books, and perhaps other articles, but the impact of this book on my life . Well, i mean, i hope that i can write another book, basically. I mean, you know. Cspan but how about the impact of this whole story on your life . Guest well, i mean, its been very i dont know. Its been very hard sometimes because, you know, the event was here in washington on september 11th, and the whole thing was i dont know. It was very, very dreadful, really. The whole i find it and. Cspan where were you when it happened . Guest i was at home. My father was watching television. He told me the that a plane had hit the trade center, and sometimes hes fond of sort of not very funny jokes and i thought he was joking, but when i came down, saw it, and then the second plane hit, and as soon as that happened, i called up keith mcallister, the National Editor of cnn, and he and his office had just said, you know, come here immediately. and it was pretty obvious to anybody who followed these things it was bin laden. And i took a cab in, and i was very if you remember the day, it was very unclear about what was happening, who were the targets . I mean, i remember there was a report that the state department was perhaps on fire or had been bombed, and then the pentagon was on fire. And, you know, all these reports. And then suddenly this other report came init was much stronger, a more urgent report, you know, the entire tower of the trade center had collapsed. And my ethiopian cab driver, ill never forget it, he just burst into tears. And it was very it was i mean, i burst into tears, as well, actually, because it was just you know, you knew how many people had i mean i thought i knew how many people had died in that attack. And it was it was very hard to go on. But, you know, you know, i went to cnn, and was talking to one of the correspondents there, and i was saying, yeah, maybe cnn isnt such a smart place to be either. I mean, you know, who knows . you know, because it wasnt clear what the objective was. I mean, so it was a very difficult day, and anyway, the main thing about it is that it sort of gives me no joy that the book is going to be more widely read. I mean, certainly it you know it would be far better to wind the clock back. If it you know, one of the things that strikes me about bin laden is that hes a sort of james bond villain in a way. But if this was a this was a real james bond movie, you know, the trade you know, james bond would have come in and got rid of bin laden, the trade centers would be standing. And, unfortunately, life is not a movie. I mean, the trade centers fell and bin laden is, you know, able to get away with it, it seems. Cspan go back to that meeting you had with him in 1997. Guest yeah. Cspan what are the other Little Things that you remember from that meeting circumstances . Guest circumstances . At the end of the meeting, he was he didnt want to hang around for very long but he served us some cups of a cup of tea, i remember, himself. And he lingered just basically to have some pictures taken and we got some other you know, like sort of other shots of him. And peter arnett had interviewed Saddam Hussein and during the gulf war, and so peter arnett talked to him about Saddam Hussein. And he said a very interesting thing. He said Saddam Hussein was a bad muslim, and he sees kuwait for his own selfaggrandizement. Both of which are factually correct statements. But it kind of was an early indicator to me that bin laden you know, bin laden regards someone like Saddam Hussein as basically a heretic. So the nose. Cspan did you shake hands with him . Guest i dont think so. I dont, i dont think so. I dont think it was ever just the situation never came up whether it was a shake of a hand or not. He just sat down. I dont think we shook hands at all, no, come to think of it. I never really thought about it until now. Cspan what about the people around him . We talked a little bit about that earlier. Did they know who you were . Did they have a grasp of what you were going to do with this . Guest oh, yeah, i think so. I mean, certainly, the translator spoke excellent english, then there was a number of the people that knew that you know, they understood it was cnn. They understood it was an interview. Cspan do they watch cnn . Guest not in afghanistan. Because, you know, some most places dont have electricity. Cspan you reported in the book that he bought a 7,500 satellite telephone in new york for 7,500for 7,500. Guest yeah. From a new york company. Yeah. Cspan yeah, but then abandoned the use of the satellite telephone. Guest right. Probably he banned it maybe personally. I mean, his aides may have used that same satellite phone. I mean, hes not stupid and he understood that you know, voice print, his voice print is distinctive and, you know, the satellite sweep looking for this voice and in 97, his colleague in london said that bin laden was not chatting away on his satellite phone. Because hes been the subject of a number of rather serious assassination attempts by his native saudi government, so hes very, very, very security conscious. Cspan looking back in the couple minutes we have left. Guest yeah. Cspan . What job do you think what would you grade the media during this period of time, and as all that you knew about this, have you often looked at the set or read an article and say, bunch of misinformation . Guest i think overall the media is and particularly after september 11th, the media has done an amazing job. And i think cnn has done a very good job. I think the New York Times should be awarded, you know, 20 pulitzers tomorrow. I think the Washington Post has done a very good job. I mean, the fact is, one think thats strikes me, brian, thats very interesting, if you do polls on the relative standing of the media, and on september 10th, the media was regarded with lawyers, when we were talking about gary condit and stuff, down at 20 percent. And now were doing the job the public needs us to do and were up at, you know whatever, 70 percent or 80 percent. I mean, so public, you know, i think it sort of unit unleashed a lot of people to actually do the jobs they wanted. I mean, no one really wants to cover gary condit or that kind of stuff at the end of the day cspan what would you like to do next, specifically . What topic . What area . Guest i would like to go back to afghanistan and find out what happened. I think when the smoke clears a bit, you know, and i mean, there are a lot of other things that are going on right now, but i think the opportunity to go back to afghanistan and talk to some of the players, find out how this all happened, and sort of, basically, the part two of this book, as it were. Cspan where will you go first . Guest well, id go to probably go to kabul just because you need to get the various permissions and talk to the people there. unintelligible . Cspan well, who are you going to look for to talk to . Guest well, i think you know, the two people who are going to know a lot about the situation are dr. Abdullah, the foreign minister, you know, abdullahs been tracking the Bin Laden Group for years because they were fighting the Bin Laden Group on the front lines with the taliban. And also, you know, the karza is in kandahar, theyre going to be people who have information about what was the final disposition of where mullah omar was and what was the final where was bin laden . I mean these are the people who are going to really know what happened on the ground. Cspan and whatss your suspicion as to how the United States got the tape . Guest that is a very good question. I just have no idea. I mean, they arent saying, so itsit sounds like somebody left the house in a hurry and just left a tape and maybe it was mislabeled. I mean, you work in you know how often tapes get mislabeled. Whatever. I dont know. It was just it was a mistake. Somebody left it there. Cspan is there a moral to all this story . Guest people who have got who believe that god is really on their side, you know, its very unlikely that god has decided to get on your side. I mean, i dont think god works like that. And bin laden really believes that god got on his side. And i dont know. Its not a very useful way of looking at the world. I mean and also if you believe that god is on your side, you believe everything you can do is divinely sanctioned and therefore anything you do is right. And its a very dangerous thing. Cspan this is the cover of the book. Its called holy war, inc. inside the secret world of Osama Bin Laden. Our guest has been peter l. Bergen. Thank you very much. Guest thank you, sir. So some of the technology they have in place now as you have just pointed out the mannequins have moved from just cameras in the eye to recording devices planted in the heads of the mannequin and justify the cited reason for that is because the stores want to know shoppers discussions to hear what they say about some of the products that they display in their stores in that way they can gauge what are the bestsellers, what things need to be moved off the shelves to make room for something else. The big problem with this of course is most shoppers dont know when we walk in the store its not like the signs say this dummy is recording you. You dont know that and thats a little bit creepy i think. Thats something in a sciencefiction movie. Its interesting but it when its happening to in real life its a little bit alarming. It is and i dont remember walking into a store and having them hand me a disclosure statement saying by the way you may not only being photographed for security reasons but i kind of want to know what you are looking at the secondmost dipping in on your private conversations. I think i was one thing that people needed to really being aware of. Whats interesting too is i think sometimes companies in sort of this thirst for data, this insatiable appetite they have for data which helps them know their customers better, customer loyalty. Its supposed to be for good things may be to say to stop things in a the story like but also to drive the bottom line. But think at what price. We know that all technology, we have seen the best and the brightest gets hacked into and the data in the wrong hands could be potentially dangerous. Then i think as we learned when it comes to, if the private sector has the data than Law Enforcement may want to request access to that data as well. You could see things kind of progressing that way whether its recorded conversations or photographs while people are shopping. That is the big fear first and foremost in the private field when you are a shopper. Where your information is sitting, and if Law Enforcement or, you know, government surveillance, intel and so forth, ever cite the justification to tap into the data, you have to be aware as an american you dont have any control on that data being handed over. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Next, the relationship between iran and the United States, at 8 30, pat buchanan describes richard nixns rise to president. On after words, Mike Gonzalez discusses a race to the future. At 10 00 p. M. Eastern. And our