terrorism and the development of new terrorists. is that your understanding of what mortenson s message largely was? yeah. i mean, you know, let s be fair here, i mean the guy has done quite a lot of good, not as much good as, perhaps, he s claimed and, perhaps, his charity has claimed, but he s certainly built these schools and whether they defeat extremism or not, i mean, providing girls education in parts of the world which have very little of that, that s a good thing. the criticism here, 60 minutes says that they were sort of there had been complaints about some of what the foundation or some of these stories he uses how he came to these conclusions and they started to find complaints about the way the money from the foundation was being sent. let s go back to basic principles here. do you think greg mortenson s thesis about how you solve terrorism by educating young girls is valid?
villagers. here s what author john krakauer, you ll know him as the author of books like into thin air said about that claim last night on 60 minutes. it s a beautiful story and it s a lie. if you go back and read the first few chapters of that book, you realize, i m being taken for a ride here. the charity that mortenson founded, the central asia institute, is said to have raised more than $60 million. now mortenson himself, the author, has not responded on camera, but he says he stands by the information conveyed in the book. cnn national security analyst peter bergen, has been looking into this one for us, he s familiar with some of the characters, certainly familiar with the region. peter, thanks for being with us. let s just start with the draenl premise in mortenson s book, by offering support, particularly schools, education, particularly to girls, in some of these remote regions of afghanistan and pakistan, it is the best way to undercut the growth of
distinguished [ inaudible ] in the pakistan tribal regions, you know, mortenson has claimed he was kidnapped by a group including mansour kan. he says that s ridiculous and in the last couple hours saying he s planning to sue mortenson about making a defamatory statement about him. that he s a taliban kidnapper. when mortenson says he was kidnapped by the taliban in 96, the taliban wasn t present. the taliban banned photography. we have a picture of the supposed kidnappers. 60 minutes showed a picture of mortenson carrying a gun with his supposed kidnappers. pretty unusual for a group of kidnappers to be photographed with their faces clearly seen and for their supposed victim to pose with them with a gun. this is really goes to the heart of some of the claims that mortenson has made in his two books. some of them more dramatic episodes, just turn out to be based on a number of interviews
they will no longer be able to work in unscheduled midnight shift following a day off. today faa officials began a tour of air traffic control facilities across the country. there s a bombshelf a story claiming that two best-selling books and a clarity tied to them are based on lies. you have probably heard of the books, three cups of tea and stones into schools by greg mortenson, sold millions of copies, both new york times best sellers, one is required reading for troops heading to afghanistan. now 60 minutes and another author are saying much of what went into the books was made up and that millions raised by the charity was instead used to help mortenson promote the books. if you haven t heard of him, mortenson famously promised to build schools in pakistan and afghanistan as a way to help push out the taliban. he says he made the promise after stumbling, lost and exhausted, into a remote village where he was taken care of by
that for 19 years this organization s been in operation, they have only done audited statements once. listen to this part, this is interesting. there s a photograph in the book which shows mortenson is, the kidnappers he claims to have been taken by, one of those kidnappers is allegedly mun sore masud, somebody you know. he said this on 60 minutes. this is totally false and he is lying. he was not kidnapped. who are these people that are also in the picture? some are my cousins, some are our friends from our village. he goes on to say that he was welcomed. he welcomed they welcomed mortenson. mortenson was kept as a guest, taken in as a guest in the village. mortenson claims he was kidnapped but tried to befriend the kidnappers who were taliban. tell me what you know about this? first, ali, as i ve worked with mansour, he s a