Bin Laden Alive, Dadullah Dead.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

By Jon Scott, Fox News Live

May 14, 2007

Jon Scott: Congressman Roemer, let’s talk about the source of this first of all. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is not exactly friendly with the United States. It would be in his interests, right, to try to needle us as much as possible, about bin Laden’s whereabouts?

Tim Roemer: It probably is John, but the question is, do we need a new strategy to get bin Laden? I think we do.

We haven’t been able to find him and we know back in 2001, according to the book Jawbreaker by Gary Berntsen, who was one of the first people in to go after the Taliban successfully in 2001. He’d thought they were so close back to getting bin Laden that bin Laden wrote his last will and testament. Now we’ve taken our eye off that prize and bin Laden and Zawahiri are out there cutting numerous tapes, inspiring new recruits.

I think the new strategy, John, should be three-fold:

1.   We have to eliminate the safe havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan along that Waziristsan border.
2.   We need to make sure that we can form Coalitions of the Willing not only on the military, but on the hearts and minds issues and
3.   We need to work with NATO to make sure that the Taliban and al-Qaeda don’t come back in Afghanistan.

Scott: All good suggestions, but until you have Pervez Musharraf allowing US troops into his country to search for this guy, you’re not going to get a lot of that accomplished, are you?

Roemer: It has been a priority for the United States to do that. I know finally the Vice President went over there to have a discussion with Musharraf. We need to be able to talk to him not only about what he’s doing on elections, on policies with Afghanistan, but on this safe haven that bin Laden and others tend to thrive in.

Scott: Alright, let’s turn to another issue. Mullah Dadullah was killed over the weekend, apparently the top planner of some of the mayhem that’s been going on in Afghanistan. Doesn’t that show that we’re on the right trail?

Roemer: Well, not quite. The fact that you get one person is not the sign of success that we need yet. The old strategy Jon, was the “deck of cards” and we got a king of spades or we got a jack of diamonds and we just throw the card away. It can’t be a decapitation-only strategy. We need to make sure the next generation of these jihadists aren’t strapping on the vests and coming at us on the conveyer belts in northern Africa or London, all over the world, as they appear to be doing.

This is a good win and Dadullah as you said, this guy lost his leg fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan and he was one of the military commanders for the Taliban, but they’re able to punch new people in and replace these folks pretty quickly.

Scott: As you well know, that kind of an operation, that kind of an operation takes money and Congress has been loathe to spend it.

Roemer: Congress needs to make sure that they’re working. If the White House and the Administration can’t implement a new strategy to help us fight this global war on jihadism and be able to effectively do other things to make sure we keep our eye on the Chinese and what they’re doing, as taking economic jobs and making sure India doesn’t grow so fast as they become a threat to the United States in the long term, making sure that we have a comprehensive foreign policy along with our efforts to take on jihadism; Congress needs to work with the White House in a bipartisan way to put these ideas forward.

Scott: Congressman Tim Roemer, thank you.

Roemer: Thanks Jon.

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