Al Qaeda Regaining Former Strength?

Friday, July 13, 2007

By Anderson Cooper, CNN's AC 360

July 12, 2007

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: New details tonight on a story we have been reporting for the last couple days -- CNN has learned that the government now believes that al Qaeda is setting up -- stepping up efforts, I should say, to sneak terrorists into America and has nearly all it needs to carry out attacks here, this according to a draft of the latest national intelligence estimate.

We have also been reporting that it's expected to say that al Qaeda has built itself back up to the strongest it has been since the war on terror began.

We wanted to know how, nearly six years, billions of dollars and thousands of lives later, this could possibly be happening.

So, we asked CNN's terrorism analyst, Peter Bergen, to investigate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST (voice-over): Mistake number one, a big one, letting Osama bin Laden go. U.S. special forces had bin Laden cornered in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan in late 2001. The CIA commander on the scene asked for more forces to catch al Qaeda's leader, but was turned down. And bin Laden escaped.

Mistake number two, getting distracted. The United States ousted the Taliban and chased al Qaeda into Pakistan. But then it shifted its focus and manpower to Iraq, leaving just a handful of U.S. operatives to catch bin Laden.

Art Keller hunted bin Laden in Pakistan just last year, when he was with the CIA.

ART KELLER, FORMER CIA OFFICER: To use a medical analogy, it's like quitting a course of antibiotics too soon. You just leave a reservoir of infection even stronger to come back after you.

BERGEN: There are now more Americans on the ground in Pakistan. But the damage has already been done.

Mistake number three, misunderstanding the enemy. The Bush administration hoped that Iraq would draw terrorists to one place, making them easier to kill, the so-called flypaper theory. But the opposite happened. Iraq has strengthened al Qaeda. It's now a training ground for terrorists from around the world.

KELLER: People are going there to learn the tactics, and then come back.

BERGEN (on camera): A certain irony?

KELLER: Yes, it is. It seems like the reverse of the way the war on terror was supposed to work.

BERGEN (voice-over): Take suicide bombings, for example. Once unheard of in Afghanistan, now they happen at least once a week.

I met a failed suicide bomber in Kabul, who survived when his vest didn't blow up.

(on camera): Do you still hope to be a shahid, somebody who martyrs himself, when you get out of here? IMDADULLAH, FAILED SUICIDE BOMBER: (INAUDIBLE)

BERGEN: Of course.

(voice-over): That's the mistake number four, the so-called Iraq effect, letting al Qaeda spread its ideas and methods around the world. It was evident most recently in the London and Glasgow botched terror attacks, where an Iraqi doctor is alleged to have been involved in a plot that could have killed hundreds.

Another mistake, to some intelligence officials, protecting an ally, rather than striking al Qaeda. "The New York Times" reports that Washington nixed an attack on al Qaeda's leaders in Pakistan in 2005, for fear that it would destabilize Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf.

Some take comfort in the fact that al Qaeda still hasn't struck America again. But others say that's a false comfort.

KELLER: I think that the fact that we haven't been hit doesn't really tell us anything other than that there's a long planning cycle for terrorist acts.

BRUCE HOFFMAN, SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: They have pinned their hopes on carrying out another spectacular operation, if not exactly like 9/11, at least along the same lines. And that's what they believe will once again catapult them back into prominence, as the undisputed head of the global jihadi movement.

BERGEN: Al Qaeda is patient, planning for maximum impact, looking for a way to top 9/11, taking its time. And the U.S. has given them exactly that, time.

Peter Bergen, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Patient and still very deadly.

Joining me now, Tim Roemer, president of the Center for National Policy and a member of the 9/11 Commission, former congressman.

Congressman Roemer, thanks for being with us.

Leaked details of that...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: ... of that national intelligence estimate indicate that al Qaeda is regrouping along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, is now stronger than it's been in years. How does the U.S. try to reduce al Qaeda's influence in that region?

TIMOTHY ROEMER, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR NATIONAL POLICY: Well, I think Peter's report is right on the mark. Many people are saying this in the intelligence community and the academic community, that they're rebuilding, regrouping, reforming, and becoming more dynamic.

One of the things we can do to address this, because we have taken more a unidimensional approach and made these mistakes fighting al Qaeda, is to take a multidimensional approach, pass the remaining 20 9/11 reforms, the bipartisan reforms, that can help make our borders safer, help do something about Afghanistan and Pakistan, help restore our image in the world, help do something about that tarnished public diplomacy that we have out there.

But our Congress needs to act, Anderson. We need our government and our president getting behind these bipartisan proposals and working together to make this country safer.

COOPER: Yes, I mean, in three years, only about half of the 9/11 Commission recommendations have been enacted. Who is to blame? I mean, you mentioned Congress. Is it -- is it just them? Is it the executive branch as well? What -- what is the holdup? What has held up these -- these other half of the recommendations?

ROEMER: Well, as you said, half the recommendations passing make us only half safer. And that's a failing grade in most schools, getting only 50 percent. We have to do better than this.

Who's to blame? There's a lot of blame to go around in this situation. The president, everything starts with the president on our foreign policy, on our counterterrorism policy. We need to do a better job here. And I would hope that he would be supporting this legislation and encouraging his Cabinet to work it and to pass it. So far, we haven't seen that. He's threatening a veto.

Congress needs to get this out of their conference committee and over the finish line and pass this. They did pass legislation earlier this year. I will give them some credit for that. But it's kind of stuck in the logjam of a conference right now. We need them to get it loose before they go on vacation. We know al Qaeda doesn't take vacations. And they are determined and better positioned to strike the United States. Look what's happened in Great Britain.

COOPER: So, as always -- as always, does it come down to the American people pressuring their representatives to -- to do something, to -- to break that logjam?

ROEMER: I think the 9/11 family members are a great example of this, Anderson. Here are people that lost brothers and sisters and husbands and wives on 9/11. We lost 3,000 people that day.

Now, six years later, we still have not passed all the reforms to make us safer. But they are American heroes. They're out there working tirelessly to try to pass it.

COOPER: So, what specifically needs to be done? What recommendation...

(CROSSTALK)

ROEMER: Well, the -- the 9/11 families -- the 9/11 families are engaged. They're trying to work the White House and the executive branch and the Congress to get these passed. It would help if the American people called their local senators and congressmen, encouraged them to break the logjam, pass this legislation, get it to the president's desk. Call the White House and tell the White House to pass this legislation and sign it.

Secretary Chertoff has said that he has a gut feeling that al Qaeda might want to strike us and that we are vulnerable. He did a commendable job for the administration up on Capitol Hill, trying to pass immigration reform. They failed. I wish those same people, the CIA director, the homeland security director, the FBI director, would be working with Congress to try to pass these bipartisan recommendations and get this country to be a little bit safer.

Anderson, we're seeing some of the same kind of signs pre-9/11 that we're seeing today. There's more chatter in the system. Al Qaeda is releasing tapes, with Zawahri talking about every five or six days now. Great Britain has been threatened a number of times. Al Qaeda has a safe haven in Pakistan now. We're not finishing the job in Afghanistan. Iraq is creating a new generation of terrorists.

(CROSSTALK)

ROEMER: There's more we should be doing on -- on our government. And we can make this country safer, hopefully, in time.

COOPER: Tim Roemer, appreciate you for being on the program. Thank you.

ROEMER: Thanks, Anderson.

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