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Wolf talks with Michael about the al Qaeda files, and Michael elaborates on the kinds of documents found in the headquarters when it was taken over.
WOLF
BLITZER: And now to a stunning and exclusive look
inside al Qaeda in Iraq.
Our own Michael Ware and his Baghdad bureau
colleagues have been very busy looking over the
contents of computer hard drives filled with material
seized from al Qaeda by U.S. allied Iraqi militias.
Those militias provided copies of the al Qaeda hard
drives to the U.S. military, as well as to CNN. Among
the thousands of documents and hours of sometimes
very graphic video, some fascinating insights about
how al Qaeda does business.
We should warn you that some of the video is hard to
watch.
CNN's Michael Ware has the story -- Michael?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, what we're
about to share is a window inside al Qaeda in Iraq
like we've never seen before. In fact, only members
of al Qaeda itself or a few within the U.S.
intelligence community have ever had such a snapshot.
This comes from a trove of documents -- the largest
collection of al Qaeda materials in Iraq to fall into
civilian hands, which were taken from a headquarters
overrun by U.S.-backed militia and given to CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): al
Qaeda gunmen brought this man here to die. Staged for
maximum impact, he's to be executed on this busy
market street. We don't know why; the al Qaeda
members who recorded this tape offer no explanation.
But the anticipation is agonizing, leading to a
moment we cannot show you.
A punishment for betraying al Qaeda or for breaking
their strict version of Islamic law. Either way, it
was public executions like this that would help lead
to the unraveling of al Qaeda in Iraq. And al Qaeda
knew it. Its leaders recognized their greatest threat
was not the U.S. military, but the men in the crowds
who witnessed the slaughters and who would eventually
turn against them.
In fact, in this secret memo three years ago, a
senior al Qaeda leader warned against a backlash for
the public executions. They were being carried out,
he wrote, "in the wrong way, in a semi-public way, so
a lot of families are threatening revenge and this is
now a dangerous intelligence situation."
But it took U.S. intelligence more than a year to
understand al Qaeda's weakness. Most of these men
were once insurgents or al Qaeda themselves. Now
they're on the U.S. government payroll, assassinating
al Qaeda and patrolling the streets. And it was one
of these U.S.- backed militias, as unforgiving as
this one, who overran an al Qaeda headquarters. They
discovered computer hard drives with thousands of
documents and hours upon hours of videotape and
passed them all on to the U.S. military and to CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WARE: And, Wolf, what we also see from within the
pages of these documents is that al Qaeda in Iraq had
penetrated not just the Iraqi government with its
spies, but even U.S. bases. Included on the hard
drives were schematics for the construction of a
bunker on a U.S. base that had been given to al Qaeda
by one of its infiltrators -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Michael, what does all this tell us?
And it's really remarkable material you've gotten
your hands on.
What does it tell us about al Qaeda in Iraq right
now?
WARE: Well, Wolf, in our discussions with U.S.
military intelligence and other intelligence agencies
with whom we've shared this material and talked about
it, they say that this gives us an insight into the
inner workings of al Qaeda in Iraq. It reveals an
organization far more sophisticated, far more
bureaucratic -- indeed, in one headquarters alone,
there were 80 execution videos that were never put on
air or used for propaganda. They were merely used to
just -- to verify the killings to their superiors.
So we get an insight of the like we've never seen
into an organization more menacing than many had
feared -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Michael Ware reporting for us from Baghdad.
Michael, good work, as usual. Thanks very much.
WARE: Thank you.
BLITZER: And Michael is going to have a lot more on
these exclusive al Qaeda tapes, including the
information he mentioned on terrorists infiltrating
U.S. military compounds. That's coming up later
tonight on "AC 360," 10:00 p.m. Eastern.