AC: "I would be more
shocked if you weren't paying Karzai's brother."
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Length: 6:51
LARGE (79.3 MB)
-----
SMALL (8.4 MB)
John King fills in for Ancerson Cooper and has a
panel discussion about today's bombings as well as
The New York Times' article revealing that
Harmid Karzai's brother (whom Michael reported on
last month) is on the CIA's payroll. The panel
is Michael, David Gergen, and former CIA agent Bob
Baer, who now works for Time.
JOHN KING:
In Pakistan, a car bomb ripped through a busy market
in Peshawar, killing at least 100 people. It was the
deadliest attack in two years, and it happened just
hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
arrived in the country.
Across the border in Afghanistan, the Taliban
claiming responsibility for an attack that killed
five United Nations workers this morning. The U.N. is
helping with the runoff presidential election ten
days from now.
Meantime, new questions about the Afghan president's
brother, a reputed drug lord. "The New York Times" is
reporting he's received regular payments from the CIA
for years. Should we be surprised?
Bob Baer is an intelligence analyst at Time.com and a
former CIA agent. He wrote about this today, and he
joins me today, along with Michael Ware and CNN
political analyst David Gergen.
So David, to you first, the president's brother, a
reputed drug warlord, that part's not new. It's
always been a source of controversy. Perhaps on the
CIA payroll. How much does this complicate things at
this very incredibly delicate moment?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It sure doesn't
help President Obama, does it? You know, there are
going to be a lot of Americans, John, I think, who
are going to say, after reading that, why in the
devil should we spend one more American life saving
the Karzai brothers, brothers in corruption? Why
should we do that? Let's just -- let's screw it, the
hell with it.
But, you know, so the president, I think, cannot take
that view. I think there are a lot of people, but I'm
sure Michael would say, why are we surprised? Of
course we're paying out people.
MICHAEL WARE: I would be more shocked if you weren't
paying Karzai's brother.
GERGEN: I mean, to a considerable extent in a lot of
these wars, we pay -- we try to pay our way out,
rather than spending American lives.
KING: But American taxpayer dollars, CIA money going
to pay off a guy who's not only the president's
brother, but if he's a drug warlord, isn't he somehow
killing Americans, young Americans with heroin?
WARE: Do you think he's the first drug lord in
Afghanistan who's been on the U.S. government
payroll? I mean, there's one -- there's one of them
in jail here in New York, the head of the Norzoi (ph)
tribe, which is much bigger than the Afghan
president's tribe in Kandahar. He cut a deal with the
CIA back in January 2002. When that went -- failed,
they busted him for drugs. He's now in a federal
prison.
GERGEN: But John, I think the point the president and
the White House has to come back to is they've got to
come -- and they've got to come away from their
tentativeness and get off this thing and come out
very squarely what they want to do.
But the point is, we're not there to save the
Karzais. They're there to prevent terrorism here in
the United States. And what we do know is that most
of the big terror plots that have been broken here in
the last few years have their roots back in al Qaeda,
and they have many of their roots back in Afghanistan
and Pakistan. That's been true here, and it's been
true in Europe.
KING: Bob, come into the conversation. As you do,
address this Text 360 question. It's from Jane here
in New York. She wrote, "How bad is this for
President Karzai? Can't be good news for a man who's
struggling to maintain his family's independence from
the United States since he took office."
BOB BAER, INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Oh, it's terrible
news. I -- one, I think it's true that he is on the
CIA payroll. This has been out there for a while.
"The New York Times" reported it for the first time
yesterday.
But what it does is it identifies Karzai,
essentially, as an American agent, which is about the
worst thing that could happen to him now. Even if he
wins the runoff, he's going to be tainted by this.
And the chance he's going to pick up any energy or
direction in the next couple of years is virtually
impossible. We have nobody to fall back on in that
country.
KING: And let's broaden the conversation a bit. The
president today signed a defense spending bill, the
authorization bill, gives the money to the Pentagon.
In there, there's money, Michael, that could be
possibly used like it was in Iraq. If there's Taliban
who want to come back over, essentially, you buy off
the enemy a little bit. It was done with the
awakening in Iraq. Is it apples and apples?
WARE: None of that's new. None of that's new. There's
been a reconciliation program for the Taliban under
way for some time. And on the ground, you go to the
reconciliation officer, they've got no money, no
staff. It's an absolute, laudable joke. What isn't
such a joke and where that money may become more
useful is not so much buying off Taliban, card
carrying, per se, but buying off the tribes. You
turned the Sunni insurgents against al Qaeda in Iraq.
You put 103,000 men who were killing Americans on the
U.S. government payroll. The insurgency stopped, al
Qaeda died.
You can do the same in Afghanistan. Much more
complicated and much more plotted minefield to tread.
Nonetheless, Karzai's brother is already running the
pilot program with these tribes down in Kandahar.
They're calling it the local national protectors
program.
GERGEN: I don't think there's any doubt that both
these brothers are corrupt. I think that's clear cut.
I think what's important to understand is when we
went in the first time back in 2001, the U.S.
military thought, "We don't want to keep a whole lot
of troops here." And so they eventually pulled back,
kept the numbers very small. And in order to keep the
thing in good hands. They paid off a lot of people.
They started buying off. That's when Karzai went on
the payroll of the CIA, because they were buying off
a lot of people.
It's been a standard American practice. When we can,
we want to buy our way out of a problem than fight
our way out of a problem.
WARE: You think the Pakistanis, the Iranians, the
Chinese, everyone else isn't doing the same thing?
GERGEN: Absolutely. It is part of the dark underbelly
of international politics.
BAER: You can't buy off the Afghans. This isn't Iraq.
I mean, the Soviets tried it for eight years. And we
bought off more of them than they bought off of
communists in that country. And it's not going to
work. This is not Iraq; it's not going to work.
We are facing a war of national liberation, and we
don't have many cards in our hand.
KING: Let's talk -- let's end this conversation on
this point. Because we're waiting to see how many
more troops, if more troops, the president will give
General McChrystal. He has wanted to adopt this
different strategy to, you know, come out of the
mountains and protect the cities, essentially protect
the Afghan people. Don't go out there looking and
searching for insurgents and Taliban.
Is that the right approach?
WARE: Well, we were discussing this just earlier. I
mean you know, so technically, you're surrendering
the villages, so to speak, and taking the cities.
Well, what are you really giving up?
You don't control the countryside. You've barely got
a, you know -- you're hanging on by your fingernails
as it is. You don't have enough troops. You don't
have enough friends. You don't have enough allies.
You haven't got the support of the local people, who
are so disenchanted with everything, that really,
what would you be giving up?
GERGEN: I think it's very important whether you also
protect the highways that connect up some of these
cities, and you also protect some of the agriculture
areas. If you only go into the cities, and keep
people in their barracks, we learned in Iraq, that's
not going to work. And we would be conceding large
parts of Afghanistan to terrorists.
And I think a lot of people in Pakistan would be
demoralized by that. The whole push -- we've been
encouraging them to go after the Taliban in Pakistan,
and we can see from today's explosions, this is
getting very rough on all sides.
KING: And connect, though...
BAER: The problem is, we're running a risk of going
to war with the Pashtuns. Because right now,
Pakistan's at war with the Pashtuns in South
Waziristan. We're against the war with Pashtun in
Zabul and other provinces on the border. And we're
going to get a big mess if we don't change course,
and it's got to be more than just protecting the
cities. We have to really change the politics.
KING: Bob Baer, Michael Ware, David Gergen, thanks so
much. We'll keep on top of this one. Big decisions
for the president. It's obviously a messy and
delicate time. Gentlemen, thank you so much.