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Length: 6:17
ANDERSON COOPER: That was Pakistan's president in
"THE SITUATION ROOM" today.
He doesn't need an intelligence estimate by the U.S.
to tell him about global terror. He's nearly been the
victim of it twice. He's living it.
So is CNN's Michael Ware on the ground in Iraq and
CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen, perhaps the
foremost authority on Osama bin Laden.
Guys, thanks for being with us.
Peter, this NIE report says that the global jihadist
movement at this point lacks a coherent strategy and
is decentralized, yet the numbers of jihadists are
increasing, and it is spreading out.
How much cooperation is there within the jihadist
world?
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, you know,
you have got al Qaeda. You have got affiliated
groups. You have got like-minded. You have got sort
of people who are wannabes.
I think they are united in a desire to attack, you
know, the United States, Jews and Westerners. So,
there is some kind of unity. And I think bin Laden
supplies a lot of overall strategic direction, as --
along with Ayman al-Zawahri. And it is not an
accident, for instance, that al Qaeda in Iraq has
repeatedly kind of sworn allegiance to al Qaeda
central.
So, I would take some kind of issue with a notion
that there is no overall direction, at least in the
sort of big picture.
COOPER: Michael Ware, you know, some Republicans are
saying, well, look, if it wasn't Iraq, it would be
Afghanistan; it would be somewhere else.
Is there something about Iraq, however, that has
allowed all these groups, has allowed the numbers of
jihadists to grow so quickly?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Completely.
I mean, this is the melting pot. I mean, after
Afghanistan, you know, the argument might be that it
would have been somewhere else. Well, there was no
somewhere else at that point. I mean, we see the
jihad movement have its own fashions and trends, like
a free market, that recruits and money go to the
places and the causes that are -- they're the hottest
or that attract the most attention.
People want to see literally more bang for their
buck. Now, after Afghanistan, there was no such
place. It was only with the invasion of Iraq that
jihadists, particularly Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, saw the
great opportunity they were looking for to create and
ferment this whole new generation of jihad --
Anderson.
COOPER: You know, Peter, as you pointed out, it's
kind of a misnomer to say, well, if it wasn't Iraq,
it would be Afghanistan. It is still Afghanistan, as
we just saw when we were there. They are still
fighting there. Al Qaeda is still active there. The
Taliban is still active there.
But is there an argument to be made that it is better
to be fighting them in Baghdad now than, you know, in
Boston or somewhere else; it's better to have them
centralized in one place than it is to have them
spread out?
BERGEN: I think that argument works, if you assume
there is a finite group of people you can attract to
one place and kill.
But we seem to have expanded that group of people.
The national intelligence estimate says we have
expanded that group of people. This is not a group of
left-- you know, sort of flaming liberals who are
saying this. This is the considered collective
opinion of 16 separate U.S. intelligence agencies,
saying that there are more jihadis as a result of the
Iraq war.
And then of course, it would be far -- if the Iraq
war went on for infinity, that would be fine, too.
But it is not. You know, eventually, it will end. And
not all these people will be killed there. And they
are going to go on and be the shock troops of the new
inter jihad -- we -- international jihad. We have run
the videotape once before in Afghanistan during the
'80s. We know what that outcome was.
And I think a separate -- another separate point is,
yes, it is true we were attacked before the Iraq war,
in the first Trade Center attack in '93 and other
attacks. But that doesn't take away the fact that
terrorism figures have basically gone exponential
since 2003. When the 2006 figures come out, I think
it is going to be a pretty sobering set of figures --
Anderson.
COOPER: Michael, when Peter and I and Nic Robertson
were in Afghanistan just a couple weeks ago, U.S.
soldiers on the ground who had served in Iraq were
telling us they were seeing people, trainers, coming
from Iraq, training Taliban, training fighters there
in Afghanistan in IEDs and suicide attacks.
Do you see evidence on the ground in Iraq that there
are extremists who have trained in Iraq, who are then
moving out into the rest of the world?
WARE: Well, we are starting to see hints of that.
And we have been over some time. We have seen the
detention of jihadis, veterans of Iraq, in a number
of surrounding countries, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, to a
lesser extent even in Lebanon.
One of the great things about al Qaeda -- I mean, the
strength of al Qaeda is that it is an idea. It is
more of an inspiration. I mean, al Qaeda itself has
always been a very small nexus, a hub. And the spokes
of the wheel that emanate around that are the various
multitude of organizations that al Qaeda sponsors,
supports, trains, finances, advises.
So, this is really about inspiration. And that's what
we see is most potent here. Iraq gives them an even
greater platform for that inspiration and this
sharing of lessons learned, what works best and what
doesn't. As we see happens over the Internet, it
doesn't even require the physical transportation of
an individual anymore -- Anderson.
COOPER: Michael, just briefly, do the intelligence
sources and the military sources that you talk to on
the ground in Iraq, do they feel like their reports
are taken seriously once they're sent back home?
WARE: Yeah, look, this is really is an ongoing issue
here, Anderson, be it within the country itself --
for example, in one of the hot spots, the al Qaeda
front line of Ramadi, for a year intelligence
officers there say that they write their reports and
send them even back to Baghdad and they're not
understood.
And I've spoken to someone who was in Baghdad, and
said, "I would get these reports, and we would
diminish them. They couldn't possibly have been
true," he said. However, having spent time in Ramadi
now, he understands this disconnect.
We also see reports emanating from the embassy here
that wind up back in Washington. They then return in
sanitized documents so the people who put them
together simply cannot believe. Yes, there seems to
be a great disconnect between those on the ground and
sometimes what's being told even to the president,
Anderson.
COOPER: That's probably the most troubling thing I've
heard from both of you guys tonight. Michael Ware,
appreciate it. Peter Bergen, as well. Thanks,
guys.