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CNN SHOWDOWN: IRAQ
Caught on Tape?
Aired March 10, 2003 - 12:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants, a man captured a week ago in Pakistan. Today videotape of what's said to be his arrest is being shown to a handful of reporters. Among them CNN's own Tom Mintier.
Tom is joining us now from Islamabad with his description of what precisely he saw -- Tom.
TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT; Wolf, just seeing the video was extraordinary in itself. But the meeting with the ISI, which is Pakistan's equivalent of the CIA, inviting us in for a briefing on their counterterrorism efforts was also quite extraordinary. Now the videotape was about eight minutes long. It started off with ISI agents being briefed and ready for a raid. They showed pictures of the agents decked out in their full battle gear with bulletproof vests. And the next images we see are them breaking into the front compound of a house, and then the front door, and then inside the bedroom, and a man they say was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, pressed up against the wall with an ISI agent with a gun to his back.
Now this tape had been heavily edited. We were not allowed to see the face of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. They did say that during the first two days of interrogation, he provided them little except nodding his head in agreement when they asked him if he was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
They said however on the third day, he started to converse with authorities and interrogators, and provided them with a wealth of information, including the fact that he said he had a meeting with Osama bin Laden in the month of December.
Now, he would not tell them where this meeting took place, who else was there, or what was on the agenda, simply he did meet Osama bin Laden and saw him alive in the month of December. Whether you believe that, the ISI is not quite sure that it's true, because they've been getting several variations of the story from the person that they captured.
Now, the details of this capture come to light now, rather interesting. In the early days, it appeared that, according to the CIA, they indeed had someone on the scene. Today, the ISI said it was only Pakistanis, both police and ISI agents that conducted the raid, and there were no foreign nationals on the scene. The CIA said one of their men was at the scene when the arrest was made, not indicating whether he took part or not, but he was supposedly there. That according to the CIA. So there are different version of the story. The bottom line is, how much help is the information going to give them to find and capture Osama bin Laden? They said that it is providing to be helpful in locating him, but so far, they're not quite sure to make an arrest. They say that they don't have him in custody, and it doesn't appear to be imminent -- Wolf.
BLITZER: On that videotape, Tom, were there any obvious signs of U.S. personnel, Americans involved in the arrest, and, b, why aren't they making this videotape public, at least letting us show it on the air?
MINTIER: Well, this tape was heavily edited. You could see, as a matter of fact, the first or second shot of the raid taking place, the men streaming through the front door, and then a shot from inside as the same men streamed through the front door. They said they had two cameras. One other thing, we couldn't see the face of the suspect, and they said that they edited that out on purpose. So this tape probably had a lot more images on it that they didn't want us to see. But it was edited down to about eight minutes.
When it was finished, we asked if we could have a copy of the tape to show the rest of the world their actions when they took him into custody. And they sort of laughed at us in the beginning, and then said, we'll see what we can do. But again, having a meeting and briefing with the ISI is something that's unheard of here. At the beginning of the meeting, they said it was the first time in history that the ISI had met with reporters.
BLITZER: All right, Tom Mintier, our man in Islamabad. Go ahead and squeeze those Pakistanis and let them release the tape so we can all see what you saw. Appreciate it very much.
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