The 7.30 Report
Former CIA chief analyses global terrorism
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 09/07/2007
Reporter: Ali Moore
Intelligence analyst Michael Scheuer, a 22-year CIA veteran, has been closely watching events involving terrorism around the globe. While in the CIA he anonymously authored two books that were highly critical of how the West has fought the war on terrorism. Mr Scheuer is in Australia for a major security conference and he spoke with Ali Moore.
Transcript
ALI MOORE: Earlier this evening, Federal Police were granted the right to hold Gold Coast doctor Mohammed Haneef for a further 48 hours, and they can question him for a further 12 hours.
Dr Haneef was detained at Brisbane Airport last week trying to leave the country, following the failed bomb attempts in the UK.
At the same time, authorities are firming up links between those being held in the UK over the failed attacks and Al Qaeda, with security officials claiming at least one of the suspects was in contact with Al Qaeda members in Iraq.
More details of Al Qaeda's role are expected to emerge in coming days.
Watching these events closely has been 22-year CIA veteran Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the agency's Osama bin Laden Tracking Unit. While in the CIA, he authored two books anonymously, that were highly critical of how the West has fought the war on terror. Michael Scheuer is now an intelligence analyst and is in Australia for a major security conference.
I spoke to him earlier in our Sydney studio.
Eight suspects now detained after the events of the past week, including Dr Mohammed Haneef in Australia, and now apparent links between at least one of those detained in the UK and senior members of Al Qaeda. Were the failed bombings the work of Al Qaeda?
MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER HEAD OF CIA BIN LADEN UNIT: I think indirectly, they were. Al Qaeda's goal has always been in the first instance to inspire other Muslims to join the jihad. Bin Laden has been very clear that they are a vanguard group, they cannot do it by themselves, they need to inspire others to take action of their own.
And so I think what we're seeing, not only in England and other places, is the sufficiency of that inspiration.
ALI MOORE: When you say 'indirectly', this was not a planted terrorist cell, these were self radicalised, so to speak?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: It seems that way at this point. Frankly the quality of the operation was such that it doesn't look like an operation conducted by the main group of Al Qaeda, but certainly it could well have been, the people could have been trained, some money could have been exchanged, some kind of training via the Internet. There's a wide variety of assistance Al Qaeda can provide beyond military.
ALI MOORE: So you would suggest it was too amateurish to be a fully operational Al Qaeda?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: I think that's right. I think it was too amateurish and perhaps not an important enough target. But still nonetheless, the only part that failed were the detonations, the British Security Service which is an excellent service, got beat flat out.
ALI MOORE: What about the link with Australia? And that's a link which our Federal Police Commissioner is now saying is becoming more concrete. Do you think that was sheer coincidence, or is there some logic to it?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: Well bin Laden has spoken on two occasions and I think more directly to the Australian people saying, "This is none of your business, Afghanistan and Iraq, why are you becoming involved? You are eventually going to earn what the Americans have been earning." So I don't think it's a surprise to anyone in Australia that you're seeing at least an indication of Al Qaeda's activity here.
ALI MOORE: You're saying direct payment for our involvement in Iraq and indeed Afghanistan?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: Yes, for both of them. They've been very clear. Both bin Laden and al Zawahiri have been clear in saying, "This is none of your business, this is not your fight, why are you involved in it?"
ALI MOORE: In that context does it surprise you we've not had more activity on our soil and indeed these links may turn out to be nothing?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: I think these links may turn out to be nothing, but eventually it's going to come here just as it's come around the world in every other country. We still make the mistake of believing these people are motivated by our society, the way we live, by freedom and liberty and it's really got nothing to do with that at all. It has everything to do with the offence they take at the policies of the United States and its allies in the Muslim world.
ALI MOORE: You were not surprised by the link with Australia. Were you surprised by the fact it involved doctors? There seemed to be quite a bit of consternation that this was a group of professionals, but in fact you have long argued it's not the lunatic fringe?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: No. One of the great mistakes we make is our leaders continually tell the voters that these people are poor and illiterate and not healthy and have no prospects. Al Qaeda in its appeal is overwhelmingly middle class and upper middle class and educated people are the people, they're looking for the best and the brightest in the Islamic world.
ALI MOORE: So when you see groups like this, potentially inspired by Al Qaeda, not necessarily formally trained by, is it a new breed of terrorist cell? Does it mean a new threat? Because, of course, if these groups are not organised there's no structure to dismantle?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: Right. What we're really seeing is a new tier of threats. We have Al Qaeda, which remains fully capable of attacking the United States, of waging two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now we have this tier of people that are springing up. You previously had a couple of cells here in Australia that were taken down, I believe. Britain has had a problem, Germany has had a problem. We've had a couple of cells in the United States. One in Toronto in Canada. And the common denominator always is inspiration, not control by Al Qaeda.
ALI MOORE: We've also seen today in Australia that the Government's reissued its travel warning to Indonesia. There's no specific information, but plenty of chatter about possible activity. Does that make sense to you? Does that seem timely?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: Well, the attacks in Indonesia have been about on a yearly basis. We're a little bit overdue for an attack in Indonesia. So it may well be that something's brewing.
ALI MOORE: Australia is also fast-tracking a more sophisticated system for background checks for people coming to this country. Given that certainly the group we're looking at from the events of the past week were clean skins, so to speak, none was notified to the security authorities, will a more sophisticated system of background checking make any difference?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: Yes, if you establish better border controls and if you establish background checks you at least have a handle on who's in your country. The big problem for America is that its domestic security has not improved since 9/11. Our borders are wide open. You want to close the borders not for racial or discriminatory reasons but simply to give law enforcement a chance to find out who's in the country.
ALI MOORE: If the inspiration for these people is Al Qaeda, and if the cause for concern is the policies in places like Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, if we look at Iraq specifically, how does that war end? Does it end?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: I personally think that that war is lost at the moment. I don't think we can win that war. We have never had enough troops in Iraq to control the country or the borders of Iraq. My own view is that we're not serious about the war and we should probably pull out before we lose any more people. It's not that we can't win, it's that we won't.
ALI MOORE: So with sufficient fire power you could argue, we could win?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: We are an irresistible force if we choose to be, but our politicians apply force very daintily because they're afraid of Amnesty International and they are afraid of international opinion and they're afraid of...
ALI MOORE: Indeed internal politics in the US.
MICHAEL SCHEUER: Indeed internal politics.
ALI MOORE: What happens if after a presidential election you have a Democrat and a Democrat controlled Congress?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: You know, I don't think that much will change, really. They may pull out of Iraq, but American politicians across board from left to right are interventionists. They think America needs to be involved anywhere, and the policies at issue here, support for Israel's dependence on foreign oil and support for Arab despots and tyrannies, it's a shared policy in both American parties. So I don't expect there would be a great change.
ALI MOORE: But you believe the best course of action now is to pull out?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: Yes, simply because it's a waste of men and women who are in our services. It's a waste of treasure, because we don't intend to win. We can't hold and pacify a place as big as California with 160,000 people it. It can't be done.
ALI MOORE: Does that mean Al Qaeda wins?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: No, it means the Iraqi insurgency wins. I think that our administration has made way too much of the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Al Qaeda is involved in some of the insurgent activities against us, but for Iraq, Al Qaeda's value is continuous territory to the Arabian peninsula, and to Turkey to project power into places they haven't been before - Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Israel.
ALI MOORE: So, in fact, when for example today our Foreign Minister said people need to understand that it's Al Qaeda above all which has been fomenting sectarian violence or conflict in Iraq, that's not right?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: That's certainly an argument that's used by politicians across the West, but Al Qaeda's own doctrine has a very structured way of proceeding. Their first goal is to drive the Americans out of the Middle East, to get to the second goal, which is to destroy the Saudi Government, the Egyptian Government, the Israelis. And only the third goal is to settle scores with the Shia. I think perhaps leaders in the West overstate Al Qaeda's desire for Shia-Sunni violence at this stage of the game, because Al Qaeda has always believed that the one thing that could derail their program is to have a civil war between Sunnis and Shias at this point in time.
ALI MOORE: As long as the West stays in there, it can't win, if it pulls out it loses as well, and all the while it's fodder for radicalisation?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: It's very much the case. Iraq broke our back on counter-terrorism, because it made bin Laden from a man and a group into a philosophy and a movement, and there's kind of no turning back now. We've broken down the dam and now we're going to have to cope with the results. Iraq is just a disaster from that perspective.
ALI MOORE: Michael Scheuer, many thanks for joining us.
MICHEAL SCHEUER: Thank you very much.
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