Bin Laden Vague About 9/11 Role in Video

CNN aired excerpts of an October interview with Osama bin Laden on Thursday in which he makes ambiguous statements about responsibility for the Sept. 11 terror attacks and dodges a question about whether he was behind anthrax-laced letters sent to U.S. targets.

The cable network’s use of the video prompted a rift between CNN and Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite network with which CNN has had a video-sharing agreement. CNN read a statement from Al Jazeera saying the Arab network was severing its affiliation with CNN for airing the tape, claiming it was obtained illegally.

CNN said it legally acquired the video from a nongovernment source and didn’t pay for it. The TV interview is the only one known to have been conducted with Bin Laden after the terror attacks. It has never aired publicly, though government officials have been aware of it for months.

Eason Jordan, CNN’s chief news executive, said Al Jazeera denied that such a tape existed when CNN learned of it in late November. Later, Al Jazeera told CNN the tape wasn’t newsworthy, but Jordan said the tape contained “extremely provocative” material and CNN was “explicitly entitled to all Al Jazeera material, televised or not” under their agreement, which provides reciprocal access to each other’s footage.

Al Jazeera’s statement said the network “does not feel it’s obligated to explain its position and its reasoning of why it chose not to air the interview,” adding that it expected CNN to “respect its special relationship with Al-Jazeera by not airing material that Al-Jazeera itself chose not to broadcast.”

The interview was conducted Oct. 20. In another twist, CNN said it was told by Al Jazeera that the network was offered the meeting after sending written questions to Bin Laden, including six questions submitted on behalf of CNN.

In one excerpt, Bin Laden ridicules White House requests that U.S. TV networks refrain from airing statements from him. “They said that Osama’s messages have codes in them to the terrorists,” Bin Laden says. “It’s as if we were living in the time of mail by carrier pigeon, when there are no phones, no travelers, no Internet, no regular mail, no express mail and no electronic mail.”

Regarding his involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, Bin Laden first says America’s “charge that we are carrying out acts of terrorism is unwarranted.” But later he says, “If killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists.”

Asked whether he was behind the anthrax scare, Bin Laden says, “These diseases are a punishment from God and a response to oppressed mothers’ prayers in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and everywhere.”