MATTHEWS: After 22 years with the CIA, Michael Scheuer left the agency this past Friday. It is fair to say few people there knew more about Osama bin Laden than did he and does. Yet Scheuer says his warnings about the threat that bin Laden posed to this country fell on deaf ears. His complaints were made public in Imperial Hubris, a book critical of the CIA and the Bush administration.
Michael, youre a gutsy guy. When did you sense that bin Laden was going to be a danger to us?
MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CHIEF OF CIA BIN LADEN UNIT: I think we found out shortly after we began chasing him in January of 1996 that he was much more than any kind of terrorist we had ever seen before.
MATTHEWS: What is his motive? Why does he want to kill us?
SCHEUER: His motivehis motive is to change our policies, sir. Notwithstanding what the president or Mr. Kerry said during the campaign, he really doesnt give a darn about our democracy or our society. He is after a change in policies which he views as lethal to Muslims.
MATTHEWS: Does he think, for examplelet me try thisand I dont want to sound like an apologist. But suppose we had truly an even-handed policy in the Middle East. Suppose there was a Palestinian entity of some kind and it had reasonable borders and it was contiguous enough to be a working state, and we didnt back dictators like the Saudi royal family, people like that who are simply selling the oil to keep their fingers filled with rings and girlfriends in London, all right?
Suppose we were a good country and an even-handed country, all right?
Would that make him any less hostile to us?
SCHEUER: We are a good country, sir, to start with.
MATTHEWS: In other words, in his eyes.
SCHEUER: Yes, in bin Ladens...
MATTHEWS: What are the problems besides Middle East and the oil kingdoms?
SCHEUER: With bin Laden, his opposition is based on support for Israel, support for the tyrannies.
MATTHEWS: Yes. Does he want to eliminate Israel?
SCHEUER: I think he does. I think thats...
MATTHEWS: OK, well, that makes it simple. You cant do that.
SCHEUER: Thats clearly his goal.
MATTHEWS: So theres no policy negotiation we could ever have with this guy.
SCHEUER: It has to be a changes in policies and a more assertive use of military force.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: No. What Im saying, theres no way not to be at war with this guy, from our perspective, is what Im asking you.
SCHEUER: Yes.
Right now, the choice isnt between war and peace. It is between war and endless war.
MATTHEWS: Was there any time that we could have avoided war against him?
SCHEUER: No.
MATTHEWS: So, basically, he started a war against us. We just got to beat him.
SCHEUER: Yes. Thats exactly right.
MATTHEWS: OK. Thats what I want to know.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, where is he?
SCHEUER: He is somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan, sir, along the border.
MATTHEWS: Somewhere up there in the northwestthe old northwest Malaccan territories of India, which is now Pakistan.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHEUER: Yes, sir. Some are.
MATTHEWS: Why is he protected there? What happened to Musharraf, our ally?
SCHEUER: Musharraf has bent over backwards, sir. Quite frankly, I would have bet my pension that Musharraf would not have done half of what hes done. Hes done a tremendous amount for us.
MATTHEWS: But is he hiding him?
SCHEUER: I dont think hes hiding him.
MATTHEWS: Is he among those uncharted areas of the northwest?
SCHEUER: Yes. Thats clearly the case, sir. Hes lost in the largest mountains on Earth.
MATTHEWS: And has he got any political protection?
SCHEUER: Not political protection.
MATTHEWS: He has got a TV studio.
SCHEUER: Yes, sir, he does.
MATTHEWS: Where did he find that?
SCHEUER: When you have money, you can do most anything, sir.
MATTHEWS: Do you think hes been taken to Islamabad or places like that where they have modern facilities and allowed to appear in these videos we keep seeing?
SCHEUER: No. I suspect he is doing that in the field.
MATTHEWS: Last time we saw him, he was on a burro and he had dialysis problems, right?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: How the hell did a guy on dialysis riding a burro escape from the strongest military force in the world, us?
SCHEUER: Well, first, I think a great deal of the dialysis problem is disinformation from al Qaeda. Second, aside from our special forces in Afghanistan, the military doesnt do an awful lot in Afghanistan.
MATTHEWS: Did we let him go in Tora Bora?
SCHEUER: Sure.
MATTHEWS: Was that our fault?
SCHEUER: It was our fault we didnt use our own troops, sir. We picked...
MATTHEWS: So we chose the better part of valor. We chose not to expose our troops to go in and hunting through caves.
SCHEUER: Thats certainly what it looked like to me, sir, from my perspective, yes. And we hired as our surrogates people who were longtime friends of Osama bin Laden.
MATTHEWS: Is he like the tough kid who takes on the big shot, and, therefore, he is popular in it is own community? Is he the kidis he a hero in the Islamic world?
SCHEUER: Absolutely a hero. You know...
MATTHEWS: OK. Why?
SCHEUER: First of all, theres no other leaders. You dont see many I Love Mubarak T-shirts around.
But the second point is, he speaksfor Muslims, he speaks the truth. They believe that our policies are indefensible.
MATTHEWS: OK. When you go to the Middle East, you see this quiet looking guy sitting around playing chess or smoking those pipes.
SCHEUER: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Hookah pipes, or watching The Flintstones on television or whatever theyre watching, The Beverly Hillbillies. Theyre relaxing all day. Are they thinking about bin Laden and why they like him?
SCHEUER: I think thats right. I think hes the most popular figure in the Muslim world at the moment.
MATTHEWS: Because he spits in our face. And he also kills us by the thousands.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHEUER: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Do they like that?
SCHEUER: Well, they like that because they believe their religion is under attack by the United States.
Bin Laden could not be as popular as he was or as he is if it wasnt for our policies. We are his main ally.
MATTHEWS: Were you shocked by the killings of that filmmaker in Holland recently?
SCHEUER: I was shocked, yes, not surprised.
MATTHEWS: By the Islamic community there. Theyyou cannot speak against Islam. You just cant do it. If you speak against Islam, youre killed.
SCHEUER: Well, its very much in vogue with what bin Laden wants.
Bin Laden has sought always to incite individual attacks on...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Does he want Sharia, absolute Muslim rule, where no one has freedom of speech?
SCHEUER: He wantscertainly wants the Sharia law. Im not sure if I would say that that means no freedom of speech.
The Afghans, for example, are among the most democratic people on Earth in term of a small-d democrat. Theres a lot of talk that goes on. But religious principles, yes.
MATTHEWS: Well, they dont believe youre allowed to criticize Islam.
SCHEUER: No. Well, no Muslim does. So thats not a question of free speech.
MATTHEWS: Well, not like it, as opposed to encouraging fatwas, etcetera.
SCHEUER: Yes. Im sorry. I missed that question.
MATTHEWS: I mean, does he believe you should be able to be killed just because you speak ill against Islam?
SCHEUER: I dont think so.
I think the 9/11 Commission, report, for example is wrong. The 9/11 Commission report identifies bin Laden and his followers as takfiris, who kill Muslims if they dont agree with them. Theyre not takfiris. Theyre just very devout, severe Salafists and Wahhabis.
MATTHEWS: Does he have the money to do it again?
SCHEUER: Sure.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Nine eleven.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHEUER: ... 9/11, yes, it wasnt that expensive, first of all. The recent spate of oil increases, $50-a-barrel oil means a lot more money flowing to Osama bin Laden from donators around the world.
MATTHEWS: If you had to place your bets on the most ruthless, most heartless gamble of your life, would you bet he will hit us with nuclear?
SCHEUER: If he has got it, hell use it. It will be a first strike weapon.
He doesnt want it for a deterrent.
MATTHEWS: He doesnt want a blackmail us.
SCHEUER: No, sir, he doesnt. He wants this warhe doesnt want to fight this war forever. A lot of people mistake him as someone who cant get along without fighting. But thats not clearly the case.
MATTHEWS: You mean he would like to lob one horrible bomb at us, kill tens of thousands and then say he won and slip into the night?
SCHEUER: Well, not slip into the night, but then begin to take over the governments in the Middle East, sir, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Egyptians.
MATTHEWS: Well, how would that happen?
SCHEUER: With us out of way, his...
MATTHEWS: Oh, we would pull out of the Middle East.
SCHEUER: Yes, his operating belief.
MATTHEWS: So, his operating goal is to get us out of the Middle East, out of supporting Israel, back over here, not using the oil from over there.
SCHEUER: No. Hes already said publicly that you can have all the oil you want. I cant drink it. Were going to sell it to you at a marketplace.
MATTHEWS: OK. Were coming back with Michael Scheuer to talk about the shakeup at the CIA, where hes been for 22 years.
Youre watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Coming up, the shakeup at the CIA. Will the new round of resignations make the agency stronger? Were coming back with retiring CIA officer Michael Scheuer when HARDBALL returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Were back with Michael Scheuer, who left the CIA on Friday, after 22 years working there. Two of the top people in the CIAs directorate of operations resigned. Its no secret this is an agency in turmoil.
Is the CIA in a meltdown mode?
SCHEUER: I dont think so, sir.
I think theres a lot of consternation with the new management team. It comes with any change of management. But the resignations were very I think painful for the clandestine service. For the first time, in Mr. Kappes, we had a deputy director of operations who had, forgive the trite phrase, but who had walked the walk and talked the talk.
He was an operator who had done hard things in hard places. And for the first time in a decade, we had a very, very serious operations officer as our DDO.
MATTHEWS: But theres no problem with the neocons, the ideologues in this administration, watching the CIA come apart. Theyve been at war with you guys over there, havent they, with Langley?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I read the papers every day. I want to tell you, whether you agree with me or not, publicly or not, I see a war that is going on constantly. The CIA leaks stuff detrimental to the administration, detrimental to the Defense Department. It goes back and forth. Its about leaking. Its new leaking.
Its constantly a war between the CIA, who seems to be skeptical of this war with Iraq, and the ideologues in the Defense Department and the vice presidents office, primarily, that are at war with you guys over there. Isnt that true?
(CROSSTALK)
SCHEUER: To some extent, I guess it is true.
But the truth of the matter is, they probably dont like the idea of the warof some of our opinions about the war in Iraq. If anything, cinched bin Laden transmitting from bin Laden to bin Ladenism in a worldwide movement, it was the war in Iraq. It doesnt make any difference really what the threat was from Saddam. Theres a whole another issue of Iraq.
MATTHEWS: Sure. The going to war with Iraq, for whatever reason we had to go, whether its geopolitical, ideological or this sort of lame argument for WMD, did it encourage the bin Ladenism in the world?
SCHEUER: Absolutely. You created it...
MATTHEWS: So, Mubarak, who you just disparaged a minute ago, was right when he said going to war with Iraq has created 100 new bin Ladens out there.
SCHEUER: More than that, sir. It has created an Afghanistan in the middle of the Islamic world. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, it was a backwater.
MATTHEWS: So all the political underpinnings of bin Ladenism, theyve the horror that hit us 9/11, have been enhanced and strengthened by our decision to go to Iraq.
SCHEUER: Absolutely. And most of this...
MATTHEWS: Well, the CIA knows this, right?
SCHEUER: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Why dont they tell it to the president?
SCHEUER: Well, Im sure Mr. Tenet must have told them.
MATTHEWS: He never did.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Tenet is only now for a half million dollars out there telling people on the lecture circuit he suspected their arguments for the war in Iraq. He never went public.
SCHEUER: I wasntsir, I wasnt in the room with the president and Mr. Tenet. But I can tell that you that the people who were working against Osama bin Laden were assured from the first day that much of the work we had done in the last decade would be undone by that war.
MATTHEWS: I cant wait to read all the books of all the guys who secretly opposed the war with Iraq, but didnt tell anybody during the war buildup.
Were going to hear it from Tenet. Were going to hear it from Powell. All these guys are going to hand-wring and say, oh, that was a bad war. But why didnt they speak out or quit as we were going into that war?
SCHEUER: I dont have the answer to that, sir.
MATTHEWS: Why did Tenet stay on if he disagreed with the war?
SCHEUER: I dont know if he disagreed with it or not, sir. He was the...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Why is he saying so now on the speaking tour?
SCHEUER: I...
MATTHEWS: You guys are secret keepers.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: You really are.
Let me ask you, without naming names. Did most of the top people in the CIA believe that it was a mistake to go to Iraq?
SCHEUER: I would think that that is a shared view in terms of trying to finish off the bin Laden problem, sir, yes.
MATTHEWS: Did they believe that when Secretary Powell, who has just resign, that he had the true facts when he went to the U.N. and made the case for war or didnt he? Was that a sales pitch, rather than a fact-based argument?
SCHEUER: The only part of that I know about, sir, is that theI happened to do the research on the links between al Qaeda and Iraq.
MATTHEWS: And what did you come up with?
SCHEUER: Nothing.
MATTHEWS: Well, why didnt somebody say that to the president?
SCHEUER: We did. Well, I dont know. Again, theres a difference...
MATTHEWS: Dick Cheney never stops talking about that connection. He is still talking about Prague. He doesnt quit.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Hes in the Laurie Mylroie tradition over there, which is to believe any connection to justify the war.
SCHEUER: When you talk about CIA analysis, sir, its one thing when it is produced. It is another thing when it is delivered. Mr. Tenet made himself the briefer in chief to the president.
MATTHEWS: Did he make the case for war when it wasnt there in the facts?
SCHEUER: I dont know that, sir. I have no idea.
MATTHEWS: Who wrote the brief for the secretary of state when he went to the U.N.?
SCHEUER: I suppose part of it was written by the agency and part by the State Department.
MATTHEWS: Six trips over there by the vice president, Scooter, his chief of staff, what was that about? Why did the vice president go to the CIA to get a case for war when you guys say there wasnt a case for war? He came back with one.
SCHEUER: Sir, Im notagain, my knowledge of Iraq is very limited and limited to the al Qaeda aspect of it.
MATTHEWS: Is it possible that the case for war made outside the CIA based upon illusory information?
SCHEUER: I dont know. I know our consistent process of reevaluating ties by Iraq, between Iraq and al Qaeda, was driven by the analysis done at DOD.
MATTHEWS: I hate to think what history is going to say about this war. Theyre going to say there was WMD, because we know that. Theyre going to say there was no connection to al Qaeda, because we know that now.
And all the arguments we put forth to the world will be found bogus if youre right, because, if it wasnt for the CIA, where did we get the information justifying the war? Is there some other agency I should know about?
SCHEUER: Not that I know of, sir.
MATTHEWS: OK, thank you. Youre great. Gutsy guy. I know youre careful. And Im breaking you here, because this is HARDBALL.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: And dont call me sir anymore.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Michael Scheuer, what a gutsy guy. By the way, thats him down here, Michael Scheuer. Change the jackets. Michael Scheuer wrote this book, Imperial Hubris. Hes a tough nut to crack.
Thank you, sir.
SCHEUER: Pleasure.
Actually, it sounds like this guy doesn't know much of anything.
"SCHEUER: I wasntsir, I wasnt in the room with the president and Mr. Tenet. But I can tell that you that the people who were working against Osama bin Laden were assured from the first day that much of the work we had done in the last decade would be undone by that war.
MATTHEWS: I cant wait to read all the books of all the guys who secretly opposed the war with Iraq, but didnt tell anybody during the war buildup."
What besides "studying Bin Ladin" had they done?..
Matthews wants to be vindicated ..no matter what.
SCHEUER: It has to be a changes in policies and a more assertive use of military force.
MATTHEWS: No. What Im saying, theres no way not to be at war with this guy, from our perspective, is what Im asking you.
SCHEUER: Yes. Right now, the choice isnt between war and peace. It is between war and endless war.
MATTHEWS: Was there any time that we could have avoided war against him?
SCHEUER: No.
MATTHEWS: So, basically, he started a war against us. We just got to beat him.
SCHEUER: Yes. Thats exactly right.
Between Matthews and Scheuer it is hard to say which is lamer or more partisan. I was disgusted by both of them while reading this transcript.
SCHEUER: No, sir, he doesnt.
And this guy is a terrorism expert??? No wonder we were losing until 9/11!!
The very DEFINITION of terrorism is the use of terrifying tactics against civilians in order to cause them to become disillusioned with thier leaders and thus force a change in policy (Give them what they want and they will leave us alone!) Therefore, terrorism itself IS a form of blackmail/extortion!