Posted on 09/16/2002 9:00:48 AM PDT by Destro
[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 8/20/02 ]
CNN reporter used stealth to get al-Qaida videotapes
By MATT KEMPNER
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
CNN correspondent Nic Robertson spoke with his wife on the phone from Afghanistan, but he didn't tell her about the secret video tapes he'd gotten his hands on.
He didn't want word to get out about what he had until he was safely out of the country.
Robertson left Afghanistan two weeks ago, and the tapes started airing on CNN on Sunday. They show what appears to be an inside view of al-Qaida, from lessons on how to pull off assassinations and urban attacks to a view of Osama bin Laden's followers -- some of whom the U.S. government may not have had pictures of before, Robertson said in an interview Monday.
Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House's Office of Homeland Security, called the videos "consistent with our previous information that [al-Qaida leaders] would use chemical weapons if they're able to obtain them." There was no credible information that the group had been successful in its effort to obtain weapons of mass destruction, he said.
Robertson said the most personally "shocking" of the 64 tapes he brought out of Afghanistan was a segment CNN began airing Monday of what appears to be a test of a chemical agent. It showed a cloudy liquid seeping across a floor toward a dog that whimpers, struggles and collapses.
"I've never seen a dog die before," Robertson noted. "When you see an animal suffer, you can't help but be affected."
CNN plans to air the tapes throughout the week. But not all of the footage will make it onto TV. Robertson said he doubts CNN will show what appears to be a promotional video out of Bosnia showing a severed human head rolling through grass. Among the segments CNN is scheduled to air is one showing how to make TNT as well as fuses and detonators. Other training tapes show that "out in the middle of the Afghan hillside they've built themselves a model town and a model bridge, and they go house to house and blow it up," Robertson said.
Some of the footage apparently mirrors what was in manuals and documents found last year in Afghanistan.
On Monday, Robertson was out of his usual field gear. In a business suit and dabbed with makeup, he rushed among CNN studios in Atlanta, reporting on the tapes for the main CNN network, CNN International and CNN Headline News.
He looked comfortable, although much of Robertson's tenure with CNN has been behind the camera. He was CNN's only engineer in Baghdad during the Gulf War and was a producer for CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour in Bosnia. He became a foreign correspondent in his own right in 1997, and he reported live from Afghanistan last Sept. 11.
A British citizen, Robertson, 40, is based in London with his wife. He was on assignment in Afghanistan when a source told him about a stash of tapes he should see.
Robertson wouldn't name his source or the town "hundreds of miles from Kabul" where he was shown the tapes.. Many of the tapes he left behind included on-air pieces from the BBC and CNN.
"I've never seen a dog die before," Robertson noted. "When you see an animal suffer, you can't help but be affected."
News flash for CNN: they're killing people, too.
Good catch - how telling....
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