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America's New War: U.S. and NATO

Aired September 27, 2001 - 05:24   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: For the time being, the U.S. is asking NATO allies for help with intelligence gathering, and not for help with military operations. U.S. officials outlined their campaign at a NATO meeting in Brussels yesterday.

And joining us now live from Brussels is NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur.

Mr. Brodeur, we thank you very much for taking time to talk with us this morning. We've been going into the meetings yesterday. We were expecting to have some word about the U.S.'s detailing of any proof that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks that happened on September 11, and we're still waiting to see if that actually happened -- if there was a presentation of any proof.

Is that what you heard yesterday?

YVES BRODEUR, NATO SPOKESMAN: No, there was no presentation of any proof, and no ally around the North Atlantic Council Table has to do that. What we have, though, are serious indications, all pointing in the same direction.

HARRIS: Can you give us -- can you tell us publicly anymore information about these indications you speak of?

BRODEUR: No, I cannot really get into the details of that, but what we were told yesterday -- what we were presented with, again, are indications all pointing in the right direction. And there has been an accumulation of these indications of this information, which all sort of points to rapidly mounting evidences. So -- but that's as far as I can go on this.

HARRIS: OK. We understand that, we understand that.

So is it, then, the case that all you heard yesterday was a request for some sort of intelligence coordination among NATO members?

BRODEUR: Well, we had a bit more than that actually. We had, yes indeed, a request for better coordination for sharing our information. We also had a very detailed presentation on the strategy that the United States of America intends to adopt to fight the terrorism. How they want to approach this problem by building coalitions, and how they will be counting on these coalitions to support their actions -- actually the collective actions of the intent to launch over a certain of period of time.

So we did get a very interesting discussion on how to approach, to deal -- tackle with this problem.

HARRIS: How firm, then, is the impression that you have? How firm is the plan of action the U.S. has assembled to this point? Even this morning in the editorials -- I saw, as a matter of fact, one written by our Defense Secretary Rumsfeld -- that still describe a rather nebulas kind of -- if I can use the word this morning -- war effort here.

Did that seem to be a focused or concentrated one?

BRODEUR: The outcome of the discussion is quite clear that in order to be efficient in fighting terrorism, we will have to adopt a multi-faceted approach to this. The military option is only one of the several options that need to be sort of looked at or of elements if you want that needs to be combined. There will be a need to require to economic measures, to political measures, the problematic measures in combination again with military needs.

So I think that there is no sort of hesitation or any ambiguity about what should be done. It's just that this is such a major undertaking. We're dealing with a global problem, huge networks, and the answer to that can only be as complex as the problem. But there is no such thing as dealing with it with a massive military goal.

HARRIS: NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur -- thank you very much for talking with us this morning. We certainly do appreciate it.

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