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It’s sort of a new day in Washington given all that’s gone down. How
are your colleagues reacting today?
well I think most people are very excited to catch the number one terrorist.
This is a great day for New York and for America because the reality is
Osama Bin Laden caused the death of thousands of Americans and many families and those who’ve lost loved
ones and all the first responders feel that justice has been done.
What do you know about the President's trip to New York on Thursday? What do you expect him to
do while he's up here?
Well, I don’t know all the details of the trip yet but I think its traffic. Because
it's a time for him to meet with all the families who suffered greatly from 9/11, to meet
with the first responders
to have a measure of celebration that justice was done.
President Obama stayed very focused on finding Osama Bin Laden. This is something
that he was committed too and that he kept really in his sights and I think that's very important
in this war on terrorism because the reality is
we need to tell terrorists,
that America never gives up, we never give in, and we never forget, and we will find you, and bring
you to justice and that's a very important message to tell terrorists worldwide who intend
to continue to attack America and America’s interests. Senator what more can you tell us about this
extraordinary operation and the decision, the
decision to take it?
Well, I think you hit it uh... it was a very gutsy decision by the President made by the
President. I mean he could have sent some hellfire missiles in there and destroyed everybody
and everything, he didn't do that. It was a tactical commando raid, and
there are risks and you saw that with the one helicopter. And yet these
commandos now JSOC they’re so well-trained they know what the mission was, they know the
time they had, they move quickly, they moved expeditiously
and that it was a total success. Is there anything you know operationally about what he's been
doing over the last few years
that tells you this is a death blow perhaps for Al-Qaida?
Well it’s an important blow and we will get a top security briefing
as Senators at 5 o'clock today
but you know many people believe that Al-Qaida and the Arabian Peninsula is becoming
a far more dangerous organization and is most likely to be the source of an attack on American
soil.
So the reality is Al-Qaida has metastasized over the last ten years is a very different
organization than it was on 9/11 and so we have to be mindful
that these terror attacks can come
from worldwide organizations with very different heads and leaders.
But I think one of the most important things we've got to do is
not only in the Congress but in the country
is continually focused and be vigilant because even in the aftermath
of the death of Osama Bin Laden we are still threatened by terrorist organizations, groups
uh... movements
that uh... we've got to be really vigilant about. So I don't think it changes
the challenge that we have to confront terrorism all over the world and part of doing
that is making sure that were demanding
that the Pakistanis answer these basic questions. This is a question,
How can the Pakistanis not know
that for 6 years Osama Bin Laden
was living in this compound,
eight times bigger
than anything else in the area, within a mile of the major military academy
how can this happen?
I mean why would no one register curiosity about who was there? Unless somehow, someway
they were warned off
and said this is
out of limits
nobody touch it whatever happens there happens there
uh...
and we need to find that out.
The Obama administration has said that
you know despite the questions that have to be answered by the Pakistani government without
Pakistan’s help
the United States could never achieved what it did by killing Osama Bin Laden, after
all we landed military helicopters in Pakistan.
Doesn't Pakistan deserve from some credit for that?
Well they might get some but we ought to find out how much uh... credit they
due.
We know how much cash their looking for but we also ought to find out
what the credit
they get and how much is deserved.
This really staggers the imagination that all this was going on,
that he was a man who killed almost 3,000 Americans in a single day,
killed other Americans in Tanzania
and in Kenya.
We did what we had to do.
We’ve heard people say that Pakistan only helps
when it really is in their own interests, so in your estimation how can we trust them to
be an ally?
Well it's a very complicated difficult relationship, I thought Secretary Albright comments were right on
target.
This is a very important country in the region, they do have nuclear weapons,
they have at times provided us with significant support,
and at other times they have worked against our interests.
It's unclear to many observers and I’ve been in Pakistan more than a dozen
times whether the government itself has
full control over its military services and it's intelligence services. So
this is an issue where
President Zardari is putting the best possible face on it and the reality is much more complicated
and much less
uh... complimentary to Pakistan. But we do have to admit
they have aided us doing some critical moments. How do we manage this relationship with all
of these things now unraveling in public?
Well my view is that we need far more accountability on the money that we give to Pakistan and in
fact we need to have the ability to direct that money. I think we should focus our
efforts far more on humanitarian issues.
In one of the past spending bills when I was on the Foreign Relations Committee I specifically
focused our commitments to border regions for education to give opportunities for girls
and women to be educated, opportunities for women to be in government because
a lot of studies show that when women are part of the governing process
far more attention is paid to clean water,
education, health care, and development. So if we can have a long-term relationship,
Pakistan that steers far more towards that direction
than the military that it currently is
focused, I think that would be preferable.