Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at NATO Headquarters Today; U.S. Officials Interrogating Al Qaeda Prisoners Captured in Battle of Tora Bora
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get started, though, in the meantime, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at NATO headquarters today, taking stock of the war, and warning of more terror to come. Our national correspondent Bob Franken is at the Pentagon this morning.</s>BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, and the secretary who oftentimes conducts the briefing you just discussed, as we know in Brussels, meeting with the defense ministers, the deputy defense minister -- deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the vice chairman of the joints chief of staff, Peter Pace, General Peter Pace. He will be holding a briefing with more about the war effort in Afghanistan. Of course, sort of the macro discussion. The larger discussion with the defense ministers in Brussels, and Rumsfeld in the news conference that was concluded talked about the continuing need for all the countries to work together in this continued global fight against terrorism. Talked about the fact that the world -- if we quote him -- has significantly changed since September 11th. And he went on to say that there will be continuing efforts, shifting alliances as the targets of the efforts against terrorism go on. Afghanistan, he says, will be relatively easy. And there was a discussion the defense ministers, according to Rumsfeld, about the United States continuing campaign for an aggressive effort against biological weapons, chemical weapons, the nuclear weapons the weapons of mass destruction.</s>DONALD RUMSFELD, SECY. OF DEFENSE: The nexus between states with weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks raises the danger that September 11th could be a preview of what could come if the enemies of freedom gain ability to strike our nations with weapons of increasingly greater power.</s>FRANKEN: And as far as the current war is concerned, the one in Afghanistan, he is echoing the defense secretary is what a lot of people are saying, that the hard work is really yet to come, the tough and dirty work, as the secretary put it. The battle around Tora Bora still goes on, even though on the ground there are many reports that most of the Al Qaeda troops surrendered, there is still the search for Osama bin Laden. In another part of the country, there's the search for the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and that involves going cave to cave, very dangerous work. The country that is a dangerous country, with all the land mines. Many have been there for decades. Many of them just laid, the possibilities of sabotage, booby traps, that kind of thing. One little piece of good news. There has been a report earlier in the day that an aircraft had been shot at by a missile, a stinger missile, on the ground. It turns out now officials believe it was not a missile at all. It was really just the kind of lights and tracer bullets that are part of the post-Ramadan celebration. That's the latest. That takes a tiny bit of the edge of off of today's reporting, but as the secretary said, there's plenty of edge there.</s>HARRIS: All right, thanks, Bob. We understand that briefing should be getting under way at the Pentagon in about 10 minutes or so, and we'll come back to you guys there in just a bit. Now, U.S. officials are interrogating Al Qaeda prisoners captured in the battle of Tora Bora, and they're hoping these interrogations lead to Osama bin Laden. Our Nic Robertson talked with some of the prisoners, and found that investigators may have a difficult job ahead of them.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some moan in pain, others read the Koran, and still others can only be seen when they roll over in their blankets on the crowded floor. All were captured on the Tora Bora mountains, but some claim not to be Al Qaeda members.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Believe me, a lot of people in the mountains, they don't know even the face of Osama bin Laden. He is such a person that is mobile. Maybe he is here. Maybe he is out. No one knows.</s>ROBERTSON: He says he is a doctor, and came here three months ago because he thought, if there was a war, Afghans would need help. He describes fleeing the local hospital when the Afghans turned on him a month ago.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They asked me to escape, and they saw the people surround the hospital with gun, and I saw some people were killed in front of me, so they forced me to escape, and the only chance was only for us through these mountains.</s>ROBERTSON: He talks of the intense bombing in the mountains, and of how they decided to flee four days ago.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then they discover us and they start firing at us by the Apache. A lot of people killed, 25 or maximum, and plenty of people injured. I have injured my back. I have injury (ph) to my left flank, and it was by antiaircraft guns.</s>ROBERTSON: Fourteen prisoners are crowded in the tiny room, a mixture of Arabs and Pakistanis. Few want to identified, and aside from Doctor Said (ph), only this 18-year-old Kuwaiti was willing to talk. He says he came to Afghanistan to join the jihad six weeks ago. "What's done is done," he says. "I don't have anything to say to my parents." But he does want to go home. (on camera): True or false, these accounts are likely to be heard by investigators, trying to piece together Osama bin Laden's whereabouts. If true, then many more Arabs could be on run in these mountains. If false, then prisoners like Dr. Said could remain captive for a long time to come. Nic Robertson, CNN, near Tora Bora, Afghanistan.