1 00:00:05,540 --> 00:00:09,060 In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. 2 00:00:10,540 --> 00:00:12,300 They had different ways of achieving this. 3 00:00:12,500 --> 00:00:15,980 But their power and authority came from the optimistic visions 4 00:00:16,020 --> 00:00:17,340 they offered to their people. 5 00:00:19,900 --> 00:00:21,420 Those dreams failed. 6 00:00:21,580 --> 00:00:24,620 And today, people have lost faith in ideologies. 7 00:00:26,020 --> 00:00:30,100 Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life. 8 00:00:31,500 --> 00:00:35,740 But now, they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority. 9 00:00:36,780 --> 00:00:40,700 Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us 10 00:00:41,100 --> 00:00:42,100 from nightmares. 11 00:00:48,220 --> 00:00:51,020 They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers 12 00:00:51,060 --> 00:00:53,300 that we cannot see and do not understand. 13 00:00:54,220 --> 00:00:57,340 And the greatest danger of all is international terrorism. 14 00:00:57,900 --> 00:00:59,700 A powerful and sinister network 15 00:00:59,860 --> 00:01:02,260 with sleeper cells in countries across the world. 16 00:01:03,180 --> 00:01:05,980 A threat that needs to be fought by a war on terror. 17 00:01:09,420 --> 00:01:11,460 But much of this threat is a fantasy 18 00:01:11,660 --> 00:01:14,740 which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. 19 00:01:16,180 --> 00:01:17,220 It's a dark illusion 20 00:01:17,420 --> 00:01:20,700 that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world 21 00:01:20,900 --> 00:01:23,980 the security services, and the international media. 22 00:01:25,420 --> 00:01:29,740 This is a series of films about how and why that fantasy was created 24 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:8,080 and who it benefits. 23 00:01:35,060 --> 00:01:37,340 At the heart of the story are two groups: 24 00:01:37,740 --> 00:01:41,180 the American neoconservatives, and the radical Islamists. 25 00:01:42,220 --> 00:01:48,340 Last week's episode ended in the late'90s with both groups marginalized and out of power. 26 00:01:48,980 --> 00:01:55,260 But with the attacks of September 11th, the fates of both dramatically changed. 27 00:01:55,700 --> 00:01:58,980 The Islamists, after their moment of triumph 28 00:01:59,060 --> 00:02:01,300 were virtually destroyed within months 29 00:02:02,580 --> 00:02:06,140 while the neoconservatives took power in Washington. 30 00:02:07,260 --> 00:02:12,140 But then, the neoconservatives began to reconstruct the Islamists. 31 00:02:12,380 --> 00:02:14,380 They created a phantom enemy. 32 00:02:15,420 --> 00:02:18,300 And as this nightmare fantasy began to spread 33 00:02:18,340 --> 00:02:20,580 .politicians realized the newfound power 34 00:02:20,620 --> 00:02:23,340 it gave them in a deeply disillusioned age. 35 00:02:24,780 --> 00:02:28,740 Those with the darkest nightmares became the most powerful. 36 00:02:36,020 --> 00:02:39,500 The Power of Nightmares 37 00:02:39,660 --> 00:02:43,380 The Rise of the Politics of Fear 38 00:02:44,380 --> 00:02:47,780 Part 3 The Shadows in the cave 39 00:02:49,580 --> 00:02:50,940 At the end of the 1990s 40 00:02:50,980 --> 00:02:53,660 Osama Bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan. 41 00:02:54,660 --> 00:02:56,940 He was accompanied by Ayman Zawahiri 42 00:02:56,980 --> 00:02:59,980 the most influential ideologist of the Islamist movement. 43 00:03:00,860 --> 00:03:01,780 For 20 years 44 00:03:01,820 --> 00:03:05,620 Zawahiri had struggled to create revolutions in the Arab world 45 00:03:06,220 --> 00:03:08,180 but all attempt had ended in bloody failure. 46 00:03:08,380 --> 00:03:13,060 We haven't had any infomation about your whereabouts for sometime, where were you? 47 00:03:13,100 --> 00:03:14,420 I was just home and clubs. 48 00:03:14,620 --> 00:03:16,500 Not in Afghanistan? Somewhere else? 49 00:03:16,580 --> 00:03:18,500 Everywhere, everywhere. Everywhere? 50 00:03:18,540 --> 00:03:20,180 I am a Muslim. Being a Muslim 51 00:03:20,220 --> 00:03:22,060 you are wanted everywhere. 52 00:03:22,220 --> 00:03:25,980 Because if you - just if you say no to the superpowers 53 00:03:26,020 --> 00:03:29,940 this immediately in itself is a crime you are wanted for. 54 00:03:30,180 --> 00:03:32,860 Yes, but isn't what you do not to do with arms? 55 00:03:33,060 --> 00:03:36,100 It's aggressive but ask Allah, and he is greater than superpower. 56 00:03:37,540 --> 00:03:41,460 Zawahiri was a follower of the Egyptian revolutionary, Sayyed Qutb 57 00:03:41,500 --> 00:03:43,980 who had been executed in 1966. 58 00:03:44,740 --> 00:03:47,860 Qutb's vision had been of a new type of modern state. 59 00:03:48,380 --> 00:03:51,740 It would contain all of the benefits of Western science and technology 60 00:03:52,100 --> 00:03:56,260 but it would use Islam as a moral framework to protect people 61 00:03:56,300 --> 00:03:58,580 from the culture of Western liberalism. 62 00:03:59,820 --> 00:04:03,620 Qutb believed that this culture infected the minds of Muslims 63 00:04:03,940 --> 00:04:05,980 turning them into selfish creatures 64 00:04:06,220 --> 00:04:10,340 who threatened to destroy the shared values that held society together. 65 00:04:12,500 --> 00:04:14,340 Throughout the 80s and 90s 66 00:04:14,380 --> 00:04:16,580 Zawahiri had tried to persuade the masses 67 00:04:16,620 --> 00:04:18,780 to rise up and topple the rulers 68 00:04:18,820 --> 00:04:22,220 who had allowed this corruption to infect their countries. 71 0:04:25,120 --> 00:04:29,080 We want to speak to the whole world. Who are we? 69 00:04:32,940 --> 00:04:37,260 But the revolutionaries became trapped in a horrific escalation of violence 70 00:04:37,420 --> 00:04:39,740 because the masses refused to follow them. 71 00:04:40,220 --> 00:04:43,060 Islamism failed as a mass movement 72 00:04:43,460 --> 00:04:48,460 and Zawahiri now came to the conclusion that a new strategy was needed. 73 00:04:50,020 --> 00:04:51,620 They had no revolution at all. I mean 74 00:04:51,660 --> 00:04:53,460 they had failed in their takeover 75 00:04:53,580 --> 00:04:56,380 they had failed to topple the powers that be 76 00:04:56,580 --> 00:05:00,980 and, you know, they became more and more interested 77 00:05:01,060 --> 00:05:06,220 in this idea that only a small vanguard 78 00:05:06,260 --> 00:05:09,740 could be successful. 79 00:05:09,780 --> 00:05:15,900 I mean, they had lost confidence in the spontaneous capacity of the masses to be mobilised. 80 00:05:16,620 --> 00:05:19,620 Then they decided to change strategy completely 81 00:05:19,660 --> 00:05:23,260 and instead of striking at what they called the "near enemy" 82 00:05:23,340 --> 00:05:24,820 I.e., the local regimes 83 00:05:25,060 --> 00:05:28,860 they decided that they could strike at the "far away enemy" 84 00:05:28,980 --> 00:05:31,060 I.e., at the West, at America 85 00:05:31,140 --> 00:05:35,700 and that would impress the masses, and the masses would be mobilised. 86 00:05:37,140 --> 00:05:42,220 Zawahiri and Bin Laden began implementing this new strategy in August, 1998. 87 00:05:42,860 --> 00:05:45,420 Two huge suicide bombs were detonated 88 00:05:45,460 --> 00:05:48,540 outside American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania 89 00:05:48,700 --> 00:05:50,700 killing more than 200 people. 90 00:05:52,580 --> 00:05:55,220 The bombings had a dramatic effect on the West. 91 00:05:55,340 --> 00:05:57,980 For the first time, the name "Bin Laden" 92 00:05:58,020 --> 00:06:01,620 entered the public consciousness as a terrorist mastermind. 93 00:06:04,060 --> 00:06:05,380 The suicide bombers 94 00:06:05,420 --> 00:06:09,540 had been recruited by Bin Laden from the Islamist training camps in Afghanistan. 95 00:06:10,540 --> 00:06:12,900 But his and Zawahiri's operation 96 00:06:12,940 --> 00:06:16,180 was very much on the fringes of the Islamist movement. 97 00:06:17,220 --> 00:06:20,100 The overwhelming majority of the fighters in these camps 98 00:06:20,140 --> 00:06:24,380 had nothing at all to do with Bin Laden or international terrorism. 99 00:06:25,220 --> 00:06:28,260 They were training to fight regimes in their own countries 100 00:06:28,380 --> 00:06:31,660 such as Uzbekistan, Kashmir, and Chechnia. 101 00:06:32,980 --> 00:06:36,980 Their aim wa to establish Islamist societies in the Muslim world 102 00:06:37,180 --> 00:06:40,140 and they had no interest in attacking America. 103 00:06:41,540 --> 00:06:44,140 Bin Laden helped fund some of the camps 104 00:06:44,180 --> 00:06:48,260 and in return was allowed to look for volunteers for his operations. 105 00:06:49,100 --> 00:06:52,540 But a number of senior Islamists were against his new strategy 106 00:06:53,060 --> 00:06:56,820 including members of Zawahiri's own group, Islamic Jihad. 107 00:07:01,380 --> 00:07:05,420 Even Bin Laden's displays of strength to the Western media were faked. 108 00:07:06,100 --> 00:07:08,980 The fighters in this video had been hired for the day 109 00:07:09,020 --> 00:07:11,020 and told to bring their own weapons. 110 00:07:12,380 --> 00:07:14,380 For beyond this small group 111 00:07:14,500 --> 00:07:21,060 Bin Laden had no formal organisation. Until the Americans invented one for h. 112 00:07:24,700 --> 00:07:26,700 In January, 2001 113 00:07:26,740 --> 00:07:28,900 a trial began in a Manhattan courtroom 114 00:07:29,060 --> 00:07:32,580 of four men accused of the embassy bombings in east Africa. 115 00:07:33,260 --> 00:07:37,580 But the Americans had also decided to prosecute Bin Laden in his absence. 116 00:07:39,580 --> 00:07:41,500 But to do this under American law 117 00:07:41,700 --> 00:07:44,660 the prosecutors needed evidence of a criminal organisation 118 00:07:45,140 --> 00:07:46,620 because, as with the Mafia 119 00:07:46,740 --> 00:07:49,780 that would allow them to prosecute the head of the organisation 120 00:07:49,900 --> 00:07:52,620 even if he could not be linked directly to the crime. 121 00:07:53,980 --> 00:07:57,900 And the evidence for that organisation was provided for them 122 00:07:57,940 --> 00:08:01,980 by an ex-associate of Bin Laden's called Jamal Al-Fadl. 123 00:08:03,820 --> 00:08:09,580 During the investigation of the 1998 bombings, there is a walk-in source, Jamal Al-Fadl 124 00:08:09,620 --> 00:08:13,220 who is a Sudanese militant who was with Bin Laden in the early 90s 125 00:08:13,340 --> 00:08:17,300 who has been passed around a whole series of Middle East secret services. 126 00:08:17,340 --> 00:08:19,180 None of whom want much to do with him 127 00:08:19,260 --> 00:08:22,740 and who ends up in America and is taken on by 128 00:08:22,780 --> 00:08:25,220 the American government, effectively 129 00:08:25,260 --> 00:08:27,340 as a key prosecution witness. 130 00:08:27,380 --> 00:08:31,260 And is given a huge amount of American taxpayers' money at the same time. 131 00:08:32,820 --> 00:08:38,780 His account is used as raw material 132 00:08:38,900 --> 00:08:41,340 to build up a picture of Al Qaeda. 133 00:08:41,860 --> 00:08:49,380 The picture that the FBI want o build up is one that will fit the existing laws 134 00:08:49,420 --> 00:08:54,060 that they will have to use to prosecute those responsible for the bombing. 135 00:08:54,100 --> 00:08:59,180 Now, those laws were drawn up to counteract organised crime: 136 00:08:59,220 --> 00:09:07,020 the Mafia, drugs crime, crimes where people being a member of an organisation is extremely important. 137 00:09:07,180 --> 00:09:10,500 You have to have an organisation to get a prosecution. 138 00:09:11,260 --> 00:09:14,340 And you have Al-Fadl and a number of other witness 139 00:09:14,380 --> 00:09:17,340 a number of other sources, who are happy to feed into this. 140 00:09:17,380 --> 00:09:19,660 You've got material that, looked at in a certain way 141 00:09:20,020 --> 00:09:24,620 can be seen to show this organisation's existence. 142 00:09:25,300 --> 00:09:31,060 You put the two together and you get what is the first Bin Laden myth 146 00:097,600 --> 00:09:28,680 the first Al Qaeda myth. 143 00:09:32,260 --> 00:09:34,500 And because it's one of the first, it's extremely influential. 144 00:09:36,660 --> 00:09:40,180 The picture Al-Fadl drew for the Americans of Bin Laden 145 00:09:40,340 --> 00:09:44,540 was of an all-powerful figure at the head of a large terrorist network 146 00:09:44,700 --> 00:09:47,300 that had an organised network of control. 147 00:09:48,860 --> 00:09:53,700 He also said that Bin Laden had given this network a name: "Al Qaeda". 148 00:09:54,860 --> 00:09:57,660 It was a dramatic and powerful picture of Bin Laden 149 00:09:57,980 --> 00:10:00,300 but it bore little relationship to the truth. 150 00:10:01,980 --> 00:10:05,060 The reality was that Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri 151 00:10:05,100 --> 00:10:09,780 had become the focus of a loose association of disillusioned Islamist militants 152 00:10:09,900 --> 00:10:12,420 who were attracd by the new strategy. 153 00:10:13,460 --> 00:10:15,380 But there was no organisation. 154 00:10:15,540 --> 00:10:18,580 These were militants who mostly planned their own operations 155 00:10:18,620 --> 00:10:21,300 and looked to Bin Laden for funding and assistance. 156 00:10:22,020 --> 00:10:23,700 He was not their commander. 157 00:10:25,020 --> 00:10:29,180 There is also no evidence that Bin Laden used the term "Al Qaeda" 158 00:10:29,220 --> 00:10:33,180 to refer to the name of a group until after September the 11th 159 00:10:33,380 --> 00:10:37,540 when he realized that this was the term the Americans have given it. 160 00:10:41,500 --> 00:10:45,020 In reality, Jamal Al-Fadl was on the run from Bin Laden 161 00:10:45,060 --> 00:10:49,020 having stolen money from him. In return for his evidence 162 00:10:49,060 --> 00:10:54,020 the Americans gave him witness protection in America and hundreds of thousands of dollars. 163 00:10:55,060 --> 00:10:57,220 Many lawyers at the trial believed 164 00:10:57,260 --> 00:11:01,020 that Al-Fadl exaggerated and lied to give the Americans the picture 165 00:11:01,060 --> 00:11:05,100 of a terrorist organisation that they needed to prosecute Bin Laden. 166 00:11:06,900 --> 00:11:14,180 And there were selective portions of Al-Fadl's testimony that I believe was false 167 00:11:14,940 --> 00:11:21,620 to help support the picture that he helped the Americans join together. 168 00:11:22,020 --> 00:11:27,420 I think he lied in a number of specific testimony 169 00:11:27,460 --> 00:11:32,420 about a unified image of what this organisation was. 170 00:11:32,580 --> 00:11:39,300 It made Al Qaeda the new Mafia or the new Communists. 171 00:11:40,500 --> 00:11:44,900 It made them identifiable as a group 172 00:11:46,180 --> 00:11:49,460 and therefore made it easier to prosecute 173 00:11:49,500 --> 00:11:57,100 any person associated with Al Qaeda for any acts or statements made by Bin Laden 174 00:11:57,340 --> 00:11:58,340 who talked a lot. 175 00:11:59,060 --> 00:12:05,020 The idea - which is critical to the FBI's prosecution 176 00:12:05,060 --> 00:12:10,500 that Bin Laden ran a coherent organisation with operatives and cells 177 00:12:10,540 --> 00:12:13,660 all around the world of which you could be a member is a myth. 178 00:12:14,580 --> 00:12:22,060 There is no Al Qaeda organisation. There is no international network with a leader 179 00:12:22,220 --> 00:12:25,580 with cadres who will unquestioningly obey orders 180 00:12:26,380 --> 00:12:32,500 with tentacles that stretch out to sleeper cells in America, in Africa, in Europe. 181 00:12:32,540 --> 00:12:40,180 That idea of a coherent, structured terrorist network with an organised capability 182 00:12:40,220 --> 00:12:41,860 simply does not exist. 187 00:12:39,880 -> 00:12:43,960 What did exist was a powerful idea that was about to inspire a single 183 00:12:47,500 --> 00:12:52,780 devastating act that would lead the whole world into believing the myth 184 00:12:52,820 --> 00:12:56,100 that had begun to be constructed in the Manhattan courtroom. 185 00:13:01,900 --> 00:13:04,820 What's this other jet doing? What's this other jet doing? What the hell's that? 186 00:13:05,980 --> 00:13:13,140 Holy fuck! Oh my God! Oh my God! Jesus fucking Christ! 187 00:13:15,620 --> 00:13:22,780 Don't touch it! Oh my God! Oh my God! 188 00:13:33,260 --> 00:13:36,940 The attack on America by 19 hijackers shocked the world. 189 00:13:37,340 --> 00:13:42,620 It was Ayman Zawahiri's new strategy, implemented in a brutal and spectacular way. 190 00:13:44,260 --> 00:13:49,900 But neither he nor Bin Laden were the originators of what was called the "Planes Operation". 191 00:13:51,140 --> 00:13:55,060 It was the brainchilan Islamist militant called Khalid Sheik Mohammed 192 00:13:55,100 --> 00:13:59,420 who came to Bin Laden for funding and help in finding volunteers. 193 00:14:01,420 --> 00:14:06,620 But in the wake of panic created by the attacks, the politicians reached for the model 194 00:14:06,660 --> 00:14:12,860 which had been created by the trial earlier that year: The hijackers were just the tip 195 00:14:12,900 --> 00:14:17,980 of a vast, international terrorist network which was called, "Al Qaeda". 196 00:14:21,740 --> 00:14:25,460 Al Qaeda is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. 197 00:14:26,620 --> 00:14:30,140 There are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries. 198 00:14:30,180 --> 00:14:36,220 They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods, and brought to camps 199 00:14:36,260 --> 00:14:41,700 in places like Afghanistan, where they are trained in the tactics of terror. 200 00:14:42,020 --> 00:14:46,900 This one network, Al Qaeda, that's receiving so much discussion and publicity 201 00:14:46,940 --> 00:14:52,300 make have activities in 50 to 60 countries, including the United States. 202 00:14:52,380 --> 00:14:58,100 Our war is against networks and groups, people who coddle them 203 00:14:58,140 --> 00:15:03,380 people who try to hide them, people who fund them. This is our calling. 204 00:15:04,020 --> 00:15:06,380 And the attacks had another dramatic effect: 205 00:15:06,420 --> 00:15:10,100 they brought the neoconservatives back to power in America 206 00:15:11,580 --> 00:15:13,820 When George Bush first became president 207 00:15:13,860 --> 00:15:17,140 he had appointed neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz 208 00:15:17,580 --> 00:15:20,780 and their allies like Donald Rumsfeld, to his administration. 209 00:15:21,700 --> 00:15:27,380 But their grand vision of America's role in the world was largely ignored by this new regi. 210 00:15:29,060 --> 00:15:32,900 I just don't think it's the role of the United States to walk into another country and say 211 00:15:32,940 --> 00:15:34,860 "We do it this way, so should you." 212 00:15:35,020 --> 00:15:37,100 But now 213 00:15:37,340 --> 00:15:43,180 We're going to find those who, uh, who, uh, uh, those evil doers. 214 00:15:43,940 --> 00:15:46,900 But now, the neoconservatives became all-powerful 215 00:15:46,940 --> 00:15:52,900 because this terror network proved that what they had been predicting through the 1990s was correct: 216 00:15:53,420 --> 00:15:58,020 that America was at risk from terrifying new forces in a hostile world. 217 00:15:59,100 --> 00:16:03,060 A small group formed that began to shape America's response to the attacks. 218 00:16:03,700 --> 00:16:09,700 At its heart were Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, along with the vice-president, Dick Cheney 219 00:16:10,540 --> 00:16:13,860 and Ric Perle, who was a senior advisor to the Pentagon. 220 00:16:15,220 --> 00:16:20,700 The last time these men had been in power together was 20 years before, under President Reagan. 221 00:16:21,380 --> 00:16:24,580 Back then, they had taken on and, as they saw it 222 00:16:24,620 --> 00:16:29,940 defeated a source of evil that wanted to take over America: the Soviet Union. 223 00:16:30,940 --> 00:16:36,060 And now they saw this new war on terror in the same epic terms. 224 00:16:36,500 --> 00:16:39,740 The struggle against Soviet totalitarianism 225 00:16:39,900 --> 00:16:43,820 was a struggle between fundamental value questions. 226 00:16:43,860 --> 00:16:50,940 "Good" and "evil" is about as effective a shorthand as I can imagine in this regard 227 00:16:50,980 --> 00:16:56,180 and there's something rather similar going on in the war on terror. 228 00:16:56,220 --> 00:16:59,540 It isn't a war on terror, it's a war on terrorists who want. 229 00:16:59,580 --> 00:17:03,900 to impose an intolerant tyranny on all mankind 230 00:17:03,940 --> 00:17:11,660 an Islamic universe in which we are all compelled to accept their beliefs and live by their lights 231 00:17:11,700 --> 00:17:15,820 and in that sense this is a battle between good and evil. 232 00:17:18,340 --> 00:17:20,540 But, as previous episodes have shown 233 00:17:20,580 --> 00:17:24,660 the neoconservatives distorted and exaggerated the Soviet threat. 234 00:17:25,660 --> 00:17:30,900 They created the image of a hidden, international web of evil run from Moscow 235 00:17:30,940 --> 00:17:34,580 that planned to dominate the world, when, in reality 236 00:17:34,620 --> 00:17:38,420 the Soviet Union was on its last legs, collapsing from within. 237 00:17:40,540 --> 00:17:42,500 Now, they did the same with the Islamists. 238 00:17:42,500 --> 00:17:42,700 Now, they did the same with the Islamists. Can Soviet imperialism be halted? 239 00:17:42,700 --> 00:17:43,260 Can Soviet imperialism be halted? 240 00:17:43,260 --> 00:17:46,820 They took a failing movement which had lost mass support Can Soviet imperialism be halted? 241 00:17:46,860 --> 00:17:51,420 and began to reconstruct it into the image of a powerful network of evil 242 00:17:51,540 --> 00:17:56,500 controlled from the center by Bin Laden from his lair in Afghanistan. 243 00:17:57,740 --> 00:18:02,220 They did this because it fitted with their vision of America's unique destiny 244 00:18:02,260 --> 00:18:07,220 to fight an epic battle against the forces of evil throughout the world. 245 00:18:07,980 --> 00:18:11,580 What the neoconservatives are doing is taking a concept 246 00:18:11,700 --> 00:18:15,060 that they developed during the competition with the Soviet Union 247 00:18:15,100 --> 00:18:17,940 I.e., Soviet Communism was evil 253 248 00:18:24,180 --> 00:18:30,780 It was that kind of concept of evil that they took - an exaggerated one, to be sure - and then apply it to a new threat 249 00:18:30,820 --> 00:18:36,380 where it didn't apply at all, and yet it was layered with the same kind of cultural baggage. 250 00:18:36,460 --> 00:18:40,700 The policy says there's a network, the policy says that network is evil 251 00:18:40,740 --> 00:18:45,020 they want to infiltrate our classrooms, they want to take our society 252 00:18:45,060 --> 00:18:47,460 they want all our women to wear, you know, veils 253 00:18:48,100 --> 00:18:52,740 and this is what we have to deal with and therefore since we know it's evil let's just kill it 254 00:18:52,780 --> 00:18:54,780 and that will make it go away. 255 00:18:57,100 --> 00:19:00,420 And so the Americans set off to invafghanistan 256 00:19:00,500 --> 00:19:03,620 to find and destroy the heart of this network. 257 00:19:13,620 --> 00:19:18,060 To do this, the Americans allied themselves with a group called the Northern Alliance. 258 00:19:18,500 --> 00:19:23,220 They were a loose collection of warlords, fighting a war of resistance against the Taliban 259 00:19:23,260 --> 00:19:25,500 the Islamists who controlled Afghanistan. 260 00:19:26,860 --> 00:19:33,500 The Taliban's best troops were the thousands of foreign fighters from the training camps, who the Northern Alliance hated. 261 00:19:40,380 --> 00:19:43,820 And now, they took their revenge on the foreign fighters. 262 00:19:45,900 --> 00:19:53,380 The Americans believed that these men were Al Qaeda terrorists, and the Northern Alliance did nothing to disabuse them of this 263 00:19:53,460 --> 00:19:57,060 because they were paid by the Americans for each prisoner they delivered. 264 00:20:05,300 --> 00:20:11,820 Both they and the Taliban were radical nationalists who wanted to create Islamist societies in their own countries. 265 00:20:12,940 --> 00:20:17,180 But now, they were either killed or taken off to Guant嫕amo Bay 266 00:20:18,580 --> 00:20:25,100 and Islamism, as an organised movement for changing the Muslim world, was obliterated in Afghanistan. 267 00:20:25,820 --> 00:20:33,220 But as it disappeared, it was replaced by ever more extravagant fantasies about the power and reach of the Al Qaeda network. 268 00:20:34,220 --> 00:20:39,980 In December, the Northern Alliance told the Americans that Bin Laden was hiding in the mountains of Tora Bora. 269 00:20:40,420 --> 00:20:44,380 They were convinced they had found the heart of his organisation. 270 00:20:44,900 --> 00:20:50,020 The search for Osama Bin Laden: There was constant discussion about him hiding out in caves 271 00:20:50,060 --> 00:20:54,900 and I think many times the American people have a perception that it's a little hole dug out of the side of a mountain. 272 00:20:54,940 --> 00:20:55,660 Oh, no. 273 00:20:55,700 --> 00:20:57,220 This is it. This is a fortress. 274 00:20:57,260 --> 00:20:57,980 Yes. 275 00:20:58,020 --> 00:21:01,820 A complex. Multi-tiered. "Bedrooms and Offices" on the top, as you can see. 276 00:21:01,860 --> 00:21:07,300 "Secret Exits" on the side, and on the bottom. "Cut Deep to Avoid Thermal Detection." 277 00:21:07,340 --> 00:21:14,220 A ventilation system, to allow people to breathe and to carry on. The entrances, large enough to drive trucks and even tanks. 278 00:21:14,260 --> 00:21:19,540 Even computer systems and telephone systems. It's a very sophisticated operation. 279 00:21:19,580 --> 00:21:24,900 Oh, you bet. This is serious business. And there's not one of se; there are many of those. 280 00:21:29,500 --> 00:21:34,500 For days, the Americans bombed the mountains of Tora Bora with the most powerful weapons they had. 281 00:21:36,100 --> 00:21:40,220 The Northern Alliance had been paid more than a million dollars for their help and information 282 00:21:40,260 --> 00:21:45,380 and now their fighters set off up the mountains to storm Bin Laden's fortress 283 00:21:45,500 --> 00:21:49,180 ..and bring back the Al Qaeda terrorists and their leader. 284 00:21:51,900 --> 00:21:57,900 But all they found were a few small caves, which were either empty or had been used to store ammunition. 285 00:21:58,540 --> 00:22:04,780 There was no underground bunker system, no secret tunnels: the fortress didn't exist 286 00:22:05,740 --> 00:22:10,420 The Northern Alliance did produce some prisoners they claimed were Al Qaeda fighters 287 00:22:10,460 --> 00:22:16,540 but there was no proof of this, and one rumor was at the Northern Alliance was simply kidnapping anyone 288 00:22:16,580 --> 00:22:21,460 who looked remotely like an Arab and selling them to the Americans for yet more money. 289 00:22:25,620 --> 00:22:32,780 The Americans now began to search all the caves in all the mountains in eastern Afghanistan for the hidden Al Qaeda network. 290 00:22:33,660 --> 00:22:37,580 We found a cave. The rest of it is open. Break. 291 00:22:37,900 --> 00:22:43,940 If nobody went up to look into that cave, people could've been hiding up there for days and watching everything that we did. 292 00:22:46,220 --> 00:22:51,900 But wherever they looked, there was nothing there. Al Qaeda seemed to have completely disappeared. 293 00:22:55,660 --> 00:23:01,140 But then, the British arrived to help. They were convinced they could hunt down Al Qaeda 294 00:23:01,180 --> 00:23:06,220 because of what they said was their unique experience in fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland. 295 00:23:07,020 --> 00:23:09,620 They could succeed where others had failed. 296 00:23:11,020 --> 00:23:15,980 The hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban goes on. 297 00:23:16,140 --> 00:23:20,900 And we stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States 298 00:23:20,940 --> 00:23:26,500 and our other coalition allies in the global war on terrorism. 299 00:23:26,740 --> 00:23:31,140 Five weeks later. 300 00:23:31,660 --> 00:23:33,580 But how many Al Qaeda have you captured? 301 00:23:33,900 --> 00:23:36,140 We haven't, uh, captured any Al Qaeda, but 302 00:23:36,300 --> 00:23:40,100 And how many have you actually managed to kill here in south-east Afghanistan? 303 00:23:40,140 --> 00:23:41,020 We haven't killed any. 304 00:23:45,580 --> 00:23:50,300 Ten thousand pieced of gold for the body of Ali Baba and the destruction of the band of thieves. 305 00:23:58,260 --> 00:24:04,060 The terrible truth was that there was nothing there because Al Qaeda as an ornisation did not exist. 306 00:24:05,260 --> 00:24:11,940 The attacks on America had been planned by a small group that had come together around Bin Laden in the late 90s. 307 00:24:12,780 --> 00:24:19,620 What united them was an idea. An extreme interpretation of Islamism developed by Ayman Zawahiri. 308 00:24:20,820 --> 00:24:25,540 With the American invasion, that group had been destroyed, killed or scattered. 309 00:24:26,260 --> 00:24:28,620 What was left was the idea 310 00:24:29,300 --> 00:24:34,940 and the real danger was the way this idea could inspire groups and individuals around the world 311 00:24:35,060 --> 00:24:37,460 who had no relationship to each other. 312 00:24:38,380 --> 00:24:43,980 In looking for an organisation, the Americans and the British were chasing a phantom enemy 313 00:24:44,140 --> 00:24:46,460 and missing the real threat. 314 00:24:50,260 --> 00:24:54,140 I was with the Royal Marines as they trooped around eastern Afghanistan 315 00:24:54,260 --> 00:25:01,020 and every time they got a location for a supposed Al Qaeda or Taliban element or base 316 00:25:01,060 --> 00:25:05,860 they'd turn up and there was no one there, or there'd be a few startled shepherds 317 00:25:05,940 --> 00:25:09,900 and that struck me then as being a wonderful image for the war on terror 318 00:25:09,980 --> 00:25:13,540 because people looking for something that isn't there. 319 00:25:14,500 --> 00:25:21,100 There is no organisation with its terrorist operatives, cells, sleeper cells, so on and so forth. 320 00:25:21,580 --> 00:25:29,260 What there is is an idea, prevalent among young, angry Muslim males 321 00:25:29,300 --> 00:25:30,740 throughout the Islamic world. 322 00:25:30,860 --> 00:25:33,980 That idea is what poses a threat. 323 00:25:36,260 --> 00:25:39,900 But the neoconservatives were now increasingly locked into this fantasy 324 00:25:44,460 --> 00:25:51,620 This is a network that has penetrated into some 60 countries, including very definitely our own 325 00:25:51,700 --> 00:25:52,740 and it's got to be rooted out. 326 00:25:52,780 --> 00:25:58,460 Our intelligence priority, in many ways, is getting after the network here in the United States first. 327 00:25:58,500 --> 00:26:01,980 We will do whatever we need to do to go after these networks and dismantle them. 328 00:26:03,300 --> 00:26:08,580 The American government set out to search for the Al Qaeda organisation inside its own country. 329 00:26:09,380 --> 00:26:14,740 Thousands were detained as all branches of the law and the military were told to look for terrorists. 330 00:26:16,100 --> 00:26:19,420 You don't really know what a terrorist looks like, what kind of car they drive, or anything else 339 331 00:26:23,020 --> 00:26:25,980 And, bit by bit, the government found the network: 332 00:26:26,580 --> 00:26:31,340 a series of hidden cells in cities across the country from Buffalo to Portland. 333 00:26:32,620 --> 00:26:36,140 We've thwarted terrorists in Buffalo 334 00:26:36,340 --> 00:26:40,980 and Seattle, Portland, Detroit 335 00:26:41,740 --> 00:26:45,660 North Carolina, and Tampa, Florida. 336 00:26:46,220 --> 00:26:50,420 We're determined to stop the enemy before he can strike our people. 337 00:26:51,300 --> 00:26:56,620 The Americans called them "sleeper cells," and decided that they had just been waiting to strike. 338 00:26:57,380 --> 00:27:04,420 But in reality there is very little evidence that any of those arrested had anything at all to do with terrorist plots. 339 00:27:04,820 --> 00:27:11,780 From Portland to the suburb of Buffalo called Lackawa, yet again the Americans were chasing a phantom enemy. 340 00:27:13,140 --> 00:27:19,020 They say "terrorist sleeper cell." That's what they call the Lackawanna people a terrorist sleeper cell 341 00:27:19,060 --> 00:27:23,220 the Detroit people a terrorist cell, the Portland people a terrorist cell. 342 00:27:23,260 --> 00:27:27,740 But when you look at the details, the facts just don't support that 343 00:27:27,780 --> 00:27:35,540 and they have not proved that any group within the United States has plotted to engage in any terrorist 344 00:27:35,580 --> 00:27:41,060 activity within the United States in all of the cases that they've brought since 9/11. 345 00:27:43,460 --> 00:27:48,620 The evidence behind all of the sleeper cell cases is flimsy and often bizarre. 346 00:27:51,620 --> 00:27:58,780 This tape was one of the central pieces of evidence in the first of the cases. It was found in a raid on this house in Detroit. 356 00:27:55,800> 00:28:00,240 Four Arab men were arrested on suspicion of being an Al Qaeda sleeper cell. 347 00:28:04,380 --> 00:28:07,980 They had been accused by another immigrant called Mr. Hmimssa. 348 00:28:08,780 --> 00:28:16,260 But Mr. Hmimssa was, in reality, an international con man with 12 aliases and wanted for fraud across America. 349 00:28:17,460 --> 00:28:23,580 Despite this, the FBI offered to reduce his sentence for fraud if he testified against the men. 350 00:28:24,500 --> 00:28:29,300 And to back up Mr. Hmimssa's allegations, the FBI turned to the videotape. 351 00:28:30,100 --> 00:28:37,700 On the surface it was the innocent record of a trip to Disneyland by a group of teenagers who had nothing to do with the accused 352 00:28:38,180 --> 00:28:42,180 but the government had discovered a hidden and sinister purpose to the tape. 353 00:28:43,900 --> 00:28:50,940 The government expert who has looked into surveillance tapes - "casing tapes," as he referrd to them - 354 00:28:51,660 --> 00:28:55,020 said that one of the objectives of making these kinds of tapes 355 00:28:55,060 --> 00:29:00,020 is to disguise the nature, the real purpose, of the tape 356 00:29:00,540 --> 00:29:06,820 and he explained it that the tape is made to look benign 357 00:29:06,860 --> 00:29:13,900 made to look like a tourist tape to obscure its real purpose as a tape to case Disneyland 358 00:29:14,060 --> 00:29:21,140 and that the very appearance of it as being just a tourist tape is actually evidence that it's not a tourist tape. 359 00:29:23,740 --> 00:29:27,500 Al-Jazeera, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Hello? 360 00:29:28,900 --> 00:29:33,420 I could never get past the fact that the tape just looked like a tourist tape. 361 00:29:33,500 --> 00:29:40,620 The Disneyland ride, for example, was a lengthy queue, people just making their way to the ride. 362 00:29:40,700 --> 00:29:47,380 The camera ccasionally pans to look at the rocks on the wall, made to look like an Indiana Jones movie 363 00:29:47,700 --> 00:29:54,380 and after several minutes the camera pans across and shows a trash can momentarily 364 00:29:54,420 --> 00:29:57,100 and then continues off to look into the crowd. 365 00:29:57,260 --> 00:30:02,820 The expert basically said that, by flashing on that trash can for a moment 366 00:30:02,860 --> 00:30:07,940 the people who are part of this conspiracy to conduct these kinds of terrorist operations 367 00:30:07,980 --> 00:30:13,700 they would understand what this is all about: how to locate a bomb in Disneyland in California. 368 00:30:14,660 --> 00:30:15,380 Hello! 369 00:30:15,700 --> 00:30:22,260 All the talking and bantering were intended to disguise the hidden message contained within the tape. 370 00:30:26,460 --> 00:30:29,940 The government was convinced that the tape was full of hidden messages. 371 00:30:30,540 --> 00:30:34,900 A brief shot of a tree outside the group's hotel room was there, they said 372 00:30:34,940 --> 00:30:38,940 to show where to place a sniper to attack the cars on the freeway. 373 00:30:40,660 --> 00:30:44,340 And what looked like a camera which had accidentally been left running 374 00:30:44,380 --> 00:30:50,980 was in reality a terrorist secretly counting out distances to show others where to place a bomb. 375 00:30:55,460 --> 00:31:01,820 And the government also said that the Detroit cell was planning to attack US military bases around the world. 376 00:31:02,580 --> 00:31:09,780 Yet again, they found hidden evidence of this in a day planner they discovered under the sofa in the house in Detroit. 377 00:31:10,820 --> 00:31:17,100 What looked like doodles were in reality, they said, a plan to attack a US base in Turkey. 378 00:31:19,780 --> 00:31:27,500 The government brought in its security officer from the base to testify that he interpreted this 379 00:31:27,580 --> 00:31:31,460 as being the main runways. 380 00:31:31,940 --> 00:31:34,500 She identified these 381 00:31:34,580 --> 00:31:39,700 as being AWACS airplanes and these as being fighter jets. 382 00:31:40,020 --> 00:31:47,660 She said that these solid lines were lines of fire and she also said that this down here was a hardened bunker. 383 00:31:49,620 --> 00:31:53,980 But the drawings in the day planner were discovered to have actually been the work of a madman. 384 00:31:54,500 --> 00:31:56,420 They were the fantasies of a Yemeni 385 00:31:56,460 --> 00:32:00,260 who believed that he was the minister of defence for the whole of the Middle East. 386 00:32:01,060 --> 00:32:05,900 He had committed suicide a year before any of the accused had arrived in Detroit 387 00:32:06,140 --> 00:32:09,340 leaving the day planner lying under the sofa in the house. 388 00:32:11,020 --> 00:32:14,140 Despite this, two of the accused were found guilty. 389 00:32:14,980 --> 00:32:18,180 But then, the government's only witness, Mr. Hmimssa 390 00:32:18,220 --> 00:32:24,140 told two of his cellmates that he had made the whole thing up to get his fraud charges reduced. 391 00:32:25,300 --> 00:32:29,380 The terrorism convictions have now been overturned by the judge in the case 392 00:32:30,380 --> 00:32:35,820 but it was acclaimed by the President as the first success in the war on terror at home. 393 00:32:38,900 --> 00:32:42,940 We have the terrorists on the run. We're keeping them on the run. 394 00:32:43,300 --> 00:32:48,060 One by one the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice. 395 00:32:53,660 --> 00:32:58,940 Another case, in the city of Buffalo, New York, seemed on the surface to be more substantial. 396 00:32:59,780 --> 00:33:04,460 Six young Yemeni-Americans had gone to an Islamist training camp in Afghanistan. 407 00:33:02,320 - 00:33:05,040 They travelled there in early 2001 397 00:33:08,580 --> 00:33:14,500 and spent between 2 and 6 weeks training and being taught Islamist revolutionary theory. 398 00:33:15,660 --> 00:33:19,460 Two of them even met Bin Laden on one of his tours of the camp. 399 00:33:20,260 --> 00:33:25,500 They then returned to the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna, where they lived, but they did nothing. 400 00:33:26,700 --> 00:33:32,100 The FBI heard about their trip and they watched the six men around the clock for nearly a year 401 00:33:33,300 --> 00:33:35,140 but there was no suspicious behavior. 402 00:33:36,180 --> 00:33:41,380 But then, one of the men, Mr. Al-Bakri, went to Bahrain and sent his friends an E-mail. 403 00:33:41,860 --> 00:33:45,820 It said he was going to get married and that he wouldn't be seeing them for awhile. 404 00:33:46,540 --> 00:33:51,380 The CIA, who had been monitoring their E-mails, understood this to be a coded message. 405 00:33:51,660 --> 00:33:55,780 The cell was about to launch a suicide attack on the US Fifth Fleet. 406 00:33:56,140 --> 00:34:02,660 The FBI, the government, took that phrase to mean something sinister. 407 00:34:02,780 --> 00:34:06,940 They believed that the word "wedding" was a code. 408 00:34:07,220 --> 00:34:15,020 They believed that the phrase "not seeing you anymore" indicated that Muktar Al-Bakri was a suicide bomber. 409 00:34:15,500 --> 00:34:20,540 The reality is that Mr. Al-Bakri was in Bahrain 410 00:34:20,580 --> 00:34:25,780 to get married and the reality of him getting married was 411 00:34:25,820 --> 00:34:28,540 that he wouldn't be around his friends anymore. 412 00:34:28,940 --> 00:34:31,620 Good afternoon. In the past 24 hours 413 00:34:31,660 --> 00:34:38,940 United States law enforcement has identified and disrupted an Al Qaeda trained terrorist cell on American soil. 414 00:34:39,660 --> 00:34:44,460 The arrests wer announced proudly by Washington as another sleeper cell plotting an attack. 415 00:34:44,900 --> 00:34:50,260 But it soon became clear that there was no evidence for this at all, other than the E-mail. 416 00:34:54,900 --> 00:35:02,100 And the best the government can point to as a sleeper cell are these, you know, young men in Lackawanna, in New York 417 00:35:02,140 --> 00:35:07,420 who, yes, went to Afghanistan, trained in an Al Qaeda training camp 418 00:35:07,460 --> 00:35:14,500 but to all appearances had no intention to ever take any action on the basis of that. 419 00:35:14,540 --> 00:35:18,460 One of them faked an injury to try to get out early. They came back to the United States. 420 00:35:18,500 --> 00:35:23,380 We had them under intensive surveillance and we found no evidence - not one shred of evidence - 421 00:35:23,420 --> 00:35:28,740 that they ever planned or intended to engage in any kind of criminal, much less terrorist, act. 422 00:35:28,780 --> 00:35:31,060 That's the best they can show for a sleeper cell. 423 00:35:32,380 --> 00:35:38,460 Faced with the fact that there was no evidence, the government quietly dropped any charges of their being a terrorist cell. 424 00:35:39,020 --> 00:35:45,020 Instead, they were prosecuted simply for having gone to the training camp, and for having bought uniforms there. 425 00:35:46,660 --> 00:35:49,140 And all the other cases were even flimsier: 426 00:35:49,740 --> 00:35:55,300 A group of students who supported the liberation of Kashmir were found paint-balling in the woods of Virginia. 427 00:35:55,860 --> 00:35:58,580 They were convicted of training to attack America. 428 00:36:00,780 --> 00:36:08,180 A group of African-Americans from Oregon tried to go to Afghanistan to support the Taliban but got lost in China. 429 00:36:09,700 --> 00:36:15,380 All these groups, the government said, were part of a hidden and terrifying Al Qaeda network. 441 0:36:13,360 --> 00:36:16,720 The government had a legitimate concern at the beginning 430 00:36:20,300 --> 00:36:25,740 but they let that concern, and they took it, and they made it a panic. 431 00:36:25,780 --> 00:36:32,940 They had reasonable questions and took them and made a complete fantasy out of them. 432 00:36:32,980 --> 00:36:40,300 They started out with a conclusion and then filled in all the blanks to the questions. 433 00:36:40,340 --> 00:36:48,180 So this was totally driven by the need - or the desire - to have terrorists. 434 00:36:48,900 --> 00:36:55,060 You build this conclusion based on this assumption, and this assumption, and this assumption 435 00:36:55,100 --> 00:36:59,660 and, sure, if you go - if you build assumptions upon assumptions, you can go anywhere! 436 00:37:04,780 --> 00:37:05,780 It's a work of imagination. 437 00:37:05,940 --> 00:37:12,540 It is. It's a fantasy, and it's a fantasy that it was politically expedieno sell. 438 00:37:13,340 --> 00:37:18,180 And make no mistake about it: we got a war here just like we got a war abroad. 439 00:37:21,060 --> 00:37:26,060 In Britain, too, the government and most of the media have created the overwhelming impression that 440 00:37:26,100 --> 00:37:30,380 there is a hidden network of Al Qaeda sleeper cells waiting to attack. 441 00:37:32,860 --> 00:37:35,220 But, yet again, there is very little evidence for this. 442 00:37:36,140 --> 00:37:41,420 Of the 664 people arrested under the Terrorism Act since September the 11th 443 00:37:41,460 --> 00:37:45,420 none of them have been convicted of belonging to Al Qaeda. 444 00:37:46,660 --> 00:37:51,820 Only 3 people have so far been convicted of having any association 445 00:37:51,900 --> 00:37:57,580 with any Islamist groups, and none of those convictions were for being involved in a terror plot; 446 00:37:57,980 --> 00:38:01,500 they were for fundraising, or posessing Islamist literature. 447 00:38:03,700 --> 00:38:08,100 The majority of people convicted under the Terrorism Act since September the 11th 448 00:38:08,140 --> 00:38:14,100 have actually been members of Irish terrorist groups like the UVF or the Real IRA. 449 00:38:16,260 --> 00:38:21,220 And many of the arrests that were dramatically announced as being part of a hidden Al Qaeda network 450 00:38:21,260 --> 00:38:24,700 were, in reality, as absurd as the cases in America. 451 00:38:26,060 --> 00:38:30,340 For example, the London police swooped on a Mr. Zain Ul-Abedin 452 00:38:30,380 --> 00:38:34,300 who they said was running an international network for terrorist training. 453 00:38:35,540 --> 00:38:38,700 It turned out to be a self-defence course for bodyguards. 454 00:38:38,820 --> 00:38:45,900 He called it "Ultimate Jihad Challenge". His only client was a security guard from a supermarket 455 00:38:45,980 --> 00:38:51,420 who wanted to learn how to defend himself against shoplifters. 456 00:38:51,460 --> 00:38:53,620 Mr. Zain Ul-Abedin was cleared of all charges. 457 00:38:55,820 --> 00:39:00,300 Then there was the Hogmanay terror cell who, it was alleged, were planning to attack Edinburgh. 458 00:39:01,100 --> 00:39:06,020 All charges against them were quietly dropped when it was revealed that a key part of the evidence 459 00:39:06,060 --> 00:39:14,020 a map that showed the targets they were going to attack, turned out to have been left in their flat by an Australian backpacker 460 00:39:14,060 --> 00:39:16,500 who had ringed the tourist sites he wanted to see. 461 00:39:19,780 --> 00:39:25,340 And even the most frightening and high profile of the plots uncovered turned out to be without foundation. 462 00:39:26,140 --> 00:39:30,460 No one was ever arrested for planning gas attacks on the London tubes 463 00:39:30,500 --> 00:39:33,820 it was a fantasy that swept through the media. 464 00:39:35,780 --> 00:39:41,380 Just as in America, there is no evidence yet of the terrifying and sinister network 465 00:39:41,460 --> 00:39:43,980 lurking under the surface of our society 466 00:39:44,220 --> 00:39:49,180 which both government and the media continually tell us is there. 467 00:39:51,580 --> 00:39:52,780 So there was no network. 468 00:39:52,820 --> 00:39:53,540 No. 469 00:39:53,660 --> 00:39:54,540 Never? 470 00:39:54,580 --> 00:39:55,540 Probably not. 471 00:39:56,420 --> 00:39:57,540 We invented it. 472 00:39:58,500 --> 00:40:05,100 "Invention" is too string a term. I think we projected it, we projected our own worst fears 473 00:40:05,820 --> 00:40:09,380 and that what we see is a fantasy that's been created. 474 00:40:10,340 --> 00:40:12,820 Al Qaeda is a global network with global reach. 475 00:40:13,060 --> 00:40:14,740 The target, a deadly web of terror. 488 476 00:40:19,220 --> 00:40:25,740 What I am saying is that we have an exaggerated perception of the possibility of terrorism that is quite disabling 477 00:40:25,780 --> 00:40:30,420 and we only need to look at the evidence to understand that the figures simply don't bear out 478 00:40:30,460 --> 00:40:32,460 the way that we have responded as a society. 479 00:40:33,820 --> 00:40:40,140 What the British and American governments have done is both distort and exaggerate the real nature of the threat. 480 00:40:41,020 --> 00:40:46,940 There are dangerous and fanatical groups around the world who've been inspired by the extreme Islamist theories 481 00:40:47,460 --> 00:40:54,900 and they are prepared to use the techniques of mass terror on civilians. The bombings in Madrid showed this only too clearly. 482 00:40:56,100 --> 00:40:58,020 But this is not a new phenomeno 483 00:40:58,100 --> 00:41:04,980 What is new is the way the American and other governments have transformed this complex and disparate threat 484 00:41:05,100 --> 00:41:13,100 into a simplistic fantasy of an organised web of uniquely powerful terrorists who may strike anywhere and at any moment. 485 00:41:14,220 --> 00:41:20,140 But no one questioned this fantasy because, increasingly, it was serving the interests of so many people. 486 00:41:23,620 --> 00:41:31,300 For the press, television, and hundreds of terrorism experts, the fact that it seemed so like fiction made it irresistible to their audiences. 487 00:41:32,740 --> 00:41:36,820 And the Islamists, too, began to realise that by feeding this media fantasy 488 00:41:36,900 --> 00:41:42,180 they could become a powerful organisation - if only in people's imaginations. 489 00:41:44,460 --> 00:41:49,460 The prime mover in this was one of Bin Laden's associates, who had been captured by the Americs. 490 00:41:49,900 --> 00:41:57,020 He was called Abu Zubaydah. He began to tell his interrogators of terrifying plots that Al Qaeda was preparing 491 00:41:57,820 --> 00:42:03,740 some of which, he said, they had copied from Hollywood movies like Godzilla, which they had watched in Afghanistan. 492 00:42:06,540 --> 00:42:09,180 Zubaydah told the interrogators 493 00:42:09,220 --> 00:42:15,260 a set of stories based on what he thought would alarm us. 494 00:42:15,500 --> 00:42:17,420 He told us, for example 495 00:42:17,460 --> 00:42:24,820 coming out of a movie that had been recent at that time, Godzilla, in which the Brooklyn Bridge was destroyed by the monster 496 00:42:25,300 --> 00:42:29,420 he told us that Al Qaeda was interested in destroying the Brooklyn Bridge. 497 00:42:29,460 --> 00:42:35,620 He told us of attacks on mass transit sources like subway trains. 498 00:42:35,780 --> 00:42:41,980 He told us there were intentions of attacking apartment buildings and shopping centers 499 00:42:42,020 --> 00:42:45,460 the Statue of Liberty, all manner of things. 500 00:42:49,820 --> 00:42:57,700 Recent intelligence reports suggest that Al Qaeda leaders have emphasised planning for attacks on apartment buildings 501 00:42:57,740 --> 00:43:03,020 hotels, and other soft or lightly secured targets in the United States. 502 00:43:03,220 --> 00:43:08,860 Terrorists are considering physical attacks against US financial institutions. 503 00:43:10,660 --> 00:43:16,780 And Abu Zubaydah also told his interrogators of a terrifying new weapon the Islamists intended to use: 504 00:43:16,820 --> 00:43:22,580 an explosive device that could spray radiation through cities, the "dirty bomb". 505 00:43:24,260 --> 00:43:27,860 First, a CBS News exclusive about a captured Al Qaeda leader 506 00:43:27,900 --> 00:43:35,500 who says his fellow terrorists have the know-how to build a very dangerous weapon and get it to the United States. 507 00:43:36,660 --> 00:43:43,420 And the media took the bait. They portrayed the dirty bomb as an extraordinary weapon that would kill thousands of people 508 00:43:43,740 --> 00:43:47,620 and, in the process, they made the hidden enemy even more terrifying. 509 00:43:48,860 --> 00:43:52,900 But, in reality, the threat of a dirty bomb is yet another illusion. 510 00:43:55,740 --> 00:43:59,860 Its aim is to spread radioactive material through a conventional explosion. 511 00:43:59,900 --> 00:44:04,220 But almost all studies of such a possible weapon have concluded 512 00:44:04,260 --> 00:44:11,060 that the radiation spread in this way would not kill anybody because the radioactive material would be so dispersed 513 00:44:11,980 --> 00:44:16,740 and, providing the area was cleaned promptly, the long-term effects would be negligible. 514 00:44:17,260 --> 00:44:22,980 In the past, both the American army and the Iraqi military tested such devices 515 00:44:23,020 --> 00:44:28,620 and both concluded that they were completely ineffectual weapons for this very reason. 516 00:44:30,060 --> 00:44:32,260 How dangerous would a dirty bomb be? 517 00:44:32,820 --> 00:44:37,660 The deaths would be few, if any, and the answer is, probably none. 518 00:44:38,500 --> 00:44:39,220 Really? 519 00:44:39,260 --> 00:44:45,300 Yes. And that's been said over and over again, but then people immediately say after that: 520 00:44:45,340 --> 00:44:48,260 "But, you know, people won't believe that, and they'll panic." 521 00:44:48,780 --> 00:44:56,260 And then all the people working on this project, you know, the defence and so forth, breathe a big sigh of relief because they got their problem back. 522 00:44:56,300 --> 00:44:57,820 You know, we're gonna all panic. 523 00:44:57,860 --> 00:45:03,420 I don't think it would kill anybody and I think you'll have troubling a serious report that would claim otherwise. 524 00:45:03,700 --> 00:45:06,860 The Department of Energy actually set up such a test 525 00:45:06,900 --> 00:45:12,460 and they actually measured what happened. And they the measurements were extremely low. 526 00:45:12,700 --> 00:45:20,020 They calculated that the most exposed individual would get a fairly high dose - not life-threatening, but fairly high - 527 00:45:20,620 --> 00:45:27,620 and I checked into how the calculation was done, and they assume that after the attack, no one moves for one year. 528 00:45:28,740 --> 00:45:31,060 One year. Now, that's ridiculous. 529 00:45:31,820 --> 00:45:36,860 The dirty bomb - the danger from radioactivity is basically next to nothing. 530 00:45:36,940 --> 00:45:41,860 The danger from panic, however, is horrendous. 531 00:45:41,900 --> 00:45:48,620 That's where the irony comes. This - instead of the government saying, "Look, this is not a serious weapon 532 00:45:48,660 --> 00:45:56,140 the serious danger of this is the panic that would ensue, and there is no reason for panic. Don't panic." 533 00:46:00,020 --> 00:46:05,540 Ladies and gentlemen, this is not the end of our show; however, something very much like this could happen at any moment. 534 00:46:05,580 --> 00:46:09,260 We just thought we ought to prepare you and more or less put you in the mood. 535 00:46:11,180 --> 00:46:12,060 Thank you. 536 00:46:12,260 --> 00:46:13,660 And now, back to our story. 537 00:46:15,020 --> 00:46:21,180 The scale of this fantasy just kept growing as more and more groups realised the power it gave them. 538 00:46:22,100 --> 00:46:25,940 Above all, the group that had been instrumental in first spreading the idea: 539 00:46:25,980 --> 00:46:32,580 the neoconservatives. Because they now found that they could use it to help them realise their vision: 540 00:46:32,620 --> 00:46:37,660 that America had a special desiny to overcome evil in the world 541 00:46:37,740 --> 00:46:43,220 and this epic mission would give meaning and purpose to the American people. 542 00:46:45,100 --> 00:46:47,980 To do this, they were going to start with Iraq 543 00:46:48,060 --> 00:46:53,140 and, just as they had discovered a hidden reality of terror beneath the surface in America 544 00:46:54,020 --> 00:46:58,260 they now found hidden links that previously no one had suspected 545 00:46:58,300 --> 00:47:02,260 between the Al Qaeda network and Saddam Hussein. 546 00:47:05,300 --> 00:47:11,420 Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody 547 00:47:11,500 --> 00:47:15,660 reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists 548 00:47:16,980 --> 00:47:19,220 including members of Al Qaeda. 549 00:47:19,620 --> 00:47:26,540 Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein. 550 00:47:27,220 --> 00:47:32,620 I continue to be amazed at the people who say there are no links. It simply isn't true. 551 00:47:33,220 --> 00:47:40,940 What hasn't been established is a direct link between Saddam's intelligence and the 9/11 plotters 552 00:47:40,980 --> 00:47:46,220 although even there there is evidence that suggests, very possibly 553 00:47:46,260 --> 00:47:49,860 facilitation and assistance to the 9/11 hijackers. 554 00:47:50,140 --> 00:47:50,900 There really is evidence? 555 00:47:50,940 --> 00:47:52,020 There really is evidence. 556 00:47:52,460 --> 00:47:58,020 So, when people say there is no association between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, they're wrong. 557 00:47:58,060 --> 00:47:58,980 They're flatly wrong. 558 00:47:59,620 --> 00:48:00,340 Really? 559 00:48:00,380 --> 00:48:01,820 Absolutely wrong. 560 00:48:02,380 --> 00:48:05,180 The bombing has started. 574 00:48:01,720 --> 00:48:0 Okay, okay, start buying 561 00:48:12,620 --> 00:48:19,260 The driving force behind these new global policies in the war on terror was the power of a dark fantasy: 562 00:48:21,060 --> 00:48:25,380 a sinister web of hidden and interlinked threats that stretched around the world. 563 00:48:28,340 --> 00:48:35,500 And such was the power of that fantasy that it also began to transform the very nature of politics because 564 00:48:35,540 --> 00:48:41,620 increasingly, politicians were discovering that their ability to imagine the future and the terrible dangers it held 565 00:48:41,660 --> 00:48:45,180 gave them a new and heroic role in the world. 566 00:48:47,180 --> 00:48:50,860 In the post-War years, politicians had also used their imaginations 567 00:48:51,500 --> 00:48:56,620 but to project optimistic visions of a better future that they could create for their people 568 00:48:57,580 --> 00:49:01,260 and it was these visions that gave them power and authority. 569 00:49:05,060 --> 00:49:11,780 But those dreams collapsed, and politicians like Tony Blair became more like managers of public life 570 00:49:11,820 --> 00:49:15,260 their policies determined often by focus groups. 571 00:49:17,380 --> 00:49:24,340 But now, the war on terror allowed politicians like Blair to portray a new, grand vision of the future. 572 00:49:25,820 --> 00:49:29,580 But this vision was a dark one of imagined threats 573 00:49:29,620 --> 00:49:36,500 and a new force began to drive politics: the fear of an imagined future. 574 00:49:36,820 --> 00:49:40,780 Not a conventional fear about a conventional threat. 575 00:49:42,700 --> 00:49:48,180 But the fear that one day these new threats of weapons of mass destruction 576 00:49:48,220 --> 00:49:54,780 rogue states, and international terrorism combine to deliver a catastrophe to our world. 577 00:49:56,460 --> 00:50:04,020 And then the shame of knowing that I saw that threat, day after day, and did nothing to stop it. 578 00:50:04,180 --> 00:50:10,460 It may not erupt and engulf us this month or next 579 00:50:10,500 --> 00:50:13,700 perhaps not even this year or next 580 00:50:14,340 --> 00:50:20,780 I just think these dangers are there, I think that it's difficult sometimes for people to see how they all come together 581 00:50:20,820 --> 00:50:24,220 I think that it's my duty to tell it to you if I really believe it, and I do really believe it. 582 00:50:24,260 --> 00:50:26,380 I may be wrong in believing it, but I do believe it. 583 00:50:27,740 --> 00:50:31,860 What Blair argued was that faced by the new threat of a global terror network 584 00:50:32,060 --> 00:50:35,020 the politician's role was now to look into the future 585 00:50:35,100 --> 00:50:40,340 and imagine the worst that might happen and then act ahead of time to prevent it. 600 586 00:50:46,700 --> 00:50:49,340 It was called the "precautionary principle". 587 00:50:51,100 --> 00:50:56,940 Back in the 1980s, thinkers within the ecology movement believed the world was being threatened by global warming. 588 00:50:57,860 --> 00:51:01,140 But at the time there was little scientific evidence to prove this. 589 00:51:01,820 --> 00:51:08,420 So they put forward the radical idea that governments had a higher duty: They couldn't wait for the evidence 590 00:51:08,460 --> 00:51:10,460 because by then it would be too late. 591 00:51:10,580 --> 00:51:17,500 They had to act imaginatively, on intuition, in order to save the world from a looming catastrophe. 592 00:51:19,220 --> 00:51:22,180 In essence, the precautionary principle says that not having the evidence 593 00:51:22,220 --> 00:51:25,660 that something might be a problem 609 0:51:22,240 --> 00:51:27,360 is not a reason for not taking action as if it were a problem. 594 00:51:31,060 --> 00:51:38,540 That's a very famous triple-negative phrase that effectively says that action without evidence is justified. 595 00:51:38,660 --> 00:51:42,260 It requires imagining what the worst might be and 596 00:51:42,300 --> 00:51:47,260 applying that imagination upon the worst evidence that currently exists. 597 00:51:47,900 --> 00:51:52,780 Would Al Qaeda buy weapons of mass destruction if they could? Certainly. 598 00:51:53,460 --> 00:51:59,340 Does it have the financial resources? Probably. Would it use such weapons? Definitely. 599 00:51:59,860 --> 00:52:04,020 But once you start imagining what could happen, then there's no limit. 600 00:52:04,060 --> 00:52:10,380 What if they had access to it? What if they could effectively deploy it? What if we weren't prepared? 601 00:52:10,420 --> 00:52:16,180 What it is is a shift from the sciific, "What is" evidence-based decision making 602 00:52:16,220 --> 00:52:18,500 to this speculative 603 00:52:18,540 --> 00:52:21,540 imaginary, "What if" - based, worst case scenario. 604 00:52:23,100 --> 00:52:27,820 And it was this principle that now began to shape government policy in the war on terror. 605 00:52:28,620 --> 00:52:35,860 In both America and Britain, individuals were detained in high-security prisons, not for any crimes they had committed 606 00:52:36,100 --> 00:52:41,860 but because the politicians believed - or imagined - that they might commit an atrocity in the future 607 00:52:42,060 --> 00:52:45,380 even though there was no evidence they intended to do this. 608 00:52:46,340 --> 00:52:52,620 The American attorney general explained this shift to what he called the "paradigm of prevention." 609 00:52:53,780 --> 00:52:58,220 We had to make a shift in the way we thought about things. So being reactive 610 00:52:58,500 --> 00:53:03,660 waiting for a crime to be committed, or waiting for there to be evidence of the commission of a crime 611 00:53:03,700 --> 00:53:06,900 didn't seem to us to be an appropriate way to protect the American people. 612 00:53:07,380 --> 00:53:10,060 Under the preventive paradigm, instead of 613 00:53:10,140 --> 00:53:14,740 holding people accountable for what you can prove that they have done in the past.. 614 00:53:15,260 --> 00:53:20,820 you lock them up based on what you think or speculate they might do in the future. 615 00:53:20,860 --> 00:53:25,740 And how-how can a person who's locked up based on what you think they might do in the future 616 00:53:25,780 --> 00:53:28,740 disprove your speculation? 617 00:53:28,780 --> 00:53:36,340 It's impossible, and so what ends up happening is the government short-circuits all the processes that are designed to distinguish 618 00:53:36,380 --> 00:53:39,580 the innot from the guilty because they simply don't fit 619 00:53:39,620 --> 00:53:43,660 this mode of locking people up for what they might do in the future. 620 00:53:45,260 --> 00:53:47,420 The supporters of the precautionary principle 621 00:53:47,460 --> 00:53:52,500 argue that this loss of rights is the price that society has to pay when faced by 622 00:53:52,540 --> 00:53:56,060 the unique and terrifying threat of the Al Qaeda network. 623 00:53:57,020 --> 00:54:03,180 But, as this series has shown, the idea of a hidden, organised web of terror is largely a fantasy 624 00:54:04,500 --> 00:54:10,460 and by embracing the precautionary principle, the politicians have become trapped in a vicious circle: 625 00:54:11,100 --> 00:54:15,980 they imagine the worst about an organisation that doesn't even exist. 626 00:54:16,980 --> 00:54:21,620 But no one questions this because the very basis of the precautionary principle 643 627 00:54:26,460 --> 00:54:31,620 And, instead, those with the darkest imaginations become the most influential. 628 00:54:32,940 --> 00:54:38,340 You'll hear about meetings where terrorist matters are discussed in the intelligence community 629 00:54:38,380 --> 00:54:44,020 and always the person with the most dire assessment, the person with the 630 00:54:44,060 --> 00:54:48,900 who has the kind of, the strongest sense that something should be done 631 00:54:49,100 --> 00:54:52,700 will frequently carry the day at meetings. 632 00:54:53,260 --> 00:54:57,740 We thus believe the most dire estimate of what could happen here. 633 00:54:58,620 --> 00:55:00,940 The sense of disbelief has vanished. 634 00:55:01,300 --> 00:55:04,700 So the person with the most vivid imagination becomes the most powerful. 635 00:55:04,740 --> 00:55:06,540 In a sense, that's correct. 636 00:55:13,100 --> 00:55:18,340 There will be an attack. It is "when" within the United Kingdom. I think the "if" is academic. 637 00:55:18,740 --> 00:55:22,620 It is only a matter of time, and its potential is huge. 638 00:55:24,900 --> 00:55:30,780 How will we ever know when it's over? How will we ever know when the threat is gone? 639 00:55:30,820 --> 00:55:34,500 In the mindset we are now in 640 00:55:34,780 --> 00:55:39,740 once we declare it to be over - will be exactly the time that we believe that they will strike. 641 00:55:40,540 --> 00:55:45,260 You know, uh, it's just-it's the way we live today. We're living on a knife edge. 642 00:55:46,140 --> 00:55:52,940 This story began over 30 years ago as the dream that politics could create a better world began to fall apart. 643 00:55:53,620 --> 00:55:59,060 Out of that collapse came two groupse Islamists and the neoconservatives. 644 00:56:00,180 --> 00:56:05,300 Looking back, we can now see that these groups were the last political idealists 645 00:56:05,340 --> 00:56:07,140 who in an age of growing disillusion 646 00:56:07,180 --> 00:56:11,620 tried to reassert the inspirational power of political visions 647 00:56:11,660 --> 00:56:13,940 that would give meaning to people's lives. We will fight for an Islamic State, we will die for it! 648 00:56:13,940 --> 00:56:15,260 We will fight for an Islamic State, we will die for it! 649 00:56:15,260 --> 00:56:16,700 But both have failed in their attempts to transform the world and We will fight for an Islamic State, we will die for it! 650 00:56:16,700 --> 00:56:19,260 But both have failed in their attempts to transform the world 651 00:56:19,300 --> 00:56:26,460 and instead, together they have created today's strange fantasy of fear which politicians have seized on. 670 006:23,440 --> 00:56:27,800 Because in an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility 652 00:56:31,500 --> 00:56:37,060 fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power. 653 00:56:37,660 --> 00:56:44,100 And we have seen Americans in uniform storming mountain strongholds and charging through sandstorms. 654 00:56:47,220 --> 00:56:49,820 We have fought the terrorists across the earth 655 00:56:49,900 --> 00:56:55,900 because the lives of our citizens are at stake. And America and the world are safer. 656 00:56:55,980 --> 00:56:57,660 The stakes are high. 657 00:56:57,740 --> 00:57:04,660 We are a nation at war, a global war on terror against the enemy unlike we've ever known before. 658 00:57:04,700 --> 00:57:07,980 Faced with that choice I will defend America every time. 659 00:57:08,740 --> 00:57:12,940 In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda. 660 00:57:13,180 --> 00:57:17,060 Whist the 20th century was dominated between a conflict 661 00:57:17,100 --> 00:57:21,420 between a free-market Right and a socialist Left 662 00:57:21,460 --> 00:57:26,740 even though both of those outlooks had their limitations and their problems 663 00:57:26,780 --> 00:57:33,660 at least they believed in something, whereas what we are seeing now is a society that believes in nothing. 664 00:57:34,420 --> 00:57:39,700 And a society that believes in nothing is particularly frightened by people who believe in anything. 665 00:57:39,740 --> 00:57:45,740 And, therefore, we label those people as fundamentalists or fanatics 666 00:57:45,780 --> 00:57:51,860 and they have much greater purchase in terms of the fear that they instill in society than they truly deserve. 667 00:57:51,900 --> 00:57:57,980 But that's a measure of how much we have become isolated and atomised rather than of their inherent strength 668 00:57:59,740 --> 00:58:01,580 Butthe fear will not last 669 00:58:01,940 --> 00:58:09,300 and just as the dreams that politicians once promised turned out to be illusions, so, too, will the nightmares 670 00:58:09,700 --> 00:58:13,780 and then our politicians will have to face the fact 671 00:58:13,820 --> 00:58:19,380 that they have no visions, either good or bad, to offer us any longer.