Milton Bearden – Former CIA Station Chief in Pakistan, Germany, Nigeria, and Sudan. Served In Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, where he played a role in training the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Later served as the director of the Soviet/East European Division during the collapse of the Soviet Union. He received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the Intelligence Medal of Merit, and the Donovan Award for his CIA service. He received the Federal Cross of Merit from the President of the German Federal Republic for his service in Germany at the end of the Cold War. 30-year CIA career.
Currently author and commentator on intelligence services and terrorism.
Interview with Dan Rather, CBS News 9/12/01:
Dan Rather: If the President should come to you and ask you, "What do you think I should do?", what would you tell him?
Milton Bearden: ... Focus on finding out who did this thing yesterday and then dealing with it in a way that will not bring yet more troubles to us.
Dan Rather: Well, it's pretty obvious that a judgment is coalescing around the President that it was Osama bin Laden.
Milton Bearden: I know we live in a country where we're often told that the first thing that comes to your mind, put it down. Put the little mark in there. I feel slightly uncomfortable because I spent so many years wondering how the myth of Osama bin Laden got started. We have the Osama bin Laden who was the great war hero in Afghanistan. We have Osama bin Laden who was trained by CIA, funded and supported by CIA during three years of war. I was there at the same time bin Laden was there. He was not the great warrior that went and fought the Soviet Union to a standstill. The CIA had nothing to do with him. I think that that mythological Osama bin Laden, never mind that he's an absolutely evil man, but the mythological Osama bin Laden causes me trouble. And I think maybe there is another answer out there. I'm not certain that I know what it is.
Dan Rather: Milt Bearden again, you're one of our most experienced people with long experience in Afghanistan. What does your gut tell you about who's responsible about these attacks this week?
Milton Bearden: My gut tells me we don't know the answer yet. My gut tells me that I'm not going to go with the first answer that comes to mind, but there's quite possible something else out there. Experts will jump on you and say it's Osama bin Laden's MO. He's the only one that is capable of this type of coordinated attack. My answer to them is he's the only one you know that's capable of this kind of attack. This was a tremendously sophisticated operation against the United States; more sophisticated than anybody would ever have ascribed to Osama bin Laden. I think we need to do a little homework. We need to appoint a Team B that looks for somebody else. I'm just not convinced it was bin Laden. ...
Dan Rather: There's no question in my mind that you're skeptical that Osama bin Laden, aided and abetted, at least protected by the Taliban, should be the principal target of some large military operation. If I'm wrong about that, tell me now.
Milton Bearden: No, no, no, you're not wrong, Dan. I'm saying is -- Let me step back one step on this and say, Osama bin Laden is an evil man and he's a component of the terrorism that we're deal with across the board. All I'm saying is is that I think Osama bin Laden has become the metaphor for the entire problem of terrorism involving Muslims with perceived grievances against the United States. And I think it would be wrong to say this is a one size fits all operation and to go after bin Laden because an operation as sophisticated as carried out yesterday was an operation that was concealed from us for months, probably before it took place. It happened without essentially a hitch, except for one aircraft. And there's no reason to believe these same people weren't capable of covering their tracks somehow on the way out. Now I would go so far as to say that this group who was responsible for that, if they didn't have an Osama bin Laden out there, they'd invent one because he's a terrific diversion for the rest of the world. Could I be wrong? Of course I could be wrong. It could be Osama bin Laden.
PBS Interview 1999. Rebroadcast on 9/13/01: Regarding Osama bin Laden
Milton Bearden: We've blamed him for every horrible event in our history except the grassy knoll. And now we have, with I'm not sure what evidence, linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade, perhaps. ...
Interviewer: You're not saying Osama bin Laden is not a terrorist or is not an enemy of the United States?
Milton Bearden: Osama bin Laden has chosen to make himself an enemy of the United States. He has issued these disputable fatwahs, these Islamic proclamations, to kill all ... Americans and Jews. Therefore, he's made himself a component, and I think that the United States is absolutely justified in taking out Osama bin Laden. But to oversimplify it by linking him to every known terrorist act in the last decade is an insult to most Americans. And it certainly doesn't encourage our allies in this to take us very seriously. Osama bin Laden is a legitimate target for the United States, period. But then, to completely reinforce it with all of these insupportable accusations, I think is a disservice and an oversimplification. ...
Interviewer: So, really what we're looking at is some fact but a lot of fiction.
Milton Bearden: There's a lot of fiction in there. But we like that. It's the whole Osama bin Laden mythology. It's almost part entertainment. We don't have a national enemy. We haven't had a national enemy since the evil empire slipped beneath the waves in 1991. And I think we kind of like this way. We like this whole international terrorist thing oddly enough at a time when it probably is changing its character dramatically."
