CNN's Late Edition | Interview on Osama bin Laden

WOLF BLITZER (Host): Six-and-a-half years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still in hiding and a grave danger to the United States. What drives him? And what can we predict about what he might do next? For some answers we turn to two men for special insight. Steve Coll's new book is entitled, "The Bin Ladens." He's joining us from Berlin. And with her in Washington, our CNN terrorism analyst, Peter Bergen, his book is entitled "The Osama Bin Laden I Know." Thanks to both of you very much for coming. A quick question on the news today, Hamid Karzai, Steve Coll, apparently an assassination attempt in Kabul today by Taliban, perhaps al Qaeda elements. He survived. Others weren't so lucky. What's the latest in terms of the hunt for bin Laden? Is the U.S. and the West any closer to finding him?

STEVE COLL (President, CEO of New America Foundation): Well, I'm not aware of any specific intelligence that has lit up the trail in the last six months or so, but the circumstances in which he's hiding have changed. And he's probably in Pakistan and there his popularity has declined considerably, and also you've got a new government in power, so the motivations on the Pakistani side are changing very quickly.

BLITZER: What do you think, Peter?

PETER BERGEN (New America's Schwartz Senior Fellow): Yes, I think the hunt for bin Laden is going very poorly. As Steve said, bin Laden's support is evaporating in the North-West Frontier Province, where he's almost certainly hiding. A recent poll showed he had dropped from 70 percent favorable in August of 2007 to 4 percent.

BLITZER: So wouldn't that make it easier for Pakistani or other -- or the U.S., Afghan troops, somebody to find him?

PETER BERGEN: Yes. And I think the short answer is yes. Also a very sharp decline in support for suicide bombings amongst Pakistanis. Unfortunately, on the other hand, you have got a Pakistani government which is doing a deal with some of the militants in the North-West Frontier Province at the same time. So as always, sort of a mixed message here with the Pakistanis.

BLITZER: You had written, and I'll read the quote to you here from a piece, Steve, in The Los Angeles Times back on April 13th. You wrote: "Bin Laden may well understand what many Americans do not, that he's more likely to be killed or captured during the next year or so than at any time since late 2001 when he escaped U.S. war planes bombing him in eastern Afghanistan at Tora Bora." Explain what you meant.

STEVE COLL: Well, the first and most important factor is the one that Peter cited, which is that the popularity that he enjoys in the area where he's almost certainly hiding has collapsed, and the way these hunts have always ended in the past in Pakistan -- or almost always, is that somebody has dropped a dime on the fugitive, and it just seems entirely logical that this is more likely now than it was when his favorability ratings were in the 70s.

I also think that the new government in Pakistan, although they have just cut a deal with the Ayatollah Massoud, that raises questions about their strategy. And nonetheless they come to office with a different set of motivations than President Musharraf had.

The U.S., perhaps unintentionally, got itself into a perverse situation with Musharraf in which the structure of its aid almost incented the high command of the Pakistani army not to find bin Laden, because then their rent that they were charging the United States would be cut off or reduced.

And here you've got a democratic government that argued in Washington vehemently that they'd be a better counterinsurgency and better counterterrorism partner than Musharraf. Finding bin Laden would certainly be a way to demonstrate that and I think some of them are aware that they would be rewarded rather than punished if they succeeded.

BLITZER: Well, that's an optimistic assessment, Peter, that perhaps we could wake up one morning in the not-too-distant future and hear the words "bin Laden captured or killed." Is that something that would shock you?

PETER BERGEN: Well, one day it's inevitable because he's a human being and a human being makes mistakes. And I think, again, Steve is completely correct. The political winds have shifted in a way which is quite damaging to al Qaeda and the Taliban itself in Pakistan. So one can only hope.

BLITZER: Here is a quote from bin Laden in a statement he released last March 20th, Steve. And I'll read it to you. "The nearest jihad battlefield to support our people in Palestine is the battlefield of Iraq. The people of the blessed land should sense the great favor God has bestowed upon them and do what they should do to support their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq."

How important to bin Laden is what's going on in Iraq right now?

STEVE COLL: Well, I think it's one of three or four countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he sees his followers in action, and -- but the statement itself is the broader significance of his importance now. He may have a small operational role when operatives from Europe reach the border and plan attacks in Europe.

But mostly what he's doing is narrating the war that he believes he's leading. And when narrates that war, he tries to send a message to his followers to motivate them, to remind them of what the most important targets are.

Sometimes these followers act even when they have no contact with him. So I think that's the significance of his role now is his ability to communicate and also the continuity of leadership that he provides symbolically and actually to al Qaeda. This is an organization that has had the same two leaders in place for 20 years now, never been tested by a succession crisis.

BLITZER: He's talking about Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian number two. Do you agree with that assessment, Peter?

PETER BERGEN: Yes. I mean, it's quite unusual for a terrorist organization that is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. They've been quite successful, and both the leaders are still in charge of the organization. BLITZER: Here is a quote from your new book "The Bin Ladens," Steve, and I'll read it to you. We'll put it up on the screen, page 569: "He mocked his Western adversaries for misunderstanding him as a pre-modern fanatic, a bearded loner in a far away cave. He saw himself instead as a master of global technology and change." Explain your point.

STEVE COLL: Well, I think in the West we've had a tendency to locate Osama in our minds as a backward looking, long-bearded, medieval sort of character, when in fact his success has been a product of his grasp and use of modernization, particularly the technologies of global integration.

His first great innovation as a terrorist leader was to use a satellite phone to carry out simultaneous attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa while never leaving Afghanistan. And he has also used the media, satellite television, and, of course, aviation to innovate.

And so I think it's just important to understand that's who he is. That presumably would help figure out -- aid the effort to contain and defeat him.

BLITZER: Steve Coll's new book is entitled "The Bin Ladens." Steve, thanks for coming in. Peter Bergen has got a good book entitled, "The Bin Laden I know." Thanks to you, as usual, as well.