The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

Nir Rosen on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer Online | 'Journalist Recounts His Experiences With Taliban in Afghanistan'

Articles — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:52:00 -0400

New America in the News:
When journalist Nir Rosen traveled to Afghanistan last summer, his plan was to travel with a group of Taliban fighters for 10 days and report on their activity. Instead, he was detained by a rival Taliban commander and accused of being a spy. Rosen describes his experiences to Robert Zeliger of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. LINK to audio and transcript

Steve Coll on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer | 'Pakistan Faces Challenges after Musharraf's Exit'

Communications — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:02:00 -0400

New America in the News:

MARGARET WARNER: For more on all this, we turn to Steve Coll, president of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think-tank. He writes for the New Yorker magazine, as well, and has reported extensively from South Asia...

...So, Steve, it was always said that Pervez Musharraf was an army commander at heart. Whatever situation he was in, he'd fight his way out. He didn't try this time. Why?

STEVE COLL, New Yorker Magazine: Well, I think he finally realized that he had reached the end of the road. In his speech, he referred to the very questions you asked, which was, he said this is not a time for bravado.

And I think he was finely persuaded by those few around him who he was prepared to listen to that he had -- that he would do more damage to the cause that he had served and to his own legacy if he stuck it out.

Also, I think the army and the Americans, his two most important partners, reached a state of exhaustion with his rule and, confronted by the demands for his removal, stood by passively as it finally occurred. LINK to full transcript and video

Ray Boshara in Online NewsHour with Jim Lehrer | 'Programs Aim to Break Cycles of Poverty in the South Through Home Ownership'

Communications — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:42:00 -0400

New America in the News:

IDAs are a tool that can be used to help low-income people move into the financial mainstream, said Ray Boshara, vice president for domestic policy programs for the New America Foundation, a non-partisan public policy institute.

"When families have savings and assets, it not only prevents them from falling into financial ruin ... when you own things you are invested in your community in a way you normally would not be," Boshara said. LINK

Daniel Levy on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer | 'Prisoner Swap Renews Focus on Israeli-Hezbollah Tensions'

Communications — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:15:00 -0400

New America in the News:

DANIEL LEVY, New America Foundation: "Well, I think the visuals were obviously very difficult for Israelis today. But I think in the words of the president and the brother of one of the soldiers returned today, that it was also Israel's moral obligation.

So I think it's too simplistic just to see this as weakness and bad for Israel. People have to understand it's a small country. We have a draft. Everyone serves.

And for Israelis, the knowledge that the country will do whatever it can to return soldiers in whatever condition, it also has a degree of strength. It's also a part of a communal social solidarity. The Israelis are walking around today probably feeling painful, feeling sad, but also feeling that this was necessary to do..." LINK to transcript, audio, and video

Fynt Leverett on Newshour with Jim Lehrer | 'Serious Concerns on Iran's Nuclear Ability'

Communications — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:55:00 -0400

New America in the News:

. . .First of all, how would you describe the current policy of the Bush administration toward Iran? And given this new report, everything else you know, Flynt Leverett, is this policy working?

FLYNT LEVERETT, The New America Foundation: I would describe current U.S. policy toward Iran as consisting of three elements: one, diplomatic isolation of Iran; second, economic pressure on Iran, through both unilateral and multilateral sanctions; and, third, the encouragement of political forces inside and outside Iran who want to undermine the current political order, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And is that policy working?

FLYNT LEVERETT: No, I don't think it is working to achieve any important U.S. objectives in the region...LINK to full transcript, audio, and video

Steve Coll on NewsHour | New Book Examines the Bin Laden Family

Communications — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:53:00 -0400

New America in the News:

NewsHour | New Book Examines the Bin Laden Family

MARGARET WARNER, NewsHour: Osama bin Laden is known worldwide as founder of al-Qaida and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. But much less is known of his sprawling Saudi family and their multiple ties to the United States.

Now, Steve Coll, author of the prize-winning "Ghost Wars," has pulled back the curtain on Osama and his billionaire clan. His new book is "The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century."

And, Steve, welcome back to the program. What was it about the bin Laden family that so intrigued you that you devoted not only all the time but writing an entire book about them?

STEVE COLL, New Yorker Magazine: Well, I've been studying Osama in one way or another for 15 years. And I always felt that I bounced off of the Saudi and family context from which he arose and always felt that there was more complexity and more subtlety there than at least I had been able to penetrate.

So I kept going back to it and finally saw the family as a vehicle to write more specifically about the broader narrative of modernization in Saudi Arabia, all the contradictions and complexity it created.

STEVE COLL: Well, he was genius, in many respects, and a charismatic man, but I think a model for Osama in two important ways.MARGARET WARNER: Well, there's so much in this book, both political and personal, but let's focus on the personal and in terms of Osama bin Laden's life and the influences on him. Let's start from the family. Let's start with his father, Mohammed, the self-made construction magnate. Now, you describe him as distant, yet a model for young Osama. How?

One, he was an extraordinarily inspirational leader of diverse followers. And Osama's own success as a terrorist militia leader has arisen in a lot of ways because of his ability to unify Islamists from diverse cultures, diverse language groups, diverse sects.

And he learned that from his father, I think, at these work camps in the desert, where African and Yemeni, and Palestinian and Lebanese, and Pakistani laborers all worked side-by-side in camps that resembled nothing so much as what we saw Osama lead in Afghanistan in the late '90s.

I think the other influence his father had on him was his role as a modernizer and someone who embraced the technologies of globalization and the possibilities of modernization at a time in Saudi Arabia where very few people were looking to the future that way.

And Osama, again, succeeded as a terrorist leader because of the way he adopted technology, the satellite telephone, the airplane, and his vision of a border-crossing movement. And I think he inherited that or was inspired to some extent by his father in that way. . .

Steve Coll is CEO and President of the New America Foundation.

Steve Coll on NewsHour | 'Vote Repudiates U.S. Policy Towards Pakistan'

Communications — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:32:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Ruling Party Defeat in Pakistan May Intensify Pressure on Musharraf (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer)

Pakistan's parliamentary elections may have significantly backfied on President Musharraf, says New America President and CEO Steve Coll appearing on Jim Lehrer's The News Hour.

NewsHour Interviews Steve Coll on the Pakistani Protests

Communications — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 11:47:00 -0500

New America in the News:

The ousted chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court sought to rally lawyers Tuesday to continue street protests against President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule. Regional experts discuss the pivotal role lawyers are playing in the protests and assess the latest developments in the crisis. ...

MARGARET WARNER: What's your view, Steve Coll, of the prominent role lawyers are taking in this?

STEVE COLL, Staff Writer, The New Yorker: I think they started out as an angry minority, enflamed by President Musharraf's decision to sack the chief justice of the Supreme Court. And for some of the reasons Husain has outlined, they've now become the front of a much broader political opposition. They're attempting to restore a judiciary that has been really badly weakened over the last 20 years. They are defending a constitution, but we should be clear Pakistan's constitution is quite an unstable document. What they really express is a kind of national wish that there be a stable constitutional order and a system of reliable rule of law. And in that sense, they've become a vanguard for a much broader movement to restore civilian rule. ...

MARGARET WARNER: So, Steve, we saw today [Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry] rallying lawyers -- well, he's under house arrest -- by cell phone. How central a figure is he now in this unfolding drama?

STEVE COLL: Well, he's cast himself as a political leader. He's moved beyond his judicial role, and he's trying to call people into the streets. In that sense, he now joins Benazir Bhutto, who has a proven record of being able to draw followers in a street, as a kind of broker at a pivotal moment. What happens next I think depends to some extent on how broad and how sustained popular protests against this emergency becomes. He clearly was calling Pakistanis of all kinds to make "sacrifices." And he used that word knowing that any street protest is likely to generate violence. There's already been a number of instances this year where security forces have fired on protesters and killed unarmed civilians. So if he succeeds in calling his followers into the street, he's inviting them to participate in a potentially dangerous movement. ...

To listen to the audio of this interview, please follow this link and visit the NewsHour website. Steve Coll is President and CEO of New America Foundation.

NewsHour Interviews Steve Coll on Investigating a Pakistan Attack

Communications — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 05:13:00 -0400

New America in the News:

MARGARET WARNER: For more on the latest developments in Pakistan, we go to Griff Witte, Washington Post Pakistan bureau chief, and Steve Coll, New Yorker magazine journalist and author. He`s also president of the New America Foundation. ...

Now, Steve, I know you were both at this press conference today. And she pointed the finger pretty directly at some specific groups, did she not, Steve?

STEVE COLL: She named four overlapping networks, but didn`t really name groups, per se. But she was pointing to networks of Islamist militants, some operating on Pakistani soil for many years, others, foreigners who have come in as refugees from Afghanistan after 9/11. And she also implicated rogue elements of the Pakistani security services, services that have collaborated with some of these groups over the course of two decades.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Steve, go back to the point you were raising about people in the government. She also gave an interview that appeared today in Paris Match. What is her basic accusation about who it is still in government who might have been behind this?

STEVE COLL: Well, there are two levels to it. First, she seems to have come into possession of some specific information passed to her by a friendly government that she has not named about several former security officials who were actively plotting to kill her or harm her upon her return. And she says, quite remarkably, that she wrote a letter to President Musharraf about two days or three days before her return in which she named these officials and provided details about them.

At the press conference today, she was asked to identify them, and she said she wouldn`t do so as long as she was alive. In effect, she had written this letter as a kind of last will and testament about her suspicions.More broadly, she is observing something that many students of Pakistan could easily observe, which is that the country`s history during the last 20 years is marked by violent conspiracies that have occasionally involved rogue or directed elements of the police, sometimes the intelligence services, and less often the army, in violent conspiracies involving Pakistani politics.And she has been involved on the receiving end of those conspiracies in the past, and so she`s quick to suspect that they`re present in this case, this week.

MARGARET WARNER: And so, Steve, going to the election now, the upcoming parliamentary election still scheduled for January, is there any talk that this may change the election schedule in any way?

STEVE COLL: Well, there`s a lot of speculation about what the impact will be on the election and whether this will affect the schedule, whether it will affect the campaigning, whether it will affect the thinking on the supreme court as it makes a series of important decisions about the legitimacy of President Musharraf`s recent re-election. So the entire campaign has been thrown into some question.

But Benazir Bhutto today seemed to be on a mission to make clear that she intended to go ahead as planned, that she intended to seek the prime ministership and to campaign vigorously for the values that she trumpeted upon her return.

And I think the one observation that many people in Karachi were making today listening to her is that the era of PPP campaign, which is such a vivid part of Pakistani history, these mass rallies held in this province and in the heartland of the Punjab, may not be as viable in this security environment as they were when she left for exile about nine years ago.

So that`s a challenge that her party faces. That was their strength in campaigning before, and how they can carry it on in this security environment is a question they now face. ...

For the complete segment, please follow this link.

Steve Coll Discusses Benazir Bhutto's Homecoming on NewsHour

Communications — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:34:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Explosions went off near a convoy carrying former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto Thursday as she returned to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile. At least 108 people were reported killed in the blast. A reporter details the chaotic homecoming scene from Karachi.

Investigation of the Bombing Scene

MARGARET WARNER: And New Yorker magazine journalist and author Steve Coll also accompanied Mrs. Bhutto home, and he joins us by phone now from Karachi. ....

Steve, you just came from the scene. What's the latest?

STEVE COLL: About 100 or more dead and an estimated 200 or more wounded. Police and investigators are examining the site of what appear to have been two blasts carried out by dismounted suicide bombers. There was also evidence at the scene that rifle shots might have been fired at the truck that Benazir Bhutto was riding in at some time around the detonation of these two suicide bombs.

MARGARET WARNER: So how close did the bomb blasts come to Bhutto herself? Where was she when they went off?

STEVE COLL: Well, you've probably seen the pictures. She was riding in what was essentially a sort of three-story modified truck with a platform on top. The platform had a sort of VIP seat in the front, which was like a first-class airliner seat.

And surrounding that on three sides was bulletproof glass.This vehicle moved very slowly through a sea of Pakistan People's Party activists and other onlookers. And the first of the two blasts appeared to have been detonated about 10 to 20 yards behind and to the left of the vehicle.

I just came from Mrs. Bhutto's house, and one of her senior aides said as she was coming out that she believed that Mrs. Bhutto was actually in the rear of the vehicle at the time of the explosion, reviewing her speech that she intended to make at the end of her journey.

But I climbed up into the bus, which is disabled and now sitting in the street, and looked at this bulletproof glass. And while I'm not a forensic scientist, there seemed to be evidence of four gunshots into the glass from the same side of the vehicle that the bombs had gone off. ...

Threats May Be Linked to al-Qaida

MARGARET WARNER: And then who and where did the threats against her come from? And are authorities ready to say they were, in fact, the perpetrators in some fashion of this attack?

STEVE COLL: Well, there's nothing but speculation available now, but this attack is really consistent with dozens of similar attacks mounted by Taliban-influenced, or Taliban-allied, or al-Qaida-allied militant groups in Pakistan.

They are most active these days in the northwest and western frontier of the country, but increasingly they have been coming down to the cities and carrying out attacks against targets such as army units, civilian units, and also police, and apparently today against Benazir Bhutto. ...

For the complete interview, please follow this link.