Search for Answers: Who Will Bush Target for Retaliation?

Interview by Between The Lines' Denise Manzari.

Since the first horrifying reports of the terror strikes in New York and the Pentagon, defense and intelligence experts openly speculated that these highly coordinated attacks may have been the work of Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, accused of an earlier bombing at the World Trade Center in 1993, was himself the target of U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan not long after the Clinton Administration blamed him for planning and financing two deadly attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. Fearing accusations of complicity in the New York and Pentagon assaults and possible U.S. retaliation, an official of Afghanistan's Taliban government quickly condemned the World Trade Center-Pentagon terrorist attacks and rejected suggestions that bin Laden could be behind them.

But some U.S. commentators, remembering the false assumptions made early on as to the identity of the Oklahoma City bomber, were cautious in pointing a finger at any individual or group. Between The Lines' Denise Manzari spoke with retired Navy Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll of the Center for Defense Information, who looks at the forces that may have been responsible for the terror attack and how the Bush administration and the U.S. military may react(A RealAudio Version of this interview may be found At www.btlonline.org).

Contact the Center for Defense Information by calling (202) 332-0600 or visit their Web site at www.cdi.org

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