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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview with Condoleezza Rice; Interview with Michael Hayden; The Case of Iran's Missing President

Aired May 08, 2011 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: This is GPS, THE GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria.

An important week, and we have an important show. First up, the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Then, Michael Hayden who was director of the National Security Agency on 9/11 and later ran the CIA. One of country's top spy masters.

We've also got a great panel on what to do with Pakistan post-Bin Laden, including Pakistan's ambassador to Washington.

And "How in the World?" does a president go missing for 10 days? I'll explain.

But first, here is my take. There is a silly debate taking place in Washington about who deserves credit for Osama Bin Laden's assassination, President Obama or President Bush. John F. Kennedy once said that victory has a thousand fathers, so can we admit that lots of people, thousands, beyond those two people, deserve credit?

The outcome is the culmination of years of intelligence and action, but this specific operation was obviously conceived, planned and executed by the Obama administration, which deserves genuine respect for handling it well. But the real lesson that we should be drawing from it is that counterterrorism works. Counterterrorism is our most important and effective strategy in the war on terror.

You will remember, there was a debate at the start of the Obama administration over policy toward Afghanistan-Pakistan. Some, like Vice President Biden, wanted a limited counterterrorism operation, with fewer troops. Others wanted a broader counterinsurgency campaign that involved all kind of things that were generally called nation building.

The counterterrorism advocates lost, General Petraeus won, but the counterterrorism guys were right, and this is something we can credit Obama with. Despite that choice, he focused much more relentlessly on the counterterrorism part of the strategy in Pakistan.

He dramatically increased the number of drone attacks, for example, and that's just one metric. There also has been a massive expansion of other counterterrorism efforts, including intelligence gathering and live operations. The killing of Osama Bin Laden is the fruit of that much larger investment in special operations and counterterrorism.

President Bush, of course, did support special operations, but the bulk of his time, energy and attention got devoted to a much larger nation-building project in Iraq. Bush believed that a functioning democracy in Iraq would sap the ideological strength of al Qaeda's message.

The theory was right. Look at how the Arab revolutions have put al Qaeda on the defensive, as it has become clear that people in the region want jobs and freedom, not Jihad and caliphates.

But the trouble is comprehensive counterinsurgency, nation building, is a much larger, more expensive and inherently more difficult mission for an outside power like America. America gets seen as wanting to dominate other countries, imposing its will, being imperialistic. It is easy to excite nationalist opposition against the 800-pound superpower.

Counterterrorism, by contrast, is something we can do well. It requires good intelligence, of course, but also super military work, and that is something the American military shines at.

The killing of Bin Laden shows that there is a very powerful way for the United States to fight terrorist organizations, through vigorous special ops. We do not need to occupy vast tracks of Afghanistan for decades to keep al Qaeda at bay. We can keep the terrorists on the run, decapitate their leadership, pursue their planners, track their money and foil their plots. It's hard, but it's not nearly as hard as turning Afghanistan into a functioning, modern, capitalist democracy.

Let's get started.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Condi Rice, thank you so much for join us.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Pleasure to be with you.

ZAKARIA: When you first heard the news about Bin Laden's assassination, what - what did you think?

RICE: Well, I was incredibly gratified and, frankly, relieved. It been a long hunt for him. I was proud that over two presidencies we were persistent enough and patient enough to put together the picture that ultimately led to him. You don't just stumble upon Osama Bin Laden. It takes a lot of work to get there.

And I think it really closes a chapter in the book on al Qaeda, but not the whole book. But certainly a chapter. And President Obama and his team ought to be congratulated for doing that. ZAKARIA: President Obama did say that he felt that the capture or killing of Bin Laden was not a top priority when he took office and he moved it to a top priority. What's your reaction?

RICE: Oh, it was a top priority. We wanted to get Osama Bin Laden every single day. And there was a unit at the - the agency that worked on nothing else.

And I remember actually when Mike Hayden told President Bush that they have discovered this courier, and that he had a brother. And we began to hear some of the details about it, and they went on his trail. It took this long. But, in fact, these - these leads developed quite a long time ago. The agency and the military then acted on them.

And there's one other thing. The capacity of our military and our intelligence agencies to fight in this integrated fashion is something that developed over a long period of time, starting in Afghanistan in 2001.

ZAKARIA: When you were in office, you had to deal with the same issue of cooperation with the Pakistanis, the question of whether or not the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, was fully cooperating with - maintaining some relations with these militants. When you read about the story, is it plausible to you that Osama Bin Laden could have been where he was without some complicity by some elements of the Pakistani military?

RICE: Well, obviously, first I was surprised. I was surprised that he wasn't in a tribal area someplace, that he was in a - essentially a suburb of Islamabad.

And we all know that Pakistan is a fractured society. I don't for a minute believe that the government knew this and was trying somehow to hide Osama Bin Laden. But I do know that there's some very hard questions to be asked and answered by Pakistan, and they really ought to be asking them themselves, because Pakistan itself is at risk from terrorism.

ZAKARIA: But - the Pakistani prime minister may actually agree with you. The problem often is elements within the military.

RICE: And, really, after 2001, when effectively people said to Musharraf - I remember Rich Armitage going to say to say to Musharraf, you know, you really are for us or against us here. They made some changes. They did make some purges, really, of ISI and of the military to try to get rid of some of the extremist elements.

Pakistan has been going towards extremism for a long time, all the way back to Zia ul-Haq, so this goes back a long way, and it's not going to happen overnight. You just have to keep pressing them to do what is in their interest and in ours.

ZAKARIA: Have you spoken to President Bush since the news about Bin Laden? RICE: I have. I have. And he, too, is really gratified, very proud of the men and women of the intelligence services and, of course, of the military.

Our - our intelligence people have taken a lot of hits over the last few years. Yes, they got some things wrong, but this shows you what they can do with persistence and patience and a lot of brainpower put at this problem. And this is a real victory for them, and that's mostly what he expressed to me.

ZAKARIA: Did he explain why he felt - that he didn't accept President Obama's invitation to go to Ground Zero?

RICE: Well, we talked before that, but I - I can imagine, and suspect, knowing President Bush, that he's been low-key and out of the limelight since his term in office ended, and this was a time for President Obama to be with the people of New York and to express his satisfaction that this terrible chapter is closed, to be able to say to the families of the victims, the United States of America has delivered in part on our promise to avenge their loss.

President Bush was at Ground Zero at a really important time, on September 15th, when he stood on that rubble and he said, you may not be able to hear me, but they will hear you and they'll hear from us very soon. That was the time that he rallied the country.

I remember in the Congress, just a few days later, when he said we will not tire, we will not falter, we will not fail. He meant the United States of America.

He's done his part, and I'm sure he'll be there on the 10th anniversary, to be able to commemorate all of that.

ZAKARIA: And you're hearing some Republicans, people like Rush Limbaugh, say Obama really doesn't deserve much credit for this. You know, the - the operation was a routine operation.

You've been in the White House. Do you think that the president at key moments had to make difficult calls whether to use a drone, whether to use a special operations?

RICE: I've been in the White House, and I've seen a president make difficult decisions. And there were difficult decisions in this. What - what President Obama has done, indeed, it was a - it was a brave decision.

Now, it is absolutely the case that the United States of America has been fighting this war for at least 10 years, and really a bit longer. And so this is a victory across presidencies. It's a - it's a victory for having learned more how to fight the counterterrorism fight.

But there's no doubt that as President Bush had to make some very, very hard calls that frankly helped to set this up, President Obama had to make some very difficult calls to bring it to conclusion.

ZAKARIA: Condoleezza Rice, thank you so much.

RICE: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER DIRECTOR, CIA: This wasn't done one brick at a time. This was actually done one pebble at a time. This is classic analytic work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: So, what is the story behind Bin Laden's death? What are the consequences?

Joining me now is one of America's great spy masters, Michael Hayden. Hayden was director of the National Security Agency on 9/11, and later was the head of the CIA. He's worked under Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama.

Welcome, Michael Hayden.

HAYDEN: Thanks very much, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: So you took news of this courier in to President Bush many years ago, right?

HAYDEN: We did. I think it was about four years ago, in 2007. We - we had built up sufficient lead information on the name of the courier that we thought it was ready for presidential primetime. So we briefed it to the president, not as something eminent but as our most promising lead to track down Bin Laden because, frankly, Fareed, the trail had been quite cold for a - a long period of time.

ZAKARIA: And why had it been cold, General? Because you had these huge bounties out on his head, and one of the things that people used to always say to me in the region was, gosh, this guy must inspire fanatical devotion and loyalty. The Americans are willing to pay $25 million and nobody turns up to - to claim the reward.

HAYDEN: Yes. Well, a - a couple of thoughts on that.

Clearly, he was concerned with his own operational security. Those people who knew where he was was a very small group of folks. $25 million translates very well into an American or European context. Frankly, Fareed, we learned that those kinds of numbers really don't have the same kind of meaning in the - in the tribal region of Pakistan.

And, most importantly, he went off the grid. And by that I mean the - the telecommunications and electronic grid, which has been a very powerful tool for us for such a long period of time. And it was - it was that absence from electronic communications that convinced us we know he's communicating. He must be doing it through human beings. We need to find and follow the couriers. And that was the hypothesis with which we went into this four years ago or so.

ZAKARIA: So this is classic human intelligence? You had people on the ground. They talked to people. They developed relationships. Is that right?

HAYDEN: It is. But it also came out of detainee interrogations.

One - one of the more prominent leads we had at the beginning of this exercise was partial identity information that came out of detainees that we were holding in our so-called black sites. And then, from that point, we used all the tools of intelligence.

I can't go into detail, but, I can assure you, it was signals intelligence and imagery intelligence and human intelligence that allowed us to build this. And - and Fareed, this wasn't done one brick at a time. This was actually done one pebble at a time. This is classic analytic work.

ZAKARIA: Tell us for a moment about that issue of interrogation, because, you know, there's something of a debate here about whether the extraordinary methods, the ones that have aroused so much controversy, that people like Colin Powell and John McCain came out against, were those methods crucial to getting information that has led to Bin Laden?

HAYDEN: Well, let me put it to you this way, Fareed. First of all, I'm proud to be a citizen of a country that feels it needs to debate these kinds of issues. But, as we debate them, the debate has to be fact-based. And the lead information I referred to a few minutes ago did come from CIA detainees, against whom enhanced interrogation techniques have been used, not to elicit specific bits of information, but move them from their initial air of defiance into a zone of cooperation.

So the facts of the matter are people against whom we used these interrogation techniques provided us at least one of the strings of information that led to last weekend's events.

ZAKARIA: There are people who say, though, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the - kind of - one of the chiefs, one of the planners of 9/11, perhaps the chief planner, denied even knowing the courier. And actually that's what tipped some of the interrogators off, that it wasn't some extraordinary methods.

HAYDEN: I think the actual - the actual facts are that he gave us some - some very partial lead information at the beginning. As we developed the information, we went back to him, and he and another detainee were so demonstrative - atypically demonstrative in rejecting knowledge of this individual, that that in itself turned into lead information.

And I'd have to suggest, Fareed, if - if he had not been largely cooperating with us, this would not have been anomalous behavior. And so it's all of a piece.

ZAKARIA: So tell us about these kinds of operations. Is it - is it a - was it a very risky operation? In other words, the president had to make a call between dropping a drone, which would have almost certainly killed every - killed Bin Laden, but everybody else and perhaps with very little evidence, or going in.

My - my mind goes back to Desert One, that famous case where President Carter tried to rescue the Iranian hostages, ended up in a total fiasco. For logistical reasons, a sandstorm in the desert, dirt got into the helicopters. How much do you - would you have worried about those issues when - when deciding to go for a human operation here?

HAYDEN: I would have been very worried, and I know my - my friends at the agency were - were very worried. But - but frankly, Fareed, this - this was a courageous choice on the part of the president. Make no mistake about it.

But, in addition to being courageous, I think it was also inevitable. This was the very best chance we had to kill or capture this target. The president had choices, and it made more difficult because even as those helicopters were going over the wall, everything we had on this facility, the belief that Bin Laden was there, was truly circumstantial. There were no sightings, nothing that you can point to and say, that's it. That's him.

So the president made this decision, even in the face of uncertainty. That requires some courage, but - but, frankly, I - I cannot imagine any American president not making that decision.

ZAKARIA: So you are very well acquainted with the relationship between the CIA and the ISI. You worked it, the Pakistani intelligence agency. Given all you know, is it - is it plausible to you that Osama Bin Laden was living in a fortified house, eight times the size of every other house in the - in the area, with no phone lines, all kinds of suspicious activity, and that nobody in the Pakistani military knew, even though this was happening one mile from their West Point, their Sandhurst?

HAYDEN: Right. Fareed, let me give you a professional and a - and a personal answer.

At the professional level, and frankly this is the best answer I'm going to give you, we just have to let the facts take us where they will. And now that we've got this trove of documents and electronic media from this particular building, some of those facts may be in that - that mountain of data.

On a personal level, it - it really does tug at credulity to - to think this could go on without someone - and by no means am I accusing anyone particularly, particularly at the highest levels of the Pakistani government, but it's hard to believe this could happen without someone suspecting at least what was going on there. I mean, what did the neighbors think? What was the word on the street? What did the local police chief believe? Those kinds of things. I think, in this case we have a right to know. In this case, the burden of proof is on the Pakistanis.

ZAKARIA: Finally, General, give us a sense of the consequences. So you talk about the treasure trove of documents. What do you see as the - as the most likely consequence of Osama Bin Laden's death?

HAYDEN: There are two or three things that are - that are happening, Fareed. One is the treasure trove of documents - and - and frankly, I can't remember the last time we did what's called SSE, sensitive site exploitation, against a leading al Qaeda figure. It's been years. And so this will be very, very important.

The second thing is, al Qaeda now has to go through a succession crisis. The word is out that they've got a succession plan. It's Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two. But no plans survives contact with reality the way it was originally developed. So I'm going to enjoy watching how al Qaeda deals with this.

And then, finally, Fareed - and this is really important. Any member of the al Qaeda, particularly prospective members of al Qaeda, have to remember this mission. They're going to think about what happened here, that these Americans have great reach, have great precision, and a very long memory. That's a very powerful thing in the kind of war in which we're engaged.

ZAKARIA: You've tried to kill this man for 10 years. Personally, what does it feel like when you - what did it feel like when you heard the news?

HAYDEN: It - a bit of mixed emotion in - in the sense that I didn't know the details, and so I wanted to know more. But a - kind of the - the basic human level, it was very powerful satisfaction that we had done what we had set out to do, and that the work my old community, the intelligence community, have been working so hard on for so long was now paying off in a way in which their successes, as opposed to their failures real and imagined, are now being talked about by their countrymen.

ZAKARIA: Michael Hayden, a pleasure to have you on.

HAYDEN: Thank you very much, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: And we will be back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not exactly the shy and retiring type. He loves attention, makes outlandish claims, bold statements, outright lies, all to get the world to watch.

But over the last few days, we've been seeing his quiet side, so quiet that he actually disappeared from sight. For 10 days late last month the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran skipped cabinet meetings and canceled official visits. He wasn't even seen in his offices. He wasn't ill. He wasn't on pilgrimage.

What in the world was happening? Ahmadinejad was staging a boycott.

Now, why would the country's leader have to stage a boycott? Because in Iran there's someone more powerful than the president - the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

We're witnessing a power struggle, and it's getting more intense. First, Ahmadinejad fired the minister of intelligence. The Supreme Leader blocked the move. Then, the president fired his foreign minister, another Khamenei protege. This time the ayatollah wrote a letter, not to President Ahmadinejad but to the deposed minister, reinstating him to his post.

This open tension is unprecedented in modern Iranian politics. Never before has the president of the Islamic Republic wielded so much power and never has he clashed so openly with the clerics.

Ahmadinejad has also been mounting an ideological challenge to the mullahs. He says that he, too, gets divine revelations, even though he is not a priest. He's talked about Iran's pre-Islamic past with great pride, something the clergy regards as sacrilegious.

Those in the know are watching closely to see who wins this internal struggle, and here's why it matters. These are the first major moves by Tehran's power players to position themselves ahead of next year's elections. There's a school of thought that President Ahmadinejad senses that people are tired of the clergy, so perhaps he could gain mileage by distancing himself from the clergy.

Another theory goes that Ayatollah Khamenei himself wants to be seen as separate from the government. Remember, inflation in Iran is at 25 percent. Some assessments show that unemployment is at 30 percent, so Khamenei may need a scapegoat.

And, of course, this all comes as leaders of Iran's opposition movement, the Green Movement, remain under house arrest and many other opposition figures and journalists have been jailed. The Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi is so worried for her safety that she is not returning to her country.

The big picture here is that the revolutions in the Middle East have gotten all dictatorships in the region worried, including the one in Tehran. Even as its key ally, Syria, descends deeper into chaos, the Iranian government has managed to reins in disaffection with a mixture of money and bribery and repression. YouTube has brought dozens of protests like this one to the world's attention, but they have been met with instant and brutal crackdowns.

Iran has learned from its own protests of 2009, and so far it doesn't seem likely that it will go of the way of the Arab world yet. Washington is worried that Tehran is gaining mileage out of the regional unrest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We do see activities by Iran to try to take advantage of these uprisings. They are trying to exploit unrest. They are trying to advance their agenda in neighboring countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: But I think the Iranian regime is more nervous than it reveals. Sure it will gain some foreign policy advantages, relationships with Egypt, for example, but it faces the much larger problem of the dissatisfaction of its own people who have now seen democratic revolutions in the Middle East that have succeeded. Perhaps that's why President Ahmadinejad took a break and went AWOL.

And we will be right back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: We've tried honey. We've tried vinegar. And we don't have much to show for either. What I would suggest going forward is any honey, if you will, that we provide in the form of military or civilian aid, we have to monitor it closely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Images from the streets of Pakistan. People mourning the death of Osama Bin Laden and chanting slogans in his support. They made an additional statement by burning the American flag.

Welcome back to GPS. Let's now look at "What in the World" we can do about Pakistan.

We have an expert panel. From Washington, Husain Haqqani is Pakistan's ambassador to the United States; from Lahore, she's (INAUDIBLE) Pakistani governments for years with her witty columns, journalist Jugnu Mohsin; and from New York, Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Husain, may I start with you. The dilemma I supposed for the Pakistani Intelligence establishment is to decide which it wishes to plead guilty to, duplicity or incompetence? Either the Pakistani Intelligence Service knew about Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts and was covering for him, or it was sufficiently incompetent that it could not detect that they have - the world's biggest terrorist was sitting in its backyard right next to its version of West Point and Sandhurst? Which is it?

HUSAIN HAQQANI, PAKISTANI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Actually, I do not know the answer and I think the best way to move forward is to wait for the findings of an internal - look at the issue. I do not think that speculation is going to solve any problem. We've had these speculations before on many, many occasions. I think what we need now is for Pakistan's elected leaders to exercise the leadership and get to the bottom of the matter.

At the same time, we need to rally our people, make them understand what the issues are. You talk about these demonstrations, et cetera. The fact of the matter is that a demonstration of 5,000 zealots does not necessarily represent Pakistani public opinion. The people of Pakistan still voted for the people who are running the country. It's just that the people who are running the country or have been elected to run the country have to give a clear direction, and I'm looking forward to that happening.

ZAKARIA: Jugnu Mohsin, how does it look to you? What does the reaction in Pakistan? Is there a sense of - you know, which is more embarrassing? That Osama Bin Laden was hiding in plain sight in Pakistan, or that the Americans entered without telling the Pakistani government?

JUGNU MOHSIN, EDITOR, THE FRIDAY TIMES: Fareed, you have to see and understand that this is a disenfranchised people in Pakistan, and the masses feel completely disenfranchised. They are not part of any decision-making. And so they revert to their age-old sort of security blanket, which is that there's a grand conspiracy and that this is a drama that never really took place and Bin Laden died somewhere in the caves of Tora Bora many, many years ago. And some ulterior motive is being achieved through all of this.

On the other hand, there's a lot of soul-searching going on also and there are people in the opinion making elite in this country, there are people who are columnists in this country that are ordinary people who are asking all the right questions for the first time, Fareed. We're asking why do we have a duplicitous national security policy. Why do we not speak with one voice? Why are we talking with forked tongue? Why is there one slogan for the public and quite another for the United States of America?

And for the first time, people are beginning to see through this, and they want answers and they want honesty and credibility from their national security establishment.

And one other thing, the last thing is that, yes, there is an acknowledgment that a sovereignty has been violated by international terrorists who have found refuge in Pakistan and it is also being violated by the United States of America.

ZAKARIA: Richard Haass, when you look at this, Pakistan is a very difficult national security problem, because, you know, they are - it isn't clear entirely what the best strategy is. One, there are people who say, well, we should abandon them, and if they are playing this double game with us, we've tried that and it has caused more dysfunction in Pakistan, more sense of isolation. The military becomes more unconnected with the - with forces of moderation.

If you provide resources, you have this problem that it feels as though they're taking your aid but not really cooperating fully. How do you look at it?

HAASS: Well, you're exactly right, Fareed. We've tried honey. We've tried vinegar, and we don't have much to show for either. What I would suggest going forward is any honey, if you will, that we provide in the form of military or civilian aid, we have to monitor it closely.

There'll be Pakistanis who will protest and push back, say we're insulting them, what have you. That's simply a fact of life. You would not have domestic political support in the United States and the Congress to give Pakistan a blank check. So any aid going forward is going to have to be conditional.

Secondly, the Pakistanis are going to have to understand that when they do not fulfill the obligation of sovereignty, when they do not police their own territory, when they did not deny it to terrorists, outsiders are going to take action such as the United States did to protect their own interests. So Pakistanis can complain all they want that the rest of the world violated the sovereignty, but the fact is the rest of the world will violate their sovereignty when the Pakistanis, again, are not prepared or able.

And, again, we don't know which it was or some combination of the two, but one - whether - but for whatever reason, when they are not prepared to make sure that their territory is terrorist-free.

ZAKARIA: Husain, what was your reaction to that?

HAQQANI: Well, I would say that this is a moment for introspection in Pakistan, but it's also a moment for reflection in United States. Could the pattern of bullying and then trying to give a lot of honey after having served a lot of vinegar, is that partly the reason why the patient is unwell?

And so maybe it's time to just stay the course. Senator Kerry a couple of days back at a hearing at the U.N. - at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said, look, we also have to be realistic. Americans have to be realistic. What we give to Pakistan in assistance is a pittance compared to what we spend in Afghanistan for war purposes.

So let's not just get into cliches. We give so much money, but you guys don't turn the corner. Pakistan is a fledgling democracy. I know there's a lot of criticism sometimes of our democratic leaders, but here's what President Zardari would say to you if he was in this show. He would say, look, since I took over, a lot more has happened.

The people who perpetrated the Mumbai attacks were arrested and brought to book. We are working on turning public opinion around, the sacrifice of the late Salman Taseer and (INAUDIBLE), the governor of Punjab and the minister who got killed standing up for the rights of a poor Christian woman who has been wrongfully accused in their opinion, and that there should be debate about these things.

So what is good about Pakistan right now is, as Jugnu said, people are asking the right questions, and it's not fair, not fair to hold the democratically elected leadership that came in only three years ago responsible for everything that has happened in Pakistan in the preceding many, many decades. But we have to readjust our security paradigm, and we are in the process of doing it. We have good military leaders right now. We have good intelligence leaders right now. We have good civilian leaders right now.

If the Americans can show some patience while remaining engaged with us and help us make that shift, I think we will both benefit.

ZAKARIA: All right. We've got to take a break. We will be back with Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington; Richard Haass and Jugnu Mohsin. Right back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHSIN: Please, I am Pakistan also. Me and people like us are Pakistan also. We do not believe that we can be at war with the world and at peace with ourselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Candy Crowley. And here are today's top stories.

National Security Adviser Tom Donilon today said Pakistan remains an important partner in the fight against terrorism. But he also said Pakistani officials must answer the question of why Osama Bin Laden was able to hide out in their country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM DONILON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I've not seen any evidence, at least to date, that the political, military or intelligence leadership in Pakistan knew about Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

CROWLEY: And that includes the ISI?

DONILON: At this point, that's exactly right. As I said, the political, military and intelligence leadership in Pakistan, I've not seen any evidence to indicate that they had more knowledge of this.

Secondly, though, there is a fact here that we have to deal with, right? And the fact is that Osama Bin Laden was in Abbottabad, Pakistan 35 miles from Islamabad, in a town that was essentially seen as a military town that was an important military school there and other - and other installations. That needs to be investigated.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: You can see my entire interview with Tom Donilon on "STATE OF THE UNION" at noon Eastern here on CNN. At least 10 people were killed and 186 others injured in religious clashes outside a church in Cairo, Egypt. Yesterday's incidence occurred after rumors that a Christian woman who converted to Islam was being held at the church against her will. Tensions between the Egypt's (ph) Muslim community and its Coptic Christian community have increased in recent months.

And Tennessee residents are evacuating low-lying areas of the state threatened by the swollen waters of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi is expected to crest at 48 feet in Memphis Tuesday. Flooding continues to delude parts of Tennessee.

Those are your top stories. Up next, more FAREED ZAKARIA GPS, and then on "RELIABLE SOURCES," Howie Kurtz grades the media's coverage of the death of Osama Bin Laden.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: And we are back talking about Pakistan with Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington; Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations; and Jugnu Mohsin, one of Pakistan's most important journalists.

Richard, what about the non - the unelected leadership of Pakistan, which is after all the real leadership of Pakistan, the military? What does this do to the American military's relationship with the Pakistani military intelligence community's relationship with the ISI?

HAASS: It was already at best a limited relationship. Whenever I hear words like ally, it doesn't apply. At best we're a limited partner and often the emphasis should be on the word "limited" rather than "partner." It makes the American Military and the American Intelligence Services incredibly suspicious of their Pakistani counterparts.

It's obviously the reason the Pakistanis were not given advance warning of this operation, because there was zero confidence on our end that this warning not have been passed by someone on to Bin Laden himself.

So I think going forward at best it's going to have to be very case by case and very selective. And we're going - we're going to have to try to rebuild confidence. Don't get me wrong, Fareed. I would much prefer that the United States and Pakistan did have a positive relationship that we could be partners. It's in - it's in both of our interests. It's just not clear to me Pakistan is constituted right now.

The domestic, political, civilian leadership doesn't have a lot of authority. It really does come down to the unelected army and unelected intelligence services. We'll see what kind of investigation they mount into what happens. We'll see what kind of repercussions there are going forward. We're also going to see every day whether they allow these terrorists networks to operate. The proof would literally be in the pudding.

And six months from now or a year from now, terrorists are allowed to operate brazenly in Pakistan, be it against India or supporting their objectives in Afghanistan, the U.S. relationship with Pakistan will only grow worse.

ZAKARIA: Jugnu Mohsin, you said that the central issue here is that the Pakistani people feel disenfranchised, and that this gives rise to conspiracy theories, a sense of alienation. And this is in a way the story of the Arab world, right, that you had these repressive regimes and these dictatorships and had spawned extremist Islamic opposition.

What is the answer in Pakistan? Because you've had elections, but it - you still don't have the genuine democratic process that will allow some of these phobias to be - to be cured.

MOHSIN: Yes. Well, there is a contradiction at work here, Fareed. Just as you have the sultanates of the Middle East where certain families have hijacked whole countries like the Gadhafis have hijacked Libya and the Mubaraks had hijacked Egypt, here you have an unelected coterie of - of the national security establishment in this country that is almost in the same position in this country.

And the elected leadership is a sort of, you know, cosmetic arrangement that is there for their convenience, really. And they don't have much money to spend on the people, because out of half our tax collection - out of our total tax collection, half of it goes into defense spending, and a lot of the rest goes into debt servicing. So there's not very much left to spend on the people of this country. So the elected leadership, really, has a minimal sort of efficacy as far as the people of this country are concerned and - and refreshingly the idea of democracy.

But I would urge you here, I would urge Mr. Haass, I would urge other people who are friends of peace in the world and friends of democracy in the world not to throw the baby out with the bath water. When you say Pakistan and when you say Pakistan harbors terrorists, et cetera, please, I am Pakistan also. Me and people like us are Pakistan also. We do not believe that we can be at war with the world and at peace with ourselves. We do not believe that we can be happy here while making people unhappy in the rest of the world. We are the Pakistan that you should be engaged in. We are the people you should be looking at also.

And I agree that you have your problems with our national security establishment. We'll find a way forward, because this national security establishment has been a long time in the making, Fareed. And it is - has been made during the Cold War, and it has done America's bidding also and it has been so disadvantageous to us, the people of Pakistan. Don't throw the baby out with the bath - bath water. Don't confuse us with what you think is Pakistan. We are Pakistan.

ZAKARIA: An eloquent note to end on. Jugnu Mohsin, thank you so much, Richard Haass, Husain Haqqani. And we will be right back.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Our question this week from the "GPS Challenge" is, according to new U.N. estimates the world population now just below seven billion will be what by the end of the century? Is it 6 billion, 8 billion, 10 billion or 12 billion?

Stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. Make sure you go to CNN.com/GPS for 10 more questions. And while you're there, check out our website, the Global Public Square. You'll find smart interviews and takes from some of your favorite experts including yours truly. You will also find all our shows. So if you missed one, you can click and watch.

This week's "Book of the Week" is Steve Coll's "The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century." Wonderfully written. It is the book to read to understand who the billionaire Bin Ladens are, who Osama was, and it is also a fascinating window into Saudi Arabia.

Now, for "The Last Look." Take a look at the man who made a name for Abbottabad, Pakistan. It's obviously not Osama Bin Laden you're looking at. This is the man who literally made a name for the place, the man Abbottabad is named after, Sir James Abbott. Abbott was, as you might have guessed, not a local but a Brit. He went to school with the likes of future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

In the mid-1800s, Captain Abbott and his 1,500 men successfully fort off 16,006 troops in the vicinity of the future Abbottabad. Abbott befriended the local Hazaras (ph), learned their language, their culture, their religion, even writing an ode to the town. And when he left, Abbott is said to have spent all his money throwing a party that lasted three days and three nights.

Speaking of extravagant parties, I want to take one more look at a recent "Last Look." Remember our recent story about a web promotion that claimed you could rent out the entire nation of Liechtenstein for your next party, well, the nation's government says it had no involvement with the promotion. The website offering it, Rent A Village says it was working with the local tourism board. Regardless, the offer has now been pulled. Sorry if that changes your plan.

The correct answer to out "GPS Challenge" question was C. The U.N. says that the world's population will rise to 10 billion by the year 2100. Go to our website for more.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week. Stay tuned for "RELIABLE SOURCES."