Living with the Bin Laden Family

DATE August 4, 2004 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: General Tommy Franks discusses his new memoir,
"American Soldier"
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest is General Tommy Franks. He led the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as
the commander in chief of CENTCOM, the US Central Command. He served in that
position from July of 2000 until retiring from the military in July 2003. In
his new memoir, "American Soldier," General Franks writes about planning and
executing those wars. He also looks back on his earlier military career,
fighting in Vietnam and serving as an assistant division commander during
Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield.

General Franks, welcome to FRESH AIR. You wrote in your new book that on
September 12th you started planning the attack against Afghanistan. How soon
did you start planning the attack against Iraq?

General TOMMY FRANKS (US Army, Retired; Author, "American Soldier"): The
first time that I ever really got serious--and, of course, I talk about it in
the book at some length--was during December 2001. It's always interesting to
me that so many people say, `Well, you know, this president was consumed on
the subject of Iraq immediately following 9/11.' And I think Dick Clarke made
that point in his book. And I've told a lot of people that may be true, but
the president of the United States knew who the military commander responsible
for Iraq was. And the first time he talked to me about it was the end of
December 2001.

GROSS: What was the reason you were given for, you know, planning an invasion
against Iraq?

Gen. FRANKS: Actually, the president never asked me whether I thought we
should conduct military operations in Iraq. I've always found that
interesting because, if he had asked me, I would've said, `Of course,' because
I was responsible for the young men and women who were flying Operation
Southern Watch and Operation Northern Watch over Iraq every day for about 10
years and being shot at almost every day without our country doing anything
about it. And so the president, in his earliest conversations with me, made
it very clear that his wish was that we should never have American troops in
Iraq except by invitation.

A lot of people say, `Boy, you're sure a pro-Bush kind of guy.' And actually,
I am not. I'm actually intently Independent, and I'm registered that way and
that's the way I think. But I do make the point that I think a lot of the
handling of what Bush thought and what Bush said at certain points in time
have been a bit unfair and a bit misleading. And this has been an interesting
period in American history, and I did not find the guy overwhelmed with this
notion of, `Well, we just have to hurry up and get in Iraq.' I just didn't
see it that way.

GROSS: We went into Iraq without a UN coalition behind us which we did have
during the Gulf War. Do you think that the UN coalition would've helped or
hindered militarily? And the reason why I ask that, I remember I think it was
a reporter on our show or a policy analyst--I honestly don't remember who said
this--who said that he understands that our military often feels it can move
better without worrying about coordinating with a lot of other armies because
other armies do things differently, and it can become a tactical problem to
deal with that kind of coordination.

Gen. FRANKS: Coalition warfare is tough. I think Winston Churchill, during
the dark days of World War II, made the observation that it's actually very
difficult to work with allies, that the only thing worse would be to work
without allies.

I think the issue with regard to the United Nations and NATO, for that matter,
is not so much their provision of troops for work inside Iraq or in
Afghanistan but, rather, how to command and control those forces once they're
committed on the ground. Our experience with the United Nations command and
control, as you know, has not always been, for us, a rosy experience. One
that pops into my mind is Mogadishu, Somalia.

GROSS: So were you just as happy, when you began the war in Iraq, that you
weren't working with a UN coalition?

Gen. FRANKS: I was pleased that we had the coalition that we had. I was
pleased with the nations which were involved in our operations in both
Afghanistan and Iraq. And actually I was pleased that we had no overseeing
United Nations command and control for the reasons you mentioned.

GROSS: Those who have interacted with Saddam Hussein say that he was very
mentally unstable, that he was a madman. What is it like to go into war
believing that the person who is your opponent is mad?

Gen. FRANKS: Actually Saddam Hussein was sufficiently in control of his
military to be reckoned with as a commander of that military. And I think
we're always not well-served to think of the other guy as crazy, if you will.
We just need to take a look at the adversary and we need to treat him in
accordance with his ability and not necessarily what we think of his
stability.

GROSS: So were you prepared for particularly kind of crazing or surprising
scenarios because of Saddam Hussein and his, you know, loss of grasp of
reality?

Gen. FRANKS: Absolutely. When this plan was being put together, people will
ask from time to time, `Well, why did you use such a small force? Wouldn't we
be much better off, in terms of stability, if we had a larger force on the
ground right now? Wouldn't, in fact, we have been much better off had we had
a larger force on the ground when we started the combat operation last March?'
And what I say is exactly the point you made. When you're dealing with a
leader like Saddam Hussein, we should always ask ourselves: Will this man
leave his water infrastructure for the people in place while we build up a
force of a half million men over six months, as we did in 1990? Well, would
he leave his oil infrastructure in place, the future of the Iraqi people?
Would he launch missiles in the direction of Israel if we were to be very
visibly building up for six months?

And so for sure, Terry, it's very important to think about the psychology of
the enemy, and we did so in this case. And in balance, that's where the
decision came from to use the size of force that we had because we were able
to exercise a bit of surprise by going earlier than I think anyone
anticipated.

GROSS: I think perhaps the greatest criticism of the size of the force is
about what happened after the official combat part of the operation. Critics
say that we didn't have enough troops to win the peace and, you know, we're
still fighting an insurgency in Iraq. The insurgency continues in spite of
the fact that we handed over sovereignty back to the Iraqis. And the other
criticism was that, you know, even earlier on, there weren't enough American
troops to maintain law and order, prevent the museums and the office buildings
and everything else from being looted, to stop chaos and crime in the streets,
and that the goodwill that perhaps we could have won, for a lot of people we
never won it because of the chaos, because they didn't really feel that their
lives were improved because their lives were in danger from suicide bombings
and just, you know, street crime and so on. So, in retrospect, do you think
that the plan for American troops for the moment after the official fighting
started wasn't adequate?

Gen. FRANKS: I think that the force structure was just right for the
beginning of the operation, and I think beginning about the 1st of May last
year, after the president announced that we had reached an end point for major
combat operations, it was necessary to size up the situation on the ground.

It's very interesting. When I started the operation, I kind of had a mental
continuum. And on one end of the continuum, I saw, `Well, maybe the Iraqis
will wrap their arms around their problem and will create a new Iraq very
quickly without a great deal of violence and without a great deal of
instability.' On the other end of the continuum, maybe we see chaos and
looting and continued violence and insurrection and so forth. And, of course,
Terry, there are a lot of points in between.

Actually, when we initiated combat operations, we didn't know which of those
two situations we would find. I've often thought how convenient it would be
had we been able to find a man like Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan for Iraq.
But, unfortunately, there just was not such a leader available to do that. We
saw what we saw with Ahmed Chalabi, and I think we just simply had to go
through the process. And I think our government, and certainly our young men
and women in uniform, have done a good job of adapting to what we have found
as we've moved through that.

GROSS: My guest is General Tommy Franks. He was the commander in chief of
CENTCOM from July of 2000 to 2003 and led the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
His new memoir is called "American Soldier." We'll talk more about a break.
This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is retired General Tommy Franks.
He led the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. He was commander in
chief of CENTCOM from July of 2000 to July 2003.

In Bob Woodward's book about the war in Iraq, he says that Powell and Cheney
were barely speaking to each other during part of the planning of the war.
And you write that on far too many occasions, the Washington bureaucracy
fought like cats in a sack. You write this in your new book, "American
Soldier." And I'm wondering how that kind of infighting affected you
directly.

Gen. FRANKS: Boy, that's a great question. I think affecting me directly,
not so much at all; affecting the planning that we had ongoing, perhaps not
directly. But it was interesting. I didn't personally experience Colin
Powell and Don Rumsfeld fighting. I actually never saw that, but I did see an
inability of the bureaucracies within the State Department and down within the
Defense Department. There was not a degree of cooperation that I would like
to have seen in evidence as we went through it.

These, I think, are huge personalities. These people are patriots to the last
man and woman, but each has his own view. And I saw what I thought was a
great deal of witting to own view within our bureaucracy, rather than willing
cooperation and coordination.

Who's to say what overarching effect that may have had. I don't know, but I
would like it if our bureaucracy in Washington didn't have so much friction.
Now I'd be quick to point out that I've seen similar friction in large
bureaucracies for decades, and so I'm not sure that this is an immediate
phenomenon. But we do have large personalities in Washington, and frequently
they will contend with one another.

GROSS: And three of the people who you single out for this kind of criticism
of being inflexible in their commitment to their own ideas and being
disruptive and divisive were Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage and undersecretary of Defense for policy,
Douglas Feith. And let me just read something you say about Feith. You say,
`Feith was a theorist whose ideas were often impractical. Amongst some
uniformed officers in the building, he had a reputation for confusing abstract
memoranda with results in the field. Feith was a master of the off-the-wall
question that rarely had relevance to operational problems. It was obvious
that Don Rumsfeld trusted him, and I wanted to use the products of his
intellect but I had little time or inclination to answer Feith's mind-teasers,
so I generally ignored his contributions and focused on what the secretary had
to say.'

So, again, what kind of problems did what you perceived as inflexibility and
ideology have on your work? Did you have to...

Gen. FRANKS: Well...

GROSS: Yeah.

Gen. FRANKS: ...what I meant and what I'll stay with is many discussions that
we would have in Defense on problem solving, what assumptions we might make
and so forth, Doug Feith was an out-of-the-box thinker. He is an
out-of-the-box thinker, and so we'd be moving along, talking about one
particular aspect of the plan, and Doug Feith would say, `Well, how about
this?' or `How about that?' And, in many cases, it is not that the ideas were
necessarily bad ideas, they were just not sequitur with the discussion at hand
and were not practically relevant to the subjects we'd be discussing.

And so that's why I made the comment and I'll stick with it. Doug, nice
enough fellow, patriot, to be sure, but the master of the question that was
not necessarily related to what we were talking about.

GROSS: You describe Donald Rumsfeld as demanding and impatient. Norman
Schwarzkopf was critical of Rumsfeld and called his micromanagement of the war
plan `scary' in the days during the planning of the war in Iraq. And this is
something he told The Washington Post. He said, `When Donald Rumsfeld makes
his comments, it appears that he disregards the Army, that he is the guy
driving the train and everybody else better fall in line behind him or else.
There are guys at the Pentagon who've been involved in operational planning
for their entire lives, and for this wisdom acquired during many operations,
wars, schools, for that just to be ignored and, in its place, have somebody
who doesn't have any of the training is of concern.' Did you share that...

Gen. FRANKS: Who made that comment, Terry?

GROSS: Norman Schwarzkopf, to The Washington Post.

Gen. FRANKS: Oh, OK.

GROSS: Yeah.

Gen. FRANKS: I don't share Norm's exact phrasing of the concern, but it's
true that Don Rumsfeld is a very direct personality. He's a very direct,
hands-on, centralized sort of a manager. Now there are some who take that as
disrespect, disrespect for uniformed leaders who, in fact, have given a great
many years of their lives to learn their craft, and they're very, very good at
it. And so it is not surprising to me to see people who actually don't know
Don Rumsfeld all that well, to make the sort of observation that you mentioned.

On the other hand, I see him as perhaps one of the most focused men I've ever
met. The degree of experience that he has inside the Washington bureaucracy
is just enormous. I always respected him. There were times in our
relationship where I would have found it hard to think of him as friend,
although, by and large, I did think of him as friend. And he's a friend
today. I joke with people by saying, `Oh, you mean the smallish,
mind-mannered gentleman with the very sharp elbows?' And I would even go so
far as to say I think he has done our country a good job over the last several
years, which, as you know, Terry, has been a really, really tough time to be
inside the Washington bureaucracy.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is retired General Tommy Franks.
He was the commander in chief of CENTCOM from July 2000 to July 2003. He's
written a new memoir called "American Soldier."

Let's talk a little bit about the actual strategy of the war in Iraq. First
of all, you believed in the importance of deception. And one of the
deceptions was called the Turkish deception. Would you describe what that was
about?

Gen. FRANKS: Well, it's very interesting, part of it having to do with
Turkey, but the overarching deception notion was to prevent Saddam Hussein
from ever determining where we would launch our major combat operations from.
As long as it appeared as though we were going to be bringing major forces
down through Turkey, that, of course, was in our best interest. There was a
period, and I mention this in the book, where we worked very hard to get
Turkey to permit us to bring a large land force down through Turkey. But even
when it became obvious that we were not going to receive diplomatic clearance
and approval to do that, I wanted to maintain the appearance that we were.

And so from time to time, we would pass to Saddam Hussein information that
would indicate that the Turks actually were part of a large ruse and at the
last minute were going to permit a large American force to come down through
Turkey. The purpose of that was to nail down some 13 Iraqi divisions up north
of Baghdad. We simply wanted them to remain in place in the north, rather
than repositioning themselves down to the south where we would have to fight
them. And so that's what the whole deception plan was all about. We wanted
to confuse Saddam with respect to when we would attack and how we would
attack.

GROSS: How do you pass misinformation on to Saddam Hussein?

Gen. FRANKS: In a variety of ways. I mentioned some names in the book, but
we actually used some friends who were heads of state in the Middle East and
passed them information, knowing that they would pass some of that information
to the regime in Baghdad. Additionally...

GROSS: Did they know that they were being used in that way? Were they
cooperating, or were they unintentionally sending misinformation?

Gen. FRANKS: Very difficult to say. I think in some cases, it was not set up
as a double agent sort of approach. In other words, we would not go to one of
these leaders and say, `Here's what we want you to pass to Saddam Hussein.'
We would rather indicate that we were interested in the north, for example, or
that we were interested in Jordan to the west and leave it to them what they
would pass to the regime.

Perhaps in the future, maybe 10 years, 15, 25 years from now, we'll be able to
look back and see exactly what was passed and how it was passed. But that was
a part of the approach that we used to keep Saddam guessing.

GROSS: General Tommy Franks is the former commander in chief of CENTCOM. His
new memoir is called "American Soldier." He'll be back in the second half of
the show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Announcements)

GROSS: Coming up, living with the bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia. We talk
with Carmen bin Ladin. Her husband, from whom she is now separated, is one
of Osama bin Laden's younger brothers. And we continue our interview with
General Tommy Franks.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with General Tommy Franks.
He was the commander in chief of CENTCOM from July 2000 to July 2003 and led
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. His new memoir is called "American
Soldier."

I don't know if you feel like you could share this with us, but I'm wondering
what went through your mind on the eve of the war, believing that your troops
are going to be facing weapons of mass destruction, most likely biological.
It's a terrible fate to be sending troops into, and you thought that that was
what lay in store for them, so what goes through your mind right before the
war starts?

Gen. FRANKS: Terry, that's such a good question, and it's an emotional
question with me. I think that the hardest thing that anyone in authority
ever has to do, and certainly the hardest thing any military leader ever has
to do, is send the ones I call the kids. You know, the generals get the
credit, and the young people are doing the work. It's been that way all the
way back through the greatest generation, the band of brothers and so forth.
When it comes time to make that decision and issue that order, that's a very,
very difficult thing, and in my personal case, I just became very
introspective. I absolutely believed in the mission that we had been given.
I thought it was necessary to conduct this operation in Iraq. And I just
steeled myself to the process. I make a point in the book that I learned from
an older commander in Vietnam, long, long years ago, that sometimes it's
necessary to postpone one's emotions until you can afford 'em.

GROSS: General Franks, from your point of view, how did the experiment with
embedded journalists work during the Iraq War?

Gen. FRANKS: Terry, loved it. I loved it. I remember when Torie Clarke
first mentioned it to me. I said, `That idea is, in Texas parlance, dumber
than a box of rocks. Think about the liability that the military will incur
if we embed journalists,' and on and on and on. And as I went through that
and I thought more about it and I met some of the journalists and I thought
about the process, I became the world's greatest fan. And I actually think
the embedding of journalists in this operation was just a wonderful success
story. On the one hand, you know, military commanders hate it when our
citizens see all the warts on war, and war is a warty thing. On the other
hand, there is a certain power in having our citizens know the truth. The
embedding program was terrific.

GROSS: Since so many Americans are now reading the September 11th commission
report, I want to ask you a couple of questions about September 11th. You say
that on September 11th, you were given to believe that there might be up to 30
more attacks on the way. What were you preparing for, and what--you know,
what did you think might happen?

Gen. FRANKS: The context of that is actually quite interesting. We had--as
has been reported, we'd been concerned for some period of time about a
terrorist attack. But actually, our concern was in the Middle East. The
indicators that we had indicated potential problems in a number of countries
for which I was responsible and in which I had, oh, 19 to 20,000 American
troopers under my command. And so at the time that 9/11 happened and all of
the fury of intelligence reporting started, and indicating a possibility of
additional attacks, my focus was on the Middle East. I was worrying about our
American troopers that were over in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and so
forth. So that's what we were focused on at the same time that I was worrying
and thinking about Afghanistan, because I suspected that we were going to go
into Afghanistan to remove al-Qaeda.

GROSS: On September 11th, President Bush was at an elementary school in
Texas. He was in the classroom, listening to the children read a book called
"My Pet Goat," as he was told by Andrew Card, I believe it was, that a second
plane had hit the World Trade Center and America was under attack. After
getting that message, the president continued to sit for about seven more
minutes as the children continued to read "My Pet Goat." What is your
reaction to that?

Gen. FRANKS: I think...

GROSS: Some people have said he froze, that he froze, that he was needed,
that even if it was too soon for him to move anywheres that he should have
gotten on the phone and started to get in touch immediately with his people.
So I'm wondering, as a military leader yourself, what was your reaction to
that?

Gen. FRANKS: Terry, that's tough. I wish that--just being candid, I wish we
didn't have to have such vitriol, not yours and mine. But when we have
election years and that sort of thing, and we find that an observation like
that creates so much discussion, I really don't know what I think about the
seven minutes. I know in my personal case, and in decisions that I have been
asked to make, or thought it was my duty to make over time, many of them that
I have made very, very quickly have turned out to be wrong. And I have found
that a little bit of time at the beginning of an issue or the beginning of a
problem can pay large dividends in outcomes. And so I can't be in Bush's head
while he was receiving that information and knowing what he was thinking
about. But despite the fact that I actually ain't a Republican hack, I don't
hold against him that he took some time to do some serious thinking. I think
it was a very tough moment for America, and I don't know what I would have
done in that position.

GROSS: You think there's a chance you might have gone back to your seat in
the classroom and stayed for a while, while the kids continued to read?

Gen. FRANKS: I actually do. There are a couple of kinds of leadership style.
One is the kind that immediately wants to begin issuing instructions. And the
other kind is one that has intense, oh, confidence and faith in the people
right around you. When I was the commander in chief, I had security people
and operators and intelligence people around me all the time, and in times of
crisis, frequently, you can just watch them work and satisfy yourself that
they are getting the information that needs to be gotten together for good
decision-making. And so I don't know exactly what the situation was in that
school. I've read an awful lot about it. And, of course, Michael Moore's
work, "Fahrenheit 9/11," has raised that as an issue. Don't know whether it's
an issue or not. I just--I'd have trouble grading someone's paper on that
particular point.

GROSS: Just curious. Did you see Michael Moore's movie?

Gen. FRANKS: I have not seen it. I've read an awful lot about it and talked
to a number of friends, some of whom live right here in New York, about the
movie, and I will see it.

GROSS: Interesting. Tell me why you're going to see it, 'cause I think, you
know, some people are refusing to see it.

Gen. FRANKS: Oh, I think it's interesting. I find it hard to talk to people
who would refuse to see "9/11" or who would refuse to listen to what Rush
Limbaugh has to say on an issue. I think that far too frequently, we want
everything to be in hyperbole. And I don't think life is hyperbole. I think,
while we go through life on somewhat of a sine wave with our highs and with
our lows, that reality of life in this country is somewhere in the middle of
the scale, and I just like to be advised about what's going on on both ends of
the extreme.

GROSS: Each chapter in your memoir, "American Soldier," begins with a quote
about war, and I want to end the interview with one of those quotes. You
quote Sun Tzu, who says, "If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need
not fear the result of a hundred battles." What does that mean to you?

Gen. FRANKS: Let me use the example of technologies. And something that
people ask me about from time to time, the Powell doctrine and the use of
overwhelming force, and why didn't we do that in Iraq or, for that matter, in
Afghanistan? And what I say is, I use the Sun Tzu quote. We have an ability,
right now, to know ourselves, to understand where our troops are, what they're
doing, what their levels of supply are that we have never had before. That is
a technologically enhanced capability that simply is just world-class.
Similarly, the closer we get to understanding what the enemy's capabilities
are, then the less fear we need to have in the use of fewer troops in order to
accomplish any given mission. So on the one hand, we're technologically
capable of knowing our own condition, the friendly condition on a battlefield.
But as everything would indicate to all of us, we still have a long way to go
to understand the intentions of the enemy. Now we have a lot of capability to
photograph enemy troops and know where those troops are, but we don't yet have
the capability to understand their intentions. I think Sun Tzu was talking
about that 2,500 years ago, and I think it's just remarkable that it's as true
today as it was then.

GROSS: General Franks, thank you so much for talking with us.

Gen. FRANKS: You're the best. Thanks a lot. It's a treat to be with you.

GROSS: General Tommy Franks was the former commander in chief of CENTCOM.
His new memoir is called "American Soldier."

Coming up, Carmen bin Ladin talks about her nine years in Saudi Arabia. Her
husband, from whom she is separated, is one of Osama bin Laden's younger
brothers. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Carmen bin Ladin discusses her life and her children
TERRY GROSS, host:

My guest, Carmen bin Ladin, lived inside the bin Laden clan for nine years
from 1976 to 1985. Her husband, Yeslam, from whom she's been separated since
1988, is one of Osama bin Laden's brothers. Yeslam was the 10th son in the
bin Laden family and had 24 brothers and 29 sisters. Yeslam's father had 22
wives. Yeslam and Osama have different mothers. Carmen says that during the
year she lived among the bin Ladens, Osama came to exemplify everything that
repelled her about that opaque and harsh country. In her new memoir, "Inside
the Kingdom," she writes about her life in Saudi Arabia and why she couldn't
bear to raise her daughters there. In 1985, she moved with her husband and
daughters to Switzerland. She was born and raised in Switzerland, the
daughter of a Swiss father and Persian mother. As a girl, she spent summer
vacations in Iran. Carmen and Yeslam met in Geneva and, after they got
engaged, moved to California, where they both went to college. But he later
insisted they move to Saudi Arabia. I asked Carmen bin Ladin how many times
she met Osama.

Ms. CARMEN BIN LADIN (Author, "Inside the Kingdom"): I met Osama three times,
but because Osama would not want to see the wife of his brother, because he
was a very strict religious man and, in Saudi society, you don't see the wife
of your brother.

GROSS: So were you covered in a veil when you met?

Ms. BIN LADIN: No, I was playing with Wafah, and...

GROSS: Your daughter.

Ms. BIN LADIN: Wafah, my daughter, Wafah. I was playing with her at the
entrance, and somebody knocked at the door and asked for my husband, and I
instinctively opened the door and find myself face to face with a very tall
man who, as soon as he looked at me, because I was unveiled--I had jeans and a
T-shirt on--he turned around and start walking away. And I kept walking after
him, saying, `Well, Yeslam is here.' And the person who was with him, which
was his nephew, told me, `This is Osama.' Then when he said, `This is Osama,'
I realized, then I turned back, went inside, called my husband and went in
another room to let him alone with my husband.

GROSS: So was it shocking to you that your family had a member who was, you
know, the world's leading terrorist?

Ms. BIN LADIN: Of course, it's shocking. Every act of terrorist is shocking
to me, shocking and difficult, because my daughter are having the same name,
you know. Then shocking--every act of terrorist, it shocks me.

GROSS: Now when--you grew up in Switzerland.

Ms. BIN LADIN: Yes.

GROSS: When you moved with your husband to his home in Saudi Arabia, your
freedoms were basically taken away from you. What are some of the things that
you could no longer do?

Ms. BIN LADIN: You know, I couldn't go out of the house. Everything that we
take for granted in Europe and the Occident, you couldn't do. But, you know,
I was still privileged compared to my older sister-in-law, because my husband
would involve me in what he was doing. I remember even one night, he took me
at the headquarter of the organization when everything was closed, to show me
his offices. Compared to my other sister-in-law, because of my relation with
my husband, I had some privilege, you see, but I couldn't drive. I couldn't
get out of the house, but I was not the only one. Everybody, all the women,
used to live this way.

GROSS: Did you ever say to your husband, `If you really love me, how could
you possibly expect me to live like this, to live like a prisoner in my own
home?'

Ms. BIN LADIN: No, because, you know, I did realize that I was privileged
compared to the other sister-in-laws. Most of his brothers, they would come
and discuss business with him. He would let me stay in the room. I was
worried that if he went to Bakr house or Salim house, their wife, if they
discuss business, their wife would not be allowed to stay in the room. And
Jeddah was changing so fast, and it was challenging. And that was one of the
things that made Jeddah more bearable. And the other things that you have to
keep in mind, that when the wealth and the change becomes so--the material
wealth in Jeddah start building so fast, then I wanted to convince myself--and
I thought, I really believed that if the country is changing so fast
materially, then morally, it will change. At the beginning, the first five
years, I thought that this difference between Saudi Arabia and the Western
world would fade away. Then, with time, I realized, no, they would welcome
any material change, but they would never welcome any culture change in their
society.

GROSS: You had many sisters-in-law...

Ms. BIN LADIN: Yes.

GROSS: ...living in the compound. Did any of them yearn for the kind of
freedoms that you wanted, or did they think that you were wrong to even want
them?

Ms. BIN LADIN: I know that some of my sister-in-law envied the relation I had
with my husband, but what surprised me there, the worries that I had was not
the same worried. I mean, for them, I have the impression that freedom
doesn't mean the same thing that it mean to me. For me, it was my worries
that when my daughter will grow up or, you know, if something happened to
Yeslam, I would be under the tutorship of another male relative. And because
my family was not from Saudi Arabia, it would have to be from the bin Laden
family. But my daughter would be under the tutorship of maybe a very strict
brother-in-law that would be their uncle. But the women there, they didn't
seem to mind that.

GROSS: So if something had happened to your husband while you were living in
Saudi Arabia, you couldn't have just left the country with your children?

Ms. BIN LADIN: I think it would have been very, very difficult, because I
would--you know, they would want the girls to stay in Saudi Arabia, being
brought under the Saudi culture which to be submissive to that culture and to
behave like proper Saudi girls. And for me, that was unthinkable. That was
one of my main worries, you know. I had that always in the back of my mind,
you know, this fear of the future for my daughter.

GROSS: My guest is Carmen bin Ladin. Her new memoir is called "Inside the
Kingdom." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Carmen bin Ladin. Her husband, from whom she has been
separated since 1988, is one of Osama bin Laden's brothers. She's written a
memoir about her nine years living with the bin Laden family. It's called
"Inside the Kingdom." She now lives in Switzerland, where she was born and
raised.

You and your husband moved from Saudi Arabia to Geneva in 1985. You were
happy to get out so you could get your life back and your freedom back. And
he wanted to move because of business reasons?

Ms. BIN LADIN: No, it just happened that he was not feeling well, and he
decided that he would stay in Geneva. And I decided that--you know, I took
that opportunity to enroll the girls at school, because I realized that they
were growing up, and I wanted them to have the kind of freedom that they would
not have in Saudi Arabia.

GROSS: So, if this isn't too personal, how did the marriage change when you
were in Geneva? Was he comfortable then with you doing all the things that a
Western woman would do?

Ms. BIN LADIN: No, I think, you know, the problem was that, as long as the
girls, they were younger and they were considered as children, Yeslam would
allow me to dress them the way I wanted to, to educate them the way I wanted
to. But slowly, slowly, I did realize, as the girls start getting older, that
up to then, I thought Yeslam was very Westernized, because he would let me
bring up the girls the way I would do it if I was living in Switzerland, you
see. Then, as the girls started getting in their teen-age years, then I
realized that he was more Saudi. He was looking at their jeans, you know,
that they were too tight, for example, and he started to expect from the girls
to behave more like Saudi girls, you see. And I think that was what scared
me.

GROSS: What has it been like for your children to have the bin Ladin name
ever since September 11th?

Ms. BIN LADIN: Well, you see, my daughter, they paid a very emotional price
before 9/11, because they were bin Ladins, because we had to fight for the
freedom, you see, to be able to live like a Westerner. And 9/11 changed that,
that they were brought up with all the value of the Western world, but with a
name that deeply associate with the terror, with culture that is not theirs.
Then it's very, very difficult.

GROSS: Have they thought of changing their names? Have you thought of
changing your name?

Ms. BIN LADIN: But the truth always catches, you know...

GROSS: Right, so it would look like you were hiding something.

Ms. BIN LADIN: Exactly.

GROSS: Well, I know that you and your husband are separated, and I don't know
if you talk at all or if you only communicate through attorneys, but after
September 11th, did you have an urge to call him and say, you know, `It's your
brother. It's your brother who was behind this?' Like, that's so--I mean,
did you have an impulse to just, like, talk to him and kind of share with
somebody who understood what it was like to be related in some way to bin
Laden?

Ms. BIN LADIN: No, because I didn't have any contact with my husband. You
know, my husband doesn't even acknowledge his daughter when he sees them on
the street...

GROSS: I see.

Ms. BIN LADIN: ...because they are too Westernized for him, you know.

GROSS: One of your daughters lives in New York. She went to Columbia Law
School.

Ms. BIN LADIN: Yes, she did.

GROSS: Does she still live in New York?

Ms. BIN LADIN: No, unfortunately not. She lives between Geneva and London.

GROSS: Oh, 'cause, like, on September, in 2001, she was living just a few
blocks away from the World Trade Center, but she was living with you on
September 11th. She was visiting in Geneva.

Ms. BIN LADIN: Yes, she came for the summer, because she had graduated in May
from Columbia, and she came--at the beginning of June, she came in Geneva, and
she was supposed to come back the 15 of September back to New York. But
unfortunately, this tragedy happened, and I was advised to keep her in
Switzerland.

GROSS: And so now she's in the position of sending out resumes, I guess, or
she was in the position, as some point, of sending out resumes with the bin
Ladin name on it.

Ms. BIN LADIN: Yeah, but I think it's very difficult for the people, because
for a person to hire somebody with that name. And anyhow, that was one of the
difficulty, you know.

GROSS: Right, right. Does she have a job?

Ms. BIN LADIN: Not yet.

GROSS: Do you think it's because of the name?

Ms. BIN LADIN: Well, I think at the beginning, she had jobs offered that were
all withdrawn. Then I think it was because of the name, but, you know, we
will see what will happen.

GROSS: Well, Carmen bin Ladin, thank you very much for talking with us.

Ms. BIN LADIN: Thank you for having me.

GROSS: Carmen bin Ladin's new memoir is called "Inside the Kingdom."

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.

We'll close with a track from the new CD by pianist and composer Dave Burrell,
who we hope will join us soon for a concert. The CD is called "Expansion."
Here's his version of "They Say It's Wonderful."

(Soundbite of music)
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