Bin Laden's Papers Releasing This Hour; Bin Laden Papers Going Online Now
COSTELLO: Forty minutes past the hour. Right now, we're sifting through newly released documents that capture some of the final words and thoughts of Osama bin Laden. Right now, the public is getting its first look at these documents that were seized in the raid that killed the al Qaeda mastermind. The capture of fading leader desperate to remain relevant and launch another catastrophic strike in the United States, hundreds and hundreds of pages now appearing on the Web site of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Nic Robertson is in London. And, Nic, you've been pouring through these documents. And jealousy has arisen?</s>ROBERTSON: It certainly appears to. Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, this radical Muslim cleric who inspired people like the Ft. Hood shooter to attack American soldiers and many other al Qaeda operatives to mount attacks, bin Laden seems to be jealous of him. There's a letter to bin Laden saying, we would like to nominate him as the new leader in Yemen, and bin Laden writes back to say well-noted but over here we like to see essentially someone tested on the battlefield. That's a real slap down for Awlaki who is a cleric and never fought in the front line like bin Laden. That seems like jealousy.</s>COSTELLO: Interesting. Why has the government made these documents available to the public, Nic?</s>ROBERTSON: I think what they're trying to do here and they say that this is only 17 out of around 6,000 documents. This only a partial picture and we could use these documents to match them up against the other events that we're aware of to get a picture. But what it paints here and I think this is the thrust of the documents that are released is that bin Laden was at loggerheads with his senior deputies and he was at one point advised to disown al Qaeda in Iraq and he wrote a strong letter to the Taliban, al Qaeda's affiliate inside Pakistan, telling them that if it didn't stop killing Muslims, he was going to go public with them. We see him as a micromanager telling another al Qaeda group to plant trees so that they can hide underneath the trees, evade satellite and drone attacks by hiding underneath the trees. So, this is a man who is trying to control the empire. But there are people out there in the field that strongly disagree with him and are going in their own direction.</s>COSTELLO: Interesting. So, Nic, you're going to continue pouring through this document. You'll have new information at the top of the hour in about, what, 15 minutes or so. So, I'll let you get back to it. If all of you want to see documents for yourself, go to CNN.com. We have a link there to this West Point site. You can look at these documents for yourself. You can see Osama bin Laden's handwriting. I mean, there's a lot of interesting stuff there. So, CNN.com in case you want to go there. Courtroom testimony, we hear about John Edwards' wife having an emotional breakdown in an airport after a newspaper ran a story about Edwards' affair. We'll tell you about who is testifying in his trial this morning. And did you watch the royal wedding? Wishing you could have taken part in the ceremony? Well, you can. You can if you have the cash, even now. You can have a slice of Will and Kate's stale wedding cake. We'll be right back.