The Real Story Behind "Occupy Wall Street"; Interview with Jeffrey Goldberg; Interview with Pervez Musharraf; Understanding the Importance of the Stans
FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST: This is GPS, THE GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria. We have a great show for you today. First up, CNN was given special access to an upcoming article in "The Atlantic" magazine, with some stunning revelations about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. We talked to the reporter, then a response. I'll ask former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf about these charges, about more in Pakistan, and also about America's impending drawdown in Afghanistan. He's worried. Next up -</s>HERMAN CAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When they ask me who's the president of Ubecki-becki-becki-becki-stan-stan (ph), I'm going to say, you know, I don't know. Do you know?</s>ZAKARIA: The Stans are the least of Herman Cain's problems right now, but they are causing trouble. I'll explain. Then, new studies confirm what we know - America is slipping behind in education worldwide. We take an in-depth look with the Secretary of Education and Bill Gates. But first, here's my take. I've been thinking about "Occupy Wall Street," which is now occupying a number of other cities in America, and wondering what is it really about. The protesters don't like bank bailouts, they feel the 99 percent have been hard done by, and they're protesting what they see as inequality. But America has always had more inequality than many countries. I think the underlying sense of frustration is over a very un- American state of affairs, a loss of social mobility. Americans have so far put up with inequality because they felt they could change their status. They didn't mind others being rich, as long as they had a path to move up, as well. The American Dream is all about social mobility, in a sense, the idea that anyone can make it. Well, "Time" magazine's Rana Foroohar has a great cover story this week that highlights that social mobility in America is declining. She points out that if you were born in 1970, in the bottom 1/5 of our socio-economic spectrum, you have only a 17 percent chance of making it into the upper 2/3 - in other words, moving from the bottom toward the top. The data now show that it is much easier to climb up the ladder in many parts of Europe than in the United States. Rana Foroohar points out that while nearly half of American men with fathers in the bottom fifth of the earning curve remain there, don't move up, only a quarter of Danes and Swedes and only 30 percent of Britons do. In other words, the Europeans do much better. The American Dream seems to be thriving in Europe, not at home. What happened, and what can we do? Well, there are a number of reasons why we find ourselves in this predicament, but the most important of them is how much we have lagged behind in education. No other factor is as closely linked to upward mobility. Education is the engine of social mobility, and, for all its current troubles, Europe, especially Northern Europe, has done a much better job providing high-quality public education, particularly for those who are not rich or upper middle class, so we have some (ph) move up. We talk a lot about the genius of Steve Jobs these days, and justifiably, because he was a genius. But he also grew up in an environment that helped. For example, he graduated from high school in 1972, at a time when the California Public School System was ranked first in the country and American public education was the envy of the world. The public school he went to in Cupertino was very high quality, with excellent programs in science as well as the liberal arts, his twin passions. Today, California's public schools are a disaster, and the state spends twice as much on prisons as it does on education. So, how do we fix our education system? Well, I'm not going to give it away right now. Watch my GPS Special tonight. It's called "Restoring the American Dream: Fixing Education." It airs at 8:00 P.M. and 11:00 P.M. Eastern tonight. Now, back to our regular show. Let's get started.</s>ZAKARIA: The issue of "The Atlantic" magazine that will hit the newsstands next week has a terrific story that adds significantly to a growing body of evidence on the Pakistan problem. CNN has special early access to it. One of the authors of "The Atlantic" piece, Jeffrey Goldberg, joins me now. Welcome.</s>JEFFREY GOLDBERG, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTIC: Thank you.</s>ZAKARIA: So, let's cut to the chase. The most interesting part of this piece is this conversation that you report between the head of the Pakistani army and the head of the - the unit that is basically in charge of nuclear weapons.</s>GOLDBERG: Right. What happened after Abbottabad, the Osama bin Laden raid occurs, the Pakistani army is shocked - shocked that U.S. raiders can come in, kill someone - kill someone in a garrison town, an army garrison town, leave without the Pakistani military even knowing. So, after this, the Pakistani military gets very, very worried about American access to Pakistani's - Pakistan's nuclear weapons. And, of course, as you know, Pakistan treasures its nuclear weapons more than any other aspect of its arsenal, certainly. And - and -</s>ZAKARIA: And it - and it would be fair for them to think, as you point out, that there might be an American plan, a kind of a plan deep in the Pentagon, that in a worse case scenario, if something terrible happened in Pakistan, we would find a way of going in and securing the nuclear weapons.</s>GOLDBERG: There - there are plans. In fact, it's a very, very high priority for American planners. We'd rather have those nuclear weapons not fall into the hands of Jihadists, if the Pakistani states disintegrates, if the Taliban somehow gets closer to some of these bases. So, what happened was this, the - the SPD, this Pakistani army branch, gets a call from General Kayani, who's the most powerful figure in the country, the Chief of Army Staff, and basically says now, do we know for sure that - that these weapons are secure - not from Jihadists, which is what the world worries about, but from America.</s>ZAKARIA: And so, what does General Kidwai, the head of this - this nuclear unit, what does he do in response to Kayani's concerns?</s>GOLDBERG: Well, this is - this is very interesting. What - what happens is the - the nuclear program has already dispersed around the country. There are 12 or 15 different sites where you could plausibly believe that - that their nuclear weapons are stored or components of nuclear weapons are stored. One of the doctrines, one of the Pakistani doctrines to keep those weapons safe and away from prying eyes - not only America's, but India's - is move them around, move them around the country. Sometimes they're moved by - by helicopter, but often they're moved by road. And - and what happened after Abbottabad was the pace of this movement increased. In other words, they accelerated the velocity of this shell game, if you will. And here's the troubling - the really troubling aspect of this, there are two ways you can do this, obviously. You can have huge armored convoys that are - that are driven at night, well protected, moving weapons and components. But-but, of course, that draws attention, not only the attention of Jihadists or whoever might be interested, but - but spy satellites and et cetera. So - so what happens is very often these - these warheads and fissile material are moved around in the equivalent of delivery vans. Over -</s>ZAKARIA: UPS trucks, basically?</s>GOLDBERG: You wish. I mean, UPS would probably do a fairly good job of it. It's an open question about how good a job is being done. Now, obviously, if - if the intelligence is - is good, if they have good operational security on the movement of these trucks - let's put aside the issue of how dangerous Pakistani roads are on a daily basis, but put that aside, if they have good operational security, then no one knows where these trucks going at any given moment. But, because we know that the Pakistani military has been infiltrated to some degree by people who are sympathetic to organizations like the Taliban, that's a whole other level of worry.</s>ZAKARIA: You mention in the article very specifically that the - the weapons in these unsecure or insecure convoys, perhaps one truck moving around, were both unmated and mated.</s>GOLDBERG: Yes.</s>ZAKARIA: This struck me as very, very worrying. Explain what the difference is.</s>GOLDBERG: Right. Well, de-mated weapons are - are weapons in which the warhead is in one place, its fissile core is in another, the delivery system is in another place entirely. So if you were plotting to go steal a nuclear weapon, well, you're going to have a much harder time when they're - when they're separate. And so - so we got reports that - that sometimes these weapons are actually the smaller tactical sized weapons that are - that are mated permanently. The way they're designed is such that it's not possible to de-mate them. And so you could have a complete nuclear weapon being driven around the streets of - of Pindi or Lahore or</s>ZAKARIA: You also point out, and this is somewhat public knowledge, that you fleshed out some of the details. There have been attacks on six different bases in Pakistan that are considered to be - I mean, are rumored to have nuclear weapons on them, correct?</s>GOLDBERG: There are - there have been several attacks over the past five or six or seven years. The - the attack that, to me, is the most interesting was the attack that came a few weeks after the Abbottabad raid. It was an attack on this naval base outside - naval air base outside Karachi, which some people believe might be a place that - that you would have nuclear weapons ready for delivery in case of a war between Pakistan and India. They managed - it's not only the fact that these guys penetrated the base, it's that they - that they stayed on the base for I think 16 or 18 hours before they were neutralized. And they - they had a very specific target. They were going for these P-3 Orion spy planes. They blew up two of them. They had a very good idea of what they should be attacking, what they should be destroying, and they succeeded. This, of course - in Pakistan, where - where I did this reporting, it's widely assumed, among people who are trying to deal honestly with the subject, that these Taliban figures who broke into the base had inside help. They wouldn't have known where to go otherwise. It's a large base. And - and so you have multiple situations where - over the last years, where these bases have been attacked. Sometimes the - the attacks have been successfully repelled. Sometimes it's not been quite so instantaneously successful.</s>ZAKARIA: Jeffrey Goldberg, fascinating article. Thank you.</s>GOLDBERG: Thank you.</s>ZAKARIA: When we come back, we're going to put Jeffrey's findings to a Pakistani who may have answers - the former army chief, the former president, Pervez Musharraf. Stay with us.</s>ZAKARIA: Doesn't this worry you that this is happening?</s>PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, FORMER PAKISTANI PRESIDENT AND ARMY CHIEF: I don't think so. Our nuclear assets are very, very dispersed and strongly held.