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CNN Live Today
Interview With Jessica Stern
Aired May 17, 2002 - 13:13 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Where do we stand on current and future terror threats? Jessica Stern, a public policy lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the author of a newly-published book called "The Ultimate Terrorists," she's live in Boston -- Jessica, good afternoon to you.
JESSICA STERN, AUTHOR, "THE ULTIMATE TERRORISTS": Good afternoon.
HEMMER: I read some comments where you say and believe the current debate over this -- some have called it a blame game -- is in your words "sickening." Why so?
STERN: Well, there's no such thing as a truly surprise attack. The problem is that too much information comes in and so you don't know what to pay attention to. I think that we are not out of the woods yet. We can't afford this kind of partisan bickering. We need to pay attention to the threat, not on blaming.
HEMMER: If we pay attention to the threat, Jessica, and those in power who have the ability to be exposed to the threats, how do you discern what is a warning and how do you discern what is just words?
STERN: Well, that is what people in the intelligence community do. Their job is to figure out what is a credible warning. And it's a very, very difficult job. It's easier when you have agencies working together, where it's easier for them to share information. I think that the FBI, for example, which has really been attacked, is really trying to improve this situation. So I'd like to see, yes, let's figure out where -- where things went wrong in order to improve it, but not for a partisan advantage.
HEMMER: I want to show our viewers in a moment here some of the groups you are keeping track of right now. But before we get to that -- well here it is right now -- groups who have to al Qaeda. The first one on the list, Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen (ph), what should we know about them, Jessica?
STERN: Well this is a Pakistani group that signed bin Laden's February 1998 fatwah, urging Muslims to deliberately target American civilians. And the head of that group signed the coalition against the Jews and crusaders. In other words, this group is formerly part of this alliance. HEMMER: Back on the list, Jessica, just to look at it again, Islamic Jihad is number two on the list that we've put together here. No specific order. A little more familiar with that group; some of the others, not so much: Laskar Jihad (ph); Laskar Mujahedeen (ph); Abu Sayyaf, out of the Philippines; Algerian Islamic groups out of Northern Africa. As you look at that list, what is critical for us to know and understand and learn now?
STERN: I think the most important thing to realize is that we're really talking about a movement and a network of networks. There are many groups that are either funded or inspired by al Qaeda. It isn't a single group. And sometimes ad hoc groups form for a particular operation. So on that list were some groups from Indonesia; one of which has been active -- actually affiliated with a group that's been active in Singapore and, in particular, in Malaysia and the southern Philippines, as well as Indonesia. Close contact with al Qaeda, as far as we know.
HEMMER: Jessica, I know a lot of this -- I don't mean to interrupt you -- but a lot of this is hindsight. But go back to what we learned today at the White House, about this report that came out two years prior to September of 2001. This report about some branch of the al Qaeda network essentially stealing or hijacking a plane and throwing it or dive-bombing it into a federal building. I think the way you covered this, this would not come as a surprise to you.
Does the information, now that it is out there and now that it is public once again, is it something that throws red flags up in your mind?
STERN: I think we ought to be looking at failed states as potential threats. We ought to be looking at places where governments are failing to do their job; where they don't have a monopoly on violence. Over the long term, that's what we need to be doing.
HEMMER: Any surprise to this report that apparently was on the desk of a number of people leading the government about a plan to not necessarily take out Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, but indeed start some sort of response toward them?
STERN: No. If you look at what happened right before Pearl Harbor, you realize that surprise attacks are surprises because we aren't able to appreciate the information that comes in. It isn't that there's no information. It's that we don't know how to tell what's the most important information.
HEMMER: Jessica, thank you.
STERN: Thank you.
HEMMER: Jessica Stern live in Boston for us -- appreciate your insights there.
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