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CNN Live Today
Interview with John Parachini
Aired July 02, 2002 - 13:28 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Actually, no, we are going to talk about the 4th of July, and the threat of 4th of July. We've been talking a lot about these terror alerts. Most recently, the US is currently at a yellow, or elevated, terrorist threat level right now. But what would it take to raise that a little higher.
John Parachini is an expert on terrorism with the Rand corporation. He joins us now from Washington to talk a little more about this. Hi, John.
JOHN PARACHINI, RAND CORPORATION: How are you?
PHILLIPS: Very good.
Let's talk about the yellow zone. Right now we're in the yellow zone. Tell us what that means exactly.
PARACHINI: Well, the yellow zone indicates that we're at a elevated or significant threat. It is -- it tries to suggest that we should be checking communications, and by we, it's mainly federal, state and local government offices and then secondarily, businesses, and then finally, it's sort of informing the public in a general way.
The threat information is significant but it's not specific and a lot of it has not been corroborated at this point.
PHILLIPS: On Sunday's "LATE EDITION" with Wolf Blitzer, he interviewed Condoleezza Rice, making a comment about the threat level. Let's take a listen to this for a moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOLF BLITZER, HOST, "LATE EDITION": Right now the country is still on this yellow code alert, sort of in the middle ground. Would it be appropriate to move up one notch to orange?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, the administration looks constantly at the threat level, and right now we believe that everything that's being done that should be done to try and make July 4th as safe as possible...
PHILLIPS: John, how is the threat level analyzed? Lay out the colors for us, would you? PARACHINI: The threat is assessed on the credibility of threat information, whether that information can be corroborated with other sources, whether the information is gray and whether it's specific.
That complex of factors influencing our understanding of the threat then gets expressed into these colors that you see on the screen, which are blue, green, yellow, orange and red. Where blue is a -- or green is a low threat, blue is a general threat, yellow is a significant threat, elevated, orange is a high threat, and red is a severe threat.
PHILLIPS: So this is good thing that we're not moving into the orange zone. Why do you think we are not move into the orange zone?
PARACHINI: I think the information we have on the threat is general chatter, and general indications, but nothing specific about a particular target, a particular operation, a particular activity on a particular date.
Clearly with an upcoming national holiday, we want to be concerned about it, and indeed, the attack in the Russia, a number of months back, on a celebration victory day, was akin to what we're celebrating here, our independence, and so we want to be careful about it.
But there's nothing specific, and as I believe your segment earlier suggested, more people are going to be on the National Mall than has ever been the case before, and I think they should be.
Authorities are taking the appropriate precautions for the circumstances in which we find ourselves now.
PHILLIPS: John, how did this system, or where did this system come from? How was it created?
PARACHINI: The system was created under Governor Tom Ridge and the Office Of Homeland Security, in collaboration with the attorney general and the FBI. The attorney general will run this system, and he'll collaborate with Governor Ridge and the Office Of Homeland Security in picking the colors and changing them.
But it's really the attorney general who runs it. It's similar to a system that the British have had since the late 1980s and early 1990s, that they've employed. It's a useful tool that gives a sketch or cliffnotes about how to think about the threat, but it's not a replacement for more clear communication about what we really understand as the nature of the threat, and we should do if there are specific things that authorities think we should do based on information they know.
PHILLIPS: John Parachini from the Rand corporation. Thanks, John. Happy 4th of July.
PARACHINI: Same to you.
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