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Terror Threat Level to be Raised to Orange Today

Aired February 07, 2003 - 11:01   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.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, we've got Kelly McCann, one of our security analysts, one of our best security analysts, on the telephone with us. He's in Northern Virginia right now.
Kelly, I'm just wondering, what do you make of the government making this decision, of going from elevated risk to high risk?

KELLY MCCANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

Well, obviously it's suspect in some minds, because of the recent U.N. information that was passed by Colin Powell, and it's been run past me, that is this a political ploy, and that's simply nonsensical. I mean, a movement of this kind of stature, if you will, would never be made for political reason. I think that this is way too serious for that.

However, as Jeanne just said, it's difficult sometimes to isolate the individual piece, because there isn't an individual piece. It's the intelligence process. Information comes in. It's collated. Then it's analyzed. They produce a product, which is now called intelligence, verifiable information, and they put it out.

Based on that actionable intelligence, the threat level is raised. So I think that when I say serious, it's serious that it's not farcical, it's not a political ploy, and it is worth tuning in at 1:00 to see exactly what...

LIN: And we certainly will.

Thank you very much, Kelly McCann, joining us by telephone, our CNN security analyst.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 7, 2003 - 11:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, we've got Kelly McCann, one of our security analysts, one of our best security analysts, on the telephone with us. He's in Northern Virginia right now.
Kelly, I'm just wondering, what do you make of the government making this decision, of going from elevated risk to high risk?

KELLY MCCANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

Well, obviously it's suspect in some minds, because of the recent U.N. information that was passed by Colin Powell, and it's been run past me, that is this a political ploy, and that's simply nonsensical. I mean, a movement of this kind of stature, if you will, would never be made for political reason. I think that this is way too serious for that.

However, as Jeanne just said, it's difficult sometimes to isolate the individual piece, because there isn't an individual piece. It's the intelligence process. Information comes in. It's collated. Then it's analyzed. They produce a product, which is now called intelligence, verifiable information, and they put it out.

Based on that actionable intelligence, the threat level is raised. So I think that when I say serious, it's serious that it's not farcical, it's not a political ploy, and it is worth tuning in at 1:00 to see exactly what...

LIN: And we certainly will.

Thank you very much, Kelly McCann, joining us by telephone, our CNN security analyst.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com