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American Morning
Al Qaeda Information
Aired July 30, 2003 - 09:06 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: At least part of the intelligence that prompted the warning comes from interrogations of Al Qaeda suspects who are in custody. The Department of Homeland Security officials are not completely convinced about the quality of the information. We have more on that from Mike Boettcher, who is at CNN Center in Atlanta.
Hey, Mike. Good morning.
MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
The information gleaned from the various suspects who are under arrests come from Saudi Arabia I am told this by intelligence sources. It is from people arrested after the May 12th Riyadh bombings, but they're not convinced, as you said, of the quality of the information. That is because Al Qaeda operatives are trained to give up information gradually. In the past, the pattern has been to give up false information, and then weeks, months, sometimes even years after they're arrested, give up good information. But by that time, it's too late -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Well, then, how exactly does the government go about trying to corroborate the information they're getting from detainees?
BOETTCHER: Well, according to the reports, there are electronic intercepts that aided in corroborating this evidence.
But, you know, I talked to an official last night who said that it's just too good to be true. Al Qaeda has not put out electronically specific plans, and it would be a real break with their past traditions to talk about deploying five-man teams and details of specificity of an operation, and that's why they're continuing to check the sources, those people held, terrorists held in Saudi Arabia, and also, those electronic intercepts, because it does somehow seem too good to be true.
O'BRIEN: Outside of that, and maybe it is at this point considered too good to be true, is there any other information they've hoping to glean from the detainees?
BOETTCHER: Well, they're trying to find out what other threats exist out there. And one of the big worries is that Al Qaeda strikes where we don't expect them to strike. They have us looking in one direction when actually they going to attack somewhere else. And that is one of the concerns of intelligence officials in the coalition, that perhaps this is a feint, trying to misdirect us. One of the concerns is maritime terrorism, ships on the open seas and explosives. We had that ship in Greece that was found with tons of explosives. Still, I am told by a European intelligence official last week that they have not been able to tie that to a terrorist group as of yet. But still, there are concerns that Al Qaeda is trying to use ships. We know that they have try in the past 20 do this.
O'BRIEN: All right, so then, overall, outside of waiting until something terrible happens, how do we go about actually trying to confirm the information then?
BOETTCHER: Well, you keep trying to go back to human sources. But unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of those human sources. The coalition has been building those sources, and the focus, also, is trying to get bin Laden, just as the U.S. is trying to get Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And they feel that if they can disrupt the network by going after the various nodes of that network that exists from Southeast Asia to bin Laden somewhere on the Afghan/Pakistan border to Europe to Africa, if they can disrupt those nodes, then they can disrupt these plans.
But these plans, and Al Qaeda traditionally has planned months, even years in advance of such big operations, like the one, if it was carried off, that's being warned by the Homeland Security Department now. That sort of operation, if Al Qaeda holds to its past practice, would have been planned probably about two years ago.
O'BRIEN: Mike Boettcher at the CNN Center this morning. Scary stuff. Thanks for that update.
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 July 30, 2003 - 09:06 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: At least part of the intelligence that prompted the warning comes from interrogations of Al Qaeda suspects who are in custody. The Department of Homeland Security officials are not completely convinced about the quality of the information. We have more on that from Mike Boettcher, who is at CNN Center in Atlanta.
Hey, Mike. Good morning.
MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.
The information gleaned from the various suspects who are under arrests come from Saudi Arabia I am told this by intelligence sources. It is from people arrested after the May 12th Riyadh bombings, but they're not convinced, as you said, of the quality of the information. That is because Al Qaeda operatives are trained to give up information gradually. In the past, the pattern has been to give up false information, and then weeks, months, sometimes even years after they're arrested, give up good information. But by that time, it's too late -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Well, then, how exactly does the government go about trying to corroborate the information they're getting from detainees?
BOETTCHER: Well, according to the reports, there are electronic intercepts that aided in corroborating this evidence.
But, you know, I talked to an official last night who said that it's just too good to be true. Al Qaeda has not put out electronically specific plans, and it would be a real break with their past traditions to talk about deploying five-man teams and details of specificity of an operation, and that's why they're continuing to check the sources, those people held, terrorists held in Saudi Arabia, and also, those electronic intercepts, because it does somehow seem too good to be true.
O'BRIEN: Outside of that, and maybe it is at this point considered too good to be true, is there any other information they've hoping to glean from the detainees?
BOETTCHER: Well, they're trying to find out what other threats exist out there. And one of the big worries is that Al Qaeda strikes where we don't expect them to strike. They have us looking in one direction when actually they going to attack somewhere else. And that is one of the concerns of intelligence officials in the coalition, that perhaps this is a feint, trying to misdirect us. One of the concerns is maritime terrorism, ships on the open seas and explosives. We had that ship in Greece that was found with tons of explosives. Still, I am told by a European intelligence official last week that they have not been able to tie that to a terrorist group as of yet. But still, there are concerns that Al Qaeda is trying to use ships. We know that they have try in the past 20 do this.
O'BRIEN: All right, so then, overall, outside of waiting until something terrible happens, how do we go about actually trying to confirm the information then?
BOETTCHER: Well, you keep trying to go back to human sources. But unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of those human sources. The coalition has been building those sources, and the focus, also, is trying to get bin Laden, just as the U.S. is trying to get Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And they feel that if they can disrupt the network by going after the various nodes of that network that exists from Southeast Asia to bin Laden somewhere on the Afghan/Pakistan border to Europe to Africa, if they can disrupt those nodes, then they can disrupt these plans.
But these plans, and Al Qaeda traditionally has planned months, even years in advance of such big operations, like the one, if it was carried off, that's being warned by the Homeland Security Department now. That sort of operation, if Al Qaeda holds to its past practice, would have been planned probably about two years ago.
O'BRIEN: Mike Boettcher at the CNN Center this morning. Scary stuff. Thanks for that update.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
