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America Strikes Back: Atty. Gen. Ashcroft Reports on Current Investigations

Aired October 11, 2001 - 07:24   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.
ZAHN: Welcome back at 24 minutes after the hour.

The Justice Department is engaged on several fronts in the war on terrorism. Not only are federal agents questioning hundreds of people about the terror attacks of one month ago, they are also investigating the anthrax cases in Florida and searching for the suspects on President Bush's most wanted terrorism list.

The commander on the legal front is Attorney General John Ashcroft, who joins us now from the White House.

Welcome back, sir. Good to have you with us this morning.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Good morning to you.

ZAHN: Mr. Ashcroft, we confirmed earlier this morning that the criminal investigation is now under way in Florida in these anthrax cases. Is there any doubt in your mind that that anthrax was deliberately placed in the AMI building?

ASHCROFT: Well, we have a criminal investigation to try and develop a clarity in terms of understanding the placement or the presence of the anthrax virus in the building in Florida. It's the only place we've found it in the United States. We've had dozens of cities that have reported one kind of question or another, but it appears to be that that's the only place. And there are the three individuals have been exposed there.

ZAHN: If it is the only place you find that in the United States, does that mean this investigation will solely focus on this one building or do you plan to search other buildings that might in some way have some sort of business connection to the AMI building?

ASHCROFT: We don't have any indication that there's the anthrax bacteria present in any other facility and we don't have indication that there's a very broad presence of anthrax bacteria in the facility in Florida. But there are three individuals, one of whom contracted the disease. Two other individuals did not contract the disease and are being treated in a preventive way in order to keep them from contracting the disease.

ZAHN: You may have heard last night that the CEO of American Media, David Pecker, said on the air, "I think this is the first bioterrorism attack in the United States." Is he wrong or do we just not know enough at this point to say that?

ASHCROFT: Well, I don't think we can say it conclusively, but obviously anthrax is a very serious matter. Its presence is, would be very unusual in that setting in a natural sort of way. So we are treating this as a criminal matter and we are investigating it with great care and our effort is combined with the Centers for Disease Control because they are experts in terms of these kinds of biological circumstances. This is not a "garden variety" situation. This is a situation where the medical research component is very much above what the FBI is traditionally accustomed to in federal investigations.

ZAHN: How long do you think it's going to take before your investigators know whether this particular strain was manmade or organically grown?

ASHCROFT: Well, you know, that's the kind of thing that would come from the CDC and their kind of investigative capacity. It's almost, it's very difficult to think that even an organic sort of naturally occurring presence of this kind of thing in nature would result in a concentration that infected or provided the basis for exposure to three people in a specific building in that setting. And that's the reason we have launched the kind of investigation we have.

ZAHN: The "Miami Herald" is reporting this morning that two of the suspected hijackers in fact had subscriptions to tabloids published by AMI, the building we're talking about this morning. Can the FBI confirm that this morning?

ASHCROFT: No, we can't.

ZAHN: And what does this suggest to you? Is this a piece of information that leads you down one track over another?

ASHCROFT: Well, obviously if there were a connection between the hijackers and the presence of anthrax bacteria in this setting, it would be very -- of great interest to us and it would assist us very substantially in understanding and evaluating other circumstances. But that's a part of the investigation or the investigation is still under way and I'm not prepared or capable of commenting on that.

ZAHN: All right, Mr. Attorney General, at the same time you've also created a 911 task force at the Justice Department to handle terrorism prosecution and at the same time focus on preventing future attacks. Can you tell the American public exactly what they can expect in terms of their own personal safety being affected here?

ASHCROFT: Well, obviously we live in a different age than we did prior to September the 11th. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't act. My nephew is a college football player. I went to the stadium and watched the game last weekend and I expect to be carrying out my life. I'm not going to yield my freedoms. But I'm going to be prepared. I'm going to be alert. And I think all Americans will. We're not to be panicked, but we are to be prepared. We're doing everything we can at the Justice Department to disrupt, interrupt, displace, prevent additional terrorist acts. We have 650 some people that we've detained in this process, individuals that in some way we felt might have been associated with or participants in the kinds of activities or with groups.

And these individuals, of course, were all in violation. The only people that we've detained are people that have law violations and are subject to detention. But we're doing everything we can to disrupt the ability of the terrorist sympathizers and terrorist organizations to communicate and to do anything additionally to threaten the safety and security of the American people.

ZAHN: Finally this morning, you say you want Americans to be prepared, to be alert. What is the quality of the kind of information you're getting from Americans calling into FBI hotlines across the country?

ASHCROFT: Well, we have about 200,000 contributions by Americans and some are valuable. Some aren't valuable. But that's characteristic of all criminal investigations. And when we put up the list yesterday of the 22 most wanted terrorists worldwide, it's because in the past doing that has resulted in information that's led to the captures, arrest, conviction and punishment of such individuals. And we think that terrorists ought to be people that are recognized around the world and when they're recognized, people understand that they could get up to $5 million in the United States for turning in individuals whose acts have killed Americans, disrupted our activities, the bombings in our embassies, the bombings against our service personnel in Saudi Arabia.

These terrorists deserve justice and it's part of our pursuit of justice to enlist not just Americans, but people worldwide in developing the information that will allow us to pursue them, to capture them and to bring them to justice, to punish them after they are convicted.

ZAHN: Attorney General John Ashcroft, again, thank you for joining us this morning.

ASHCROFT: It's my pleasure.

ZAHN: We appreciate it.

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