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TV Station to Air al Qaeda Video Celebrating 9/11

Aired September 09, 2002 - 14:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The FBI says it has received a large volume of threats related to the September 11 anniversary. Officials haven't deemed any of these threats credible, though, but they are alerting utilities, local police and the public all the same. The FBI has faced a large amount of criticism since 9/11, and it's had to make a lot of changes.
Joining us from New Orleans to talk more about this, Don Clark. He's a former FBI special agent in charge.

Hi, Don. Good to see you.

DON CLARK, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: Hi, Kyra, good to see you again.

PHILLIPS: Good to see you again also. Always a pleasure.

Let me ask you personally, is this a time you would want to be back in the FBI?

CLARK: I am getting a little old for that, Kyra. But it is a good time, I think, for the country to see an organization that has come under so much scrutiny and all the good things that they have done. They seem to be folding back together again. I don't think those issues were FBI driven, but many of them were. Some of them were brought about -- other reasons that caused some problems to occur.

PHILLIPS: A lot of people want to know right now, almost a year later, are we safer when it comes to terrorism?

CLARK: Well, that is a tough and a good question. You know what, Kyra, I really think we are, and I will tell you a couple of reasons: not only do I think we are safer in the country, but I think worldwide we are safer. I just heard you report on some of the embassies and things, that information are flowing in and people are being able to thwart off different terrorist attacks. Just recently in Germany, one was thwarted off over there. And here in this country, we have been able to identify things that might have taken place and prevent those from happening.

We have got more eyes looking at us now. And we have got law enforcement looking at a new focus, which is called prevention.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about the prevention, let's talk about airports. What is different at airports? Why should we feel safer about flying? Just in the past week, Don, I reported on a number of attempts where people made it through security with a handgun or with a weapon and it had to be closed down, evacuated -- you know the drill.

CLARK: Yes, I do. Those things will happen, unfortunately. I don't think it would be prudent to make any excuses for those. As you know, I wasn't 100 percent in favor in the total change in the airport. The issues were -- is to get trained people in there, knowing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, and give them good supervision so that they can carry out their tasks. As I travel around, I see that moving in that direction. Yes, they still have some voids in there that I am sure they will work on, but I really think that they are a lot safer today. At least we are not as lax as we are about things going through.

PHILLIPS: What about weapons of mass destruction?

CLARK: Very good question, you know? Right now, you find drills across the country with law enforcement communities and other types of HAZMAT, or hazardous material, teams working together to make sure that they not only can resolve these issues if they happen, but that they can prevent them from happening. But all of that is going to be based on how these agencies collect and handle the intelligence, and that goes to a big part of the prevention, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: What about people that are coming in and out of the country, people that are looked at as a threat?

CLARK: Well, what we need to focus on is our immigration system and how we can handle people, and not try to identify groups of people that may be a threat to us. But if we have a good system of immigration in place and the resources to be able to handle all the checks and know where people are and when they came in and when they were supposed to depart from this country, then I think that is what the safety valve comes in. I think we are wasting our time if we are trying to identify a group of people just by randomly picking them out that they are a threat to us, absent good form and good, solid intelligence information.

PHILLIPS: Former FBI Agent Don Clark. Don, thank you.

CLARK: Thank you, Kyra.

I am just getting work now that we have breaking news. I understand Al-Jazeera TV is set to air some new videotapes, tapes about al Qaeda and plans a year ago -- prior to a year ago -- the attacks that took place on 9/11.

Our Mike Boettcher is in the house here in Atlanta to tell us more.

Mike, explain to me what is going on. What do you have and what do you know?

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, about 10 minutes ago, Al-Jazeera broadcast what they said was an al Qaeda videotape sent to them, and it showed basically three different segments. Let's go through it briefly. It was tease for a broadcast that will come tomorrow night.

Here you see a mountain with clouds flowing over it. The voice underneath, according to the tape and to Al-Jazeera is Osama bin Laden praising the hijackers of September 11. On that tape he says, These are men who changed the face of history and went against the traitors, undermining the plans of the crusaders -- the crusaders meaning the United States and the West.

Then, there was a second segment broadcast by Al-Jazeera. Again, this was to be -- or is alleged to be -- an al Qaeda tape about 9/11. This man is Abdulaziz Alomari, who was one of the hijackers on the plane with Mohamed Atta that flew into the World Trade Center. He is talking -- of course, this is the last will and testament, so at a time before 9/11 -- giving his appraisal of the state of the world and why he is willing to commit suicide. He says in that tape, Take your hands off the land of the Arabs and stop supporting Jewish cowards. We will get you. "You" meaning the United States, the West and Israel.

Then there was a third segment of the tape which purports to show the hijackers preparing in Kandahar for the attack on the Pentagon -- and you see a sketch there of the Pentagon -- and the World Trade Center. The interesting thing about this section of video -- what you saw there appears to be new video, as opposed to this, what you seeing now, appears to be older video. We are trying to identify the faces of the men sitting around here, but the way the tape was billed to us is these are those who were plotting the hijacking against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Now, frankly, Kyra, this looks to be an attempt by al Qaeda to launch their own commemoration of 9/11. The West has its; now al Qaeda is doing its commemoration, and there seems to be a propaganda war going on in the world right now.

Al-Jazeera says the entire portions of the tape which it obtained -- and we are not sure quite how that tape was obtained -- the entire portions will be broadcast tomorrow by Al-Jazeera, which is the Arab satellite TV news network broadcast around the world -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, our Mark Boettcher, here in Atlanta. Thanks so much, Mike.

Now we are going to take it to D.C., where one of the top analysts with regard to terrorism is with us, Peter Bergen.

Peter, you are seeing this develop as we are bringing Mike in showing exerts from the videotapes. First of all, what is your overall impression? What do you think of the tapes?

PETER BERGEN, CNN ANALYST: I think the tapes serve a very useful purpose in the following way. If there was any lingering doubt that al Qaeda is behind 9/11 -- which there is, by the way, in many parts of the Arab world -- a Gallup Poll earlier this year indicated that 61 percent of people polled in the Muslim world did not believe that Arabs were involved in that attack. Any lingering doubt this tape would put to rest. The other thing I think that, Kyra, is interesting is this fits a pattern of al Qaeda releasing videotapes after the fact. It is unclear when exactly those pictures were made of those people looking at those maps. It is possible they were made before 9/11, or it could have been possible they were made after 9/11. If you remember, after the USS Cole attack, in October 2000, al Qaeda's media arm released a tape of the Cole with an explosion that they superimposed on it.

So they are capable of making tapes that sort of suit their purposes after the fact. So the fact that we're seeing pictures showing a map of the Washington area doesn't necessarily indicate to me that was shot before 9/11; it could have been shot after 9/11. Obviously, the videotape we are now watching of the suicide statement, the martyrdom statement, obviously was shot before 9/11. But the other material could have been cut in later.

PHILLIPS: Peter, what else can you tell us about it? I have been reading about this. A number of our analysts have been coming on and talking to us, too, about the parties that are going to be taking place on September 11, al Qaeda parties celebrating what happened on September 11. What do you know and what can you tell us about that?

Bergen: Well, I think there are going to be quite a limited number of parties celebrating 9/11. Even directly after 9/11, the kinds of celebrations we saw in the Muslim world were relatively small -- countries like Pakistan, with 140 million people, the largest pro- Osama demonstration after 9/11 amounting to 20,000, 30,000 people. Same in Indonesia, a country of 300 million people. So I don't think there is going to be a huge celebration.

Any (UNINTELLIGIBLE)-thinking person understands an act of mass murder happened, whatever their opinions is about American policy in the Middle East.

But I would like to say one other thing. If indeed that is bin Laden on the videotape talking, as Al-Jazeera is saying, the statements that he made obviously were made after 9/11, since he talks very directly about particular hijackers. He mentions, for instance, Hani Hanjour, from (UNINTELLIGIBLE), which is a town in southwest Arabia. He mentions Jarrahi, from Lebanon.

So it obviously took place after 9/11, but doesn't necessarily prove that it happened in the last month or so. This could have been material that was audio recorded with bin Laden earlier late last year.

PHILLIPS: All right, our Peter Bergen, in Washington, D.C., thanks, Peter.

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