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Chilling Threats, Scary Chatter

Aired September 11, 2003 - 14:01   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour with chatter, and caution and chilling threats on the second anniversary of 9/11, 2001. The threats emanate from new footage of Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command, maybe. Though U.S. intelligence is skeptical the tape is even remotely recent. Experts are more sure the person who called the 9/11 hijackings merely the first skirmishes is, in fact, bin Laden's lieutenant, Ayman Al Zawarhiri. Those comments, and others picked up through back channels, have prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a worldwide caution.
At least for now, though, the Bush administration's color-coded threat chart remain at yellow, meaning elevated.

So what's an ordinary citizen, or cop or government official to do with that in mind? With that in mind, let's bring in CNN security analyst Kelly McCann. He joins us live now from our D.C. bureau.

Kelly, how are you?

KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, first of all, let's explain just quickly if we could -- once again, we use this term chatter all the time. Explain what that means and why we should be concerned?

MCCANN: Well, basically, it's an activity level. It's looking at all source fusion kind of intelligence. It's the level of communications, perhaps some of the content of the communications, perhaps some of the players who are communicating.

But the bottom line is that is by itself perhaps not an operational indication. It's not enough to move, for instance, Secretary Ridge to up the threat level. So the bottom line is it's something that's monitored, and it gives one indication, but not certainly the indication something is imminent.

O'BRIEN: Do you suspect -- and you refer to the fact this is not an official raising of the national threat level, the color coded thing we have become so familiar with. Do you suspect there is confusion about this particular warning coming from the State Department?

MCCANN: Sure, and we've seen that before. If you remember, there was a worldwide warning put out about potential abductions and also assassinations, and they raised a threat level. But it was not same as the Secretary Ridge's threat level, the national threat level. It is a little confusing for citizen who are watching this. But the bottom line is, it causes them to read and become informed so they can differentiate, and of course, like we've always, knowledge is the best thing here, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, reading, becoming informing -- what do you suggest people be doing to implement a warning like this, which is after all, rather vague?

MCCANN: Well, it is vague, but what they should do is engage some logical thought. First, was it fairly predictable there would be a release near the anniversary? Yes. Do they say the tape was manufactured recently? No, it was several months ago. Are there any other indicators that have led people to say there is concern. There's a lot of people in the intelligence industry who, based on gut intelligence, "gut-in" as it may be called, may have a feeling, but they can't substantiate it, Miles. So if people just stay informed and do their own threat matrix, just the way the president has his threat matrix presented to him, it'd be better off than just trying to stay ahead off of it without really doing some logical thought.

O'BRIEN: And just quickly before we get away, does your gut tell you that that official threat level might be raised soon?

MCCANN: My gut says no. I think we're done playing the game of our anniversary dates, and the dates that we think are important are not necessarily important to Al Qaeda, and I think everybody understands that now. The dates that they will use are dates when they think they can get away with it -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Kelly McCann, our security analyst from Washington, thanks.

MCCANN: Pleasure.

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 September 11, 2003 - 14:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour with chatter, and caution and chilling threats on the second anniversary of 9/11, 2001. The threats emanate from new footage of Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command, maybe. Though U.S. intelligence is skeptical the tape is even remotely recent. Experts are more sure the person who called the 9/11 hijackings merely the first skirmishes is, in fact, bin Laden's lieutenant, Ayman Al Zawarhiri. Those comments, and others picked up through back channels, have prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a worldwide caution.
At least for now, though, the Bush administration's color-coded threat chart remain at yellow, meaning elevated.

So what's an ordinary citizen, or cop or government official to do with that in mind? With that in mind, let's bring in CNN security analyst Kelly McCann. He joins us live now from our D.C. bureau.

Kelly, how are you?

KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, first of all, let's explain just quickly if we could -- once again, we use this term chatter all the time. Explain what that means and why we should be concerned?

MCCANN: Well, basically, it's an activity level. It's looking at all source fusion kind of intelligence. It's the level of communications, perhaps some of the content of the communications, perhaps some of the players who are communicating.

But the bottom line is that is by itself perhaps not an operational indication. It's not enough to move, for instance, Secretary Ridge to up the threat level. So the bottom line is it's something that's monitored, and it gives one indication, but not certainly the indication something is imminent.

O'BRIEN: Do you suspect -- and you refer to the fact this is not an official raising of the national threat level, the color coded thing we have become so familiar with. Do you suspect there is confusion about this particular warning coming from the State Department?

MCCANN: Sure, and we've seen that before. If you remember, there was a worldwide warning put out about potential abductions and also assassinations, and they raised a threat level. But it was not same as the Secretary Ridge's threat level, the national threat level. It is a little confusing for citizen who are watching this. But the bottom line is, it causes them to read and become informed so they can differentiate, and of course, like we've always, knowledge is the best thing here, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, reading, becoming informing -- what do you suggest people be doing to implement a warning like this, which is after all, rather vague?

MCCANN: Well, it is vague, but what they should do is engage some logical thought. First, was it fairly predictable there would be a release near the anniversary? Yes. Do they say the tape was manufactured recently? No, it was several months ago. Are there any other indicators that have led people to say there is concern. There's a lot of people in the intelligence industry who, based on gut intelligence, "gut-in" as it may be called, may have a feeling, but they can't substantiate it, Miles. So if people just stay informed and do their own threat matrix, just the way the president has his threat matrix presented to him, it'd be better off than just trying to stay ahead off of it without really doing some logical thought.

O'BRIEN: And just quickly before we get away, does your gut tell you that that official threat level might be raised soon?

MCCANN: My gut says no. I think we're done playing the game of our anniversary dates, and the dates that we think are important are not necessarily important to Al Qaeda, and I think everybody understands that now. The dates that they will use are dates when they think they can get away with it -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Kelly McCann, our security analyst from Washington, thanks.

MCCANN: Pleasure.

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