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Security at Gitmo

Aired September 24, 2003 - 13:32   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: An Air Force translator accused of smuggling info to Syria. An Army chaplain suspected of espionage. Will there be any other shoes that will drop? These disturbing investigations raise some serious questions about security at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
And joining us to talk about it, CNN security analyst Kelly McCann in Washington.

Kelly, good to have you with us.

KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Thanks, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, first of all, let's just talk about what the accusations are, what the allegations are, about what these people might have had in their possession, and whether this is really strong proof, or it could be misinterpreted, perhaps.

MCCANN: Well, from the point they were taken into custody, obviously, there was a time lapse, so that communicative measures could be exploited. The truth here is that we simply don't know.

For instance, anytime a military member makes a military movement from one base to another place and he takes military-provided aircraft, it could be construed as an ulterior movement, which is classified to some degree. So is this a shade of gray, or is this black and white, and I think people are still sorting through that, Miles.

O'BRIEN: So it's possible, in other words, something kind of innocuous, like reporting a flight, for example, from one place to another. If you're looking at it very harshly, it could be interpreted as espionage, if you were looking at it that way?.

MCCANN: Sure, and it could also serve an investigation purpose. In other words, if it could be a reasonable charge, then charge the man, put him in hack or in the brig, and then hold him until you can develop the investigation to see if there was real damage done. So it may be just a tool as well.

O'BRIEN: Broad brush, from talking to the people you know inside these organizations, what's your sense of what's going on down there? Is there some kind of broad espionage effort? Or is it that just you've got people who've been just down on that rock too long?

MCCANN: There are three things going on here, Miles. One is people who are senior and looking at this, watching the different coverage on it, have used the word Islamic hysteria to me. I mean, are we over-reporting this? Are we making too much of it? As yet, there isn't a common thread --- doesn't mean there couldn't be a developed common thread. But right now, there's no complex conspiracy insinuated.

There has been a contrarian point of view put forward to me by a very senior official, who said look at this in point of view as could those diagrams have been merely a way for him to identify a specific detainee, where's being held? He would have had to have put those detainee names in those cell diagrams, which makes sense. So again...

O'BRIEN: In other words, if you were counseling those detainees and you had to make your rounds, or whatever the case may be, I mean, it would be obvious you need to know where to find these people, correct?

MCCANN: Exactly. And I'm not building a case for that, but what I'm saying is, is that no one knows yet. The investigation is full- court press, as you can imagine, and things will develop.

O'BRIEN: Let me ask you this -- is there a certain kind of reverse Stockholm Syndrome under way here perhaps? Is there some sympathy that has developed for some of these detainees, who are there with really no end in sight, and perhaps not holding an awful lot of information?

MCCANN: A couple of points on that one. Number one is empathy does sometimes does turn into sympathy, and people are moved because they may not see a whole lot of utility to having these people basically in a bastille, which is they're cut off, and they really don't have a lot of information or aren't giving up a lot of information, so kind of what's the point?

If you were waking up every day in Guantanamo Bay and all you did was march the perimeter with your rifle, it gets a little old after a while. So there's that.

The other thing is that on the interrogation side, the people who have the best fluency, the people who can speak to these people as a native, come from a native community. So there's an automatic assumption at least that they would understand more of that situation than, say, a white Anglo might who learned how to speak partial Arabic at the Defense Language Institute. So there's a lot of conflicting issues here.

O'BRIEN: By the very nature of who they are, they're going to be more empathetic. I think we can grant that one.

Let me ask you this quickly on the vetting process, security clearances are good for five years.

MCCANN: Right.

O'BRIEN: Is it possible a lot of these people were cleared prior to 9/11 and wouldn't have necessarily have been re-examined since then in a whole different light, whole new atmosphere? MCCANN: Absolutely. For instance, take the Syrian travel, pre- 9/11, that would have been of interest, but would it have been of such interest? The other thing is once you get a top secret or secret clearance, the balance of your information isn't known to your command. They don't get to see the report, they don't get to read what the investigators uncovered or the adjudication process. You've simply been stamped secret, or top secret, and that's good enough. So we might be see a change in that process based on what we're seeing here. It's just too early to tell, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, keep working the phones for us. Kelly McCann, as always, we appreciate your insights in all of this.

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 24, 2003 - 13:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: An Air Force translator accused of smuggling info to Syria. An Army chaplain suspected of espionage. Will there be any other shoes that will drop? These disturbing investigations raise some serious questions about security at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
And joining us to talk about it, CNN security analyst Kelly McCann in Washington.

Kelly, good to have you with us.

KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Thanks, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, first of all, let's just talk about what the accusations are, what the allegations are, about what these people might have had in their possession, and whether this is really strong proof, or it could be misinterpreted, perhaps.

MCCANN: Well, from the point they were taken into custody, obviously, there was a time lapse, so that communicative measures could be exploited. The truth here is that we simply don't know.

For instance, anytime a military member makes a military movement from one base to another place and he takes military-provided aircraft, it could be construed as an ulterior movement, which is classified to some degree. So is this a shade of gray, or is this black and white, and I think people are still sorting through that, Miles.

O'BRIEN: So it's possible, in other words, something kind of innocuous, like reporting a flight, for example, from one place to another. If you're looking at it very harshly, it could be interpreted as espionage, if you were looking at it that way?.

MCCANN: Sure, and it could also serve an investigation purpose. In other words, if it could be a reasonable charge, then charge the man, put him in hack or in the brig, and then hold him until you can develop the investigation to see if there was real damage done. So it may be just a tool as well.

O'BRIEN: Broad brush, from talking to the people you know inside these organizations, what's your sense of what's going on down there? Is there some kind of broad espionage effort? Or is it that just you've got people who've been just down on that rock too long?

MCCANN: There are three things going on here, Miles. One is people who are senior and looking at this, watching the different coverage on it, have used the word Islamic hysteria to me. I mean, are we over-reporting this? Are we making too much of it? As yet, there isn't a common thread --- doesn't mean there couldn't be a developed common thread. But right now, there's no complex conspiracy insinuated.

There has been a contrarian point of view put forward to me by a very senior official, who said look at this in point of view as could those diagrams have been merely a way for him to identify a specific detainee, where's being held? He would have had to have put those detainee names in those cell diagrams, which makes sense. So again...

O'BRIEN: In other words, if you were counseling those detainees and you had to make your rounds, or whatever the case may be, I mean, it would be obvious you need to know where to find these people, correct?

MCCANN: Exactly. And I'm not building a case for that, but what I'm saying is, is that no one knows yet. The investigation is full- court press, as you can imagine, and things will develop.

O'BRIEN: Let me ask you this -- is there a certain kind of reverse Stockholm Syndrome under way here perhaps? Is there some sympathy that has developed for some of these detainees, who are there with really no end in sight, and perhaps not holding an awful lot of information?

MCCANN: A couple of points on that one. Number one is empathy does sometimes does turn into sympathy, and people are moved because they may not see a whole lot of utility to having these people basically in a bastille, which is they're cut off, and they really don't have a lot of information or aren't giving up a lot of information, so kind of what's the point?

If you were waking up every day in Guantanamo Bay and all you did was march the perimeter with your rifle, it gets a little old after a while. So there's that.

The other thing is that on the interrogation side, the people who have the best fluency, the people who can speak to these people as a native, come from a native community. So there's an automatic assumption at least that they would understand more of that situation than, say, a white Anglo might who learned how to speak partial Arabic at the Defense Language Institute. So there's a lot of conflicting issues here.

O'BRIEN: By the very nature of who they are, they're going to be more empathetic. I think we can grant that one.

Let me ask you this quickly on the vetting process, security clearances are good for five years.

MCCANN: Right.

O'BRIEN: Is it possible a lot of these people were cleared prior to 9/11 and wouldn't have necessarily have been re-examined since then in a whole different light, whole new atmosphere? MCCANN: Absolutely. For instance, take the Syrian travel, pre- 9/11, that would have been of interest, but would it have been of such interest? The other thing is once you get a top secret or secret clearance, the balance of your information isn't known to your command. They don't get to see the report, they don't get to read what the investigators uncovered or the adjudication process. You've simply been stamped secret, or top secret, and that's good enough. So we might be see a change in that process based on what we're seeing here. It's just too early to tell, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, keep working the phones for us. Kelly McCann, as always, we appreciate your insights in all of this.

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