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American Morning

The Big Question: Senators Discuss Terrorist Threat

Aired May 20, 2002 - 08:11   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The big question this morning, are Americans any safer from terrorism now, post-September 11? As we've been telling you this morning, intelligence reports indicate that terrorists are talking and the traces of terror talk suggest that Osama bin Laden's followers may be planning another attack.

Meanwhile, a previously unseen video of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has surfaced, and while the person who turned it over to the "Sunday Times of London" claims it was made in March, there's nothing to prove exactly when that tape was made.

Joining us now to talk more about the new terror threats, from Miramar, Florida, Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Good morning, sir. And with us here in New York this morning for a change -- we usually just see him by remote from Washington -- Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the Vice Chair and ranking Republican on the committee. Welcome to you, as well.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL), VICE CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: So, Senator Graham, when you heard what the vice president had to say yesterday, was this any great surprise to you or have you known about this latest intelligence threat?

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-FL), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: The fact that there is a likelihood almost to the point of certainty that over the next, say, three to five years that there will be another terrorist attack inside the United States, probably not hijacked airplanes and maybe not by al Qaeda, but by one of the other international terrorist groups, is close to a certainty, which indicates that we not only need to be hardening our defenses inside the United States, but also taking the war aggressively to the terrorists wherever they live.

The best way to win this war is to eliminate the terrorists and therefore their capacity to threaten Americans.

ZAHN: It's interesting, Senator Shelby, that your colleague would say some time within the next three to five years. The vice president was very careful in his wording of his statement yesterday, saying we don't know when, where or how, but it's a near certainty that Americans will get hit again. SHELBY: Well, I believe the vice president and also my colleague, Senator Graham, are right. We don't know the specifics, the time and the place. But we have great reason to believe that we could be hit any time in the next few years. And as Senator Graham just said, it might be another terrorist group. We have to be ready for it. We're doing everything to prepare the Americans for it. We're trying to eliminate it before it ever really crystallizes.

ZAHN: Senator Graham, though, I'm curious about the three to five year time line. I had not heard that before. Is there something in a briefing that would suggest to you it's going to be that long?

GRAHAM: Well, the suggestion is, if you look at the history of al Qaeda alone, they have launched major attacks in about that time sequence. In fact, the sequence between attacks has gotten shorter in recent years. But there is no empirical data to support three to five, just the historical pattern of that one terrorist organization.

ZAHN: Senator Shelby, you and the Senator have created some friction with the White House, as you've asked some very pointed questions about what the administration knew about the potential of a September 11 type attack. And over the weekend Dick Cheney basically said he would not give broad congressional access to this August memo that the two of you have talked so much, but perhaps have a so-called conversation with those of you on the Intelligence Committee.

Do you expect that to happen? Do you think you're going to get the information you think you need to better understand what happened on September 11?

SHELBY: Paula, I believe that Senator Graham and Congressman Kyl and Congresswoman Mikulski, the four on the Intelligence Committee, the top ones, I believe that the White House will cooperate with us. They've indicated that before.

I believe myself it wasn't what the president knew, it's what he didn't know and why he didn't know it. And I believe why he didn't know it was because we've had some great failures of intelligence -- CIA, NSA, and especially the FBI. The Phoenix memo, we've talked about, and also the situation August the 17th in Minneapolis.

If those situations had been acted upon properly, we don't know what would have happened. We don't know if we would have prevent September the 11th. But we'll never know today.

ZAHN: Senator Graham, it's interesting, one of the papers pointed out within six months of President Bush becoming president, he actually went to the head of the CIA, George Tenet, and asked him a very specific question about the threat of domestic terrorism. And the paper suggested he simply went to the wrong guy because at that point his request got buried. Is that where you saw the start of this problem happening?

GRAHAM: I'm not familiar with the specific instance that you just cited, but domestic terrorism is the responsibility of the FBI. Foreign terrorist activity is the responsibility of the CIA and our other intelligence agencies.

Since today the world is so integrated, though, it is imperative that those organizations work much more closely together both in sharing of information that has been collected and in analyzing that information. I think that when we conclude the investigation that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees will do together, one of the things we'll find is that there was a lot of information but it didn't get before the eyes of one person or a small group of people who could have seen all those pieces and them discerned a pattern and acted on that pattern.

ZAHN: All weekend long the administration was basically on the defensive about what it knew going into September 11. Let's revisit what the vice president had to say yesterday on "Meet The Press."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What would the notification look like? If you're going out, if you're trying not to panic people, you don't have anything very specific. You've got, you know, an increased level of noise in the system that you're picking up on, you're going to go through the relevant agencies, law enforcement when that's appropriate, transportation systems when that's appropriate, try to put those people on alert.

You can also only sustain an alert for so long.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Senator Shelby, was it irresponsible, knowing what the administration knew, knowing what you know about the August 6 memo -- apparently the administration wasn't familiar with the Phoenix memo -- was it irresponsible not to have warned the American public that some kind of attack was imminent?

SHELBY: I don't believe it was irresponsible on the part of the president because, as I said a minute ago, it's not what the president knew. He knew very little. He didn't know any more than we did, I believe, on the intelligence committees. General warnings, not specific as to the time or place. But what I worry about is what he could have known had the FBI, for example, done their work, managed their information, shared their information with the CIA, with the National Security Agency and others. But they didn't.

ZAHN: And because of this great divide, Senator Graham, between the FBI and the CIA, can you assure Americans this morning that they're any safer than they were pre-September 11?

GRAHAM: Yes, I think America is safer than it was. For one thing, we have severely crippled the command and control capability of the most immediate threat, al Qaeda. We also have increased the security of some of the more vulnerable aspects, such as airlines and airports. But we've got a lot of work to do.

I'm very concerned, for instance, about our seaports, which are basically as exposed today as they were a year ago. We just had an instance in which 25 extremists, as they were described, jumped on ships outside the United States, hid in the container cargoes until they got to the United States and then disembarked. And they've been lost in the American population.

We also have had a recent report about an increased threat from Cuba with its bioterrorism capabilities and I hope the president when he speaks today about our policy with Cuba will outline what response we're going to have to that increased threat.

So we have some pluses. We have some minuses. We have some, we're still in the same place that we were. The way we're going to win this war is by definitively hardening American targets, offensively taking out the terrorists where the terrorists live.

ZAHN: Senator Shelby, I want to give you the opportunity in the 15 seconds we have left to respond to something William Safire wrote in the "New York Times" where he basically said, "Finger point away at the entire national intelligence flop. He said both, you know, look at the Clinton and Bush administration nonfeasance and especially scrutinize the failure of congressional and executive oversight. House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees and the ditherers entrenched on their staffs have much to answer for in this debacle."

SHELBY: Well, the Intelligence Committees are going to do their job. If the other people, like the FBI, CIA and so forth did theirs, we'd be a lot safer today.

ZAHN: Senator Shelby, as always, good to see you.

SHELBY: Thank you.

ZAHN: Thanks for dropping by in person on AMERICAN MORNING.

SHELBY: Thank you.

ZAHN: And Graham, you'll have to do that, too. Come to New York one of these days.

GRAHAM: Great. Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Appreciate your time, as well.

Good luck to both of you.

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