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American Morning
FBI's Nationwide Search For Five Men Off
Aired January 08, 2003 - 08:16 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It is off. The FBI's nationwide search for five men they thought had sneaked into the U.S. over the holiday is no longer on. The government now says it believes the informant who gave that information was lying, which leaves a critical question in all this -- how did this happen?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER (voice-over): The FBI first issued the alert back on December 29, asking for the public's help in finding five men believed to have entered the U.S. illegally just before the new year. It was a holiday terror scare and the president personally and publicly ordered the nationwide manhunt, asking Americans to be on the lookout.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And if anybody has any information about the five, I would hope they would contact their local authorities.
HEMMER: The men were never linked to terrorism, the FBI saying only that they were wanted for questioning. From the beginning, though, there were doubts about the information provided by the government's informant and last week a Pakistani jeweler said his picture was among the five released by the FBI, even though he had never been to the U.S.
MOHAMMED ASHGAR: What can I say about this? I'm here in Lahore, a resident of Pakistan. How can I be there, when I'm here in Lahore?
HEMMER: Yesterday, the FBI admitted that the tips it received may have all been a hoax. The false alarm has many asking why it was issued in the first place.
SKIP BRANDON, FORMER FBI COUNTER-TERRORISM OFFICIAL: I do not think that we would have gone public on a national and international basis wop a lot of this information being vetted and carefully considered.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: So, then, what goes into this decision for the FBI to release this kind of information, inform the president, put a nationwide alert on?
Ron Kessler is the author of "The Bureau."
He is our guest now live in D.C.
Good to see you again, Ron.
Good morning to you.
RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR, "THE BUREAU": Very good to be you, Bill.
HEMMER: The first question I have, if a man like this can lead the FBI on a nationwide manhunt on a hoax, on a false tip, what can a well trained member of al Qaeda then do if he would be lying about a threat or individuals?
KESSLER: Well, in this case it was not simply this one person. There was additional corroboration, it seemed, from the Pakistanis about part of his story. Also, he passed a polygraph test that was given by the Canadian authorities. It turned out it wasn't properly given. It was not actually FBI agents who interviewed this person, it was the Canadian authorities.
But putting all this together, I think the FBI did just the right thing. I would want them to do the same thing again. I would rather the FBI err on the side of caution. What if, in fact, it turned out this was real? How would the FBI look then? How would we all feel? We wouldn't be very happy.
HEMMER: Is that a product of the post-9/11 world? Is that a product of being burned prior to this, the FBI, the CIA?
KESSLER: Sure. You know, look at how Congress and the press put the FBI and the CIA through the wringer since 9/11 because they didn't provide and pass along tips. Many of the tips were third hand, fourth hand information. Still, they beat up on Mueller, they beat up on George Tenet. If you were Mueller or George Tenet, I think you would say, you know, if I get anything that's possibly credible, I'd better put that out.
HEMMER: Ron, how, then, do you think the public reacts to news like this, knowing that it's been out there and then retracted now?
KESSLER: I think, you know, we're going to have to grow up. This is a scary world. We're going to have these threats on a periodic basis. Usually the threats come out, we never hear what happened. All we know is that there was no attack. And we're just going to have to get used to it.
HEMMER: Maybe there's a better question here, Ron. Do you think the public remembers the false alarms?
KESSLER: No. I think, you know, we all have a very short attention span. We don't recall either the threats or we don't recall all the attacks on the FBI and the CIA because they didn't put out threats before 9/11. Now all of a sudden they're being attacked because they did put out a threat.
It's, law enforcement is not like chemistry where you mix two chemicals and you always come up with a particular reaction. There's a lot of judgment involved. There are a lot of imponderables. That's what makes it fascinating to me. But this is the way the real world works. You know, whenever we gather information, we have to sift through it and we have to make a judgment as to whether it's credible. And in this case, there was a good chance that it was.
HEMMER: You know, quickly, Ron, here, about a minute left here, give us an idea of how this process works. I know you describe it as a very human process. Is the FBI director involved in this? Does he say, OK, yes, go with the green light and release this to the public? And then even before you get to that point, what's involved within the FBI to make sure that this guy is telling the truth, essentially?
KESSLER: Unfortunately, the FBI did not interview him personally, as I mentioned. So that was one of the problems. But it definitely would have been approved by the director, Mueller, and, in fact, I understand they did also discuss it with the White House before putting it out and they all agreed that this is something that should be publicized.
HEMMER: Would it make the FBI in the future more sheepish?
KESSLER: You know, they are trying to do their jobs and protect the country. And whether they look foolish and whether they're embarrassed later, you know, has got to be the last thing on their mind. I hope it is. I hope that the first priority is to protect the country and worry about the public reaction later.
HEMMER: Ronald Kessler in D.C.
Thanks, Ron.
KESSLER: Thank you, Bill.
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 January 8, 2003 - 08:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It is off. The FBI's nationwide search for five men they thought had sneaked into the U.S. over the holiday is no longer on. The government now says it believes the informant who gave that information was lying, which leaves a critical question in all this -- how did this happen?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER (voice-over): The FBI first issued the alert back on December 29, asking for the public's help in finding five men believed to have entered the U.S. illegally just before the new year. It was a holiday terror scare and the president personally and publicly ordered the nationwide manhunt, asking Americans to be on the lookout.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And if anybody has any information about the five, I would hope they would contact their local authorities.
HEMMER: The men were never linked to terrorism, the FBI saying only that they were wanted for questioning. From the beginning, though, there were doubts about the information provided by the government's informant and last week a Pakistani jeweler said his picture was among the five released by the FBI, even though he had never been to the U.S.
MOHAMMED ASHGAR: What can I say about this? I'm here in Lahore, a resident of Pakistan. How can I be there, when I'm here in Lahore?
HEMMER: Yesterday, the FBI admitted that the tips it received may have all been a hoax. The false alarm has many asking why it was issued in the first place.
SKIP BRANDON, FORMER FBI COUNTER-TERRORISM OFFICIAL: I do not think that we would have gone public on a national and international basis wop a lot of this information being vetted and carefully considered.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: So, then, what goes into this decision for the FBI to release this kind of information, inform the president, put a nationwide alert on?
Ron Kessler is the author of "The Bureau."
He is our guest now live in D.C.
Good to see you again, Ron.
Good morning to you.
RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR, "THE BUREAU": Very good to be you, Bill.
HEMMER: The first question I have, if a man like this can lead the FBI on a nationwide manhunt on a hoax, on a false tip, what can a well trained member of al Qaeda then do if he would be lying about a threat or individuals?
KESSLER: Well, in this case it was not simply this one person. There was additional corroboration, it seemed, from the Pakistanis about part of his story. Also, he passed a polygraph test that was given by the Canadian authorities. It turned out it wasn't properly given. It was not actually FBI agents who interviewed this person, it was the Canadian authorities.
But putting all this together, I think the FBI did just the right thing. I would want them to do the same thing again. I would rather the FBI err on the side of caution. What if, in fact, it turned out this was real? How would the FBI look then? How would we all feel? We wouldn't be very happy.
HEMMER: Is that a product of the post-9/11 world? Is that a product of being burned prior to this, the FBI, the CIA?
KESSLER: Sure. You know, look at how Congress and the press put the FBI and the CIA through the wringer since 9/11 because they didn't provide and pass along tips. Many of the tips were third hand, fourth hand information. Still, they beat up on Mueller, they beat up on George Tenet. If you were Mueller or George Tenet, I think you would say, you know, if I get anything that's possibly credible, I'd better put that out.
HEMMER: Ron, how, then, do you think the public reacts to news like this, knowing that it's been out there and then retracted now?
KESSLER: I think, you know, we're going to have to grow up. This is a scary world. We're going to have these threats on a periodic basis. Usually the threats come out, we never hear what happened. All we know is that there was no attack. And we're just going to have to get used to it.
HEMMER: Maybe there's a better question here, Ron. Do you think the public remembers the false alarms?
KESSLER: No. I think, you know, we all have a very short attention span. We don't recall either the threats or we don't recall all the attacks on the FBI and the CIA because they didn't put out threats before 9/11. Now all of a sudden they're being attacked because they did put out a threat.
It's, law enforcement is not like chemistry where you mix two chemicals and you always come up with a particular reaction. There's a lot of judgment involved. There are a lot of imponderables. That's what makes it fascinating to me. But this is the way the real world works. You know, whenever we gather information, we have to sift through it and we have to make a judgment as to whether it's credible. And in this case, there was a good chance that it was.
HEMMER: You know, quickly, Ron, here, about a minute left here, give us an idea of how this process works. I know you describe it as a very human process. Is the FBI director involved in this? Does he say, OK, yes, go with the green light and release this to the public? And then even before you get to that point, what's involved within the FBI to make sure that this guy is telling the truth, essentially?
KESSLER: Unfortunately, the FBI did not interview him personally, as I mentioned. So that was one of the problems. But it definitely would have been approved by the director, Mueller, and, in fact, I understand they did also discuss it with the White House before putting it out and they all agreed that this is something that should be publicized.
HEMMER: Would it make the FBI in the future more sheepish?
KESSLER: You know, they are trying to do their jobs and protect the country. And whether they look foolish and whether they're embarrassed later, you know, has got to be the last thing on their mind. I hope it is. I hope that the first priority is to protect the country and worry about the public reaction later.
HEMMER: Ronald Kessler in D.C.
Thanks, Ron.
KESSLER: Thank you, Bill.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
