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American Morning

Arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Being Hailed as Major Victory

Aired March 03, 2003 - 08:02   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 arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is being hailed by U.S. officials as a major victory over terrorism. But the questioning of al Qaeda's operations chief could lead to even more successes if he can provide information about the terror network and its plans.
Our national security correspondent David Ensor joins us in Washington with more -- I guess, David, no one knows at this stage how cooperative he will be.

David you will see in a moment.

But let's really very quickly see this report that he filed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Khalid Shaikh Mohammed looks the worse for wear in the photos said to show him after his arrest by Pakistani authorities, but before he was handed over to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. U.S. officials say they do not use torture as legally defined, but that "all appropriate pressure" will be put on al Qaeda's operations chief to tell what he knows about future plots to attack Americans or others.

The intelligence committee leaders are thrilled by the catch.

REP. PORTER GOSS (R-FL), CHAIRMAN, SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE: This is taking out Goebbels as an operative for the German Wehrmacht. This is just extremely important and it's going to lead to other very successful activities very shortly, I'm sure.

ENSOR: The chairman of Senate Intelligence said catching Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Pakistan Saturday is even more useful in terms of stopping future attacks than catching al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, would be.

SEN. PAT ROBERTSON (R-MS), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Osama is more of a figurehead and that doesn't mean that we're not really going after him, but we're taking out the operations command just as fast as we can.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has been taken, U.S. officials say, to an unnamed third country, not Pakistan and not the U.S., for interrogation. Other al Qaeda leaders, from bin Laden on down, will now have to worry about what he knew that could lead to them and what plots that he may have known of and may have told the U.S.

This is, as one U.S. intelligence official put it, a huge win -- Paula.

ZAHN: Let's talk for a moment about some of the plots that investigators think that they have uncovered. One was the idea that these operatives would hijack gas tanker trucks and ram them into gas stations or other places.

Can that be corroborated this morning?

ENSOR: What I understand, Paula, is that in recent weeks U.S. intelligence heard that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had been planning such a scenario, but that he was planning that prior to 9/11. It was, perhaps, an alternative strategy to the idea of flying airliners into large buildings that was eventually used.

Once they got intelligence recently that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and al Qaeda were once again trying to target the United States specifically, they went back and looked at this strategy to see whether or not there was any operational effort being made to put this old strategy into play. Officials say they have no evidence of any operational effort to make these kinds of attacks using tankers and hitting gas stations or cutting out the suspension systems on bridges, those kinds of things. But nonetheless they were looking at it closely because it was an idea that had been talked about by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others in al Qaeda prior to 9/11.

ZAHN: So the people you talk to in Washington feel this arrest will stop those plans from ever being put into effect, or will we be looking at the fear people are expressing that, in fact, this will hasten future attacks because people in sleeper cells are afraid of having their identities be exposed?

ENSOR: Well, that is, that latter is a possibility. But for the most part, officials I speak to are just incredibly pleased that they have this man in U.S. hands now and believing very strongly that they will be able to get him to talk, eventually, at least, and that major attacks that he may have planned or that he may be aware of can be thwarted.

So this is just a major win for the war on terrorism and there's a sense that lives may have been saved as a result.

ZAHN: David Ensor, thanks so much for the update.

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




Victory>


Aired March 3, 2003 - 08:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is being hailed by U.S. officials as a major victory over terrorism. But the questioning of al Qaeda's operations chief could lead to even more successes if he can provide information about the terror network and its plans.
Our national security correspondent David Ensor joins us in Washington with more -- I guess, David, no one knows at this stage how cooperative he will be.

David you will see in a moment.

But let's really very quickly see this report that he filed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Khalid Shaikh Mohammed looks the worse for wear in the photos said to show him after his arrest by Pakistani authorities, but before he was handed over to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. U.S. officials say they do not use torture as legally defined, but that "all appropriate pressure" will be put on al Qaeda's operations chief to tell what he knows about future plots to attack Americans or others.

The intelligence committee leaders are thrilled by the catch.

REP. PORTER GOSS (R-FL), CHAIRMAN, SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE: This is taking out Goebbels as an operative for the German Wehrmacht. This is just extremely important and it's going to lead to other very successful activities very shortly, I'm sure.

ENSOR: The chairman of Senate Intelligence said catching Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Pakistan Saturday is even more useful in terms of stopping future attacks than catching al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, would be.

SEN. PAT ROBERTSON (R-MS), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Osama is more of a figurehead and that doesn't mean that we're not really going after him, but we're taking out the operations command just as fast as we can.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has been taken, U.S. officials say, to an unnamed third country, not Pakistan and not the U.S., for interrogation. Other al Qaeda leaders, from bin Laden on down, will now have to worry about what he knew that could lead to them and what plots that he may have known of and may have told the U.S.

This is, as one U.S. intelligence official put it, a huge win -- Paula.

ZAHN: Let's talk for a moment about some of the plots that investigators think that they have uncovered. One was the idea that these operatives would hijack gas tanker trucks and ram them into gas stations or other places.

Can that be corroborated this morning?

ENSOR: What I understand, Paula, is that in recent weeks U.S. intelligence heard that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had been planning such a scenario, but that he was planning that prior to 9/11. It was, perhaps, an alternative strategy to the idea of flying airliners into large buildings that was eventually used.

Once they got intelligence recently that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and al Qaeda were once again trying to target the United States specifically, they went back and looked at this strategy to see whether or not there was any operational effort being made to put this old strategy into play. Officials say they have no evidence of any operational effort to make these kinds of attacks using tankers and hitting gas stations or cutting out the suspension systems on bridges, those kinds of things. But nonetheless they were looking at it closely because it was an idea that had been talked about by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others in al Qaeda prior to 9/11.

ZAHN: So the people you talk to in Washington feel this arrest will stop those plans from ever being put into effect, or will we be looking at the fear people are expressing that, in fact, this will hasten future attacks because people in sleeper cells are afraid of having their identities be exposed?

ENSOR: Well, that is, that latter is a possibility. But for the most part, officials I speak to are just incredibly pleased that they have this man in U.S. hands now and believing very strongly that they will be able to get him to talk, eventually, at least, and that major attacks that he may have planned or that he may be aware of can be thwarted.

So this is just a major win for the war on terrorism and there's a sense that lives may have been saved as a result.

ZAHN: David Ensor, thanks so much for the update.

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




Victory>