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American Morning

Will U.S. Be Involved in Bombing Investigation?

Aired May 13, 2003 - 09:32   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Back to the deadly attacks in Riyadh now. Mike Brooks was the team leader of the first FBI group to investigate the attacks seven years ago in Saudi Arabia, 1996, Khobar towers, several U.S. servicemen killed in that attack. Mike Brooks now working for us live at the CNN Center. How soon, Mike, before the FBI is there on the ground looking?
MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, in 1996, Bill, we were there pretty soon afterwards, after negotiating a little bit with the Saudi government. But right now I was just talking to some of my sources in Washington, D.C. and they are still negotiating with the Saudi government right now, the host country there, to see how many officers, how many agents they are going to be able to take over as part of the investigative team. They'll send an assessment team -- that is going to be going out pretty soon, to go over and try to take -- and work with the Saudi government and find out exactly how many agents, how many folks from the lab, how many forensics experts, the evidence response team people from the critical incident (ph) response group of the FBI that they are going to need over there.

But they are still apparently in negotiations right now with the Saudi government. The Saudis are basically saying, well, it is not your embassy that has been blown up, it is not a military facility. We can handle it here domestically. You don't need to send over as many agents as you did in 1996. So, again, it is back to negotiations with the Saudi officials.

HEMMER: Mike it might be entirely too early on this question, but what does that say about the level of cooperation?

BROOKS: Well, as we had discussed in the past and we have seen in the past with the Saudi government, it hasn't -- the cooperation has not always been that great with the Saudi government. When we were there in 1996, for example, I spoke about this last hour, but in 1996 we were working on the forensic investigation there on the ground, and out of the blue, the Saudis come up with a large piece of the delivery vehicle of the bomb.

They took that piece, apparently, early on and were going to do their own parallel investigation, but it was a crucial piece that we had been looking for to try to identify exactly what kind of truck delivered the bomb. We were there -- we were sifting through sand, we were digging with shovels, using wheel barrows, a lot of menial labor. They thought that we were prisoners that the U.S. government had brought over to do their menial labor, their dirty work, so they didn't really have a good understanding, I think, of U.S. law enforcement. HEMMER: Mike, let me turn the argument around. If Saudis were killed in the U.S. after an attack. You are the head of an FBI team, hypothetically speaking, you do what based on their request to get access?

BROOKS: Well, we would cooperate -- cooperate way -- go out of our way to cooperate with the Saudis.

HEMMER: No questions asked?

BROOKS: No questions asked. Now, if it were here, if there were Americans killed, we work that investigation in tandem, in parallel. In 1996 during the could bar towers bombing, they had investigative teams that were going out with Saudis, but they would not let them go out into the neighborhoods. There was some evidence out into the neighborhoods that we wanted to get access to, but they really wouldn't give us access to that back in 1996.

HEMMER: Mike, thanks. Mike Brooks at the CNN Center. We'll talk again on this, unfortunately.

BROOKS: Sure.

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 May 13, 2003 - 09:32   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Back to the deadly attacks in Riyadh now. Mike Brooks was the team leader of the first FBI group to investigate the attacks seven years ago in Saudi Arabia, 1996, Khobar towers, several U.S. servicemen killed in that attack. Mike Brooks now working for us live at the CNN Center. How soon, Mike, before the FBI is there on the ground looking?
MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, in 1996, Bill, we were there pretty soon afterwards, after negotiating a little bit with the Saudi government. But right now I was just talking to some of my sources in Washington, D.C. and they are still negotiating with the Saudi government right now, the host country there, to see how many officers, how many agents they are going to be able to take over as part of the investigative team. They'll send an assessment team -- that is going to be going out pretty soon, to go over and try to take -- and work with the Saudi government and find out exactly how many agents, how many folks from the lab, how many forensics experts, the evidence response team people from the critical incident (ph) response group of the FBI that they are going to need over there.

But they are still apparently in negotiations right now with the Saudi government. The Saudis are basically saying, well, it is not your embassy that has been blown up, it is not a military facility. We can handle it here domestically. You don't need to send over as many agents as you did in 1996. So, again, it is back to negotiations with the Saudi officials.

HEMMER: Mike it might be entirely too early on this question, but what does that say about the level of cooperation?

BROOKS: Well, as we had discussed in the past and we have seen in the past with the Saudi government, it hasn't -- the cooperation has not always been that great with the Saudi government. When we were there in 1996, for example, I spoke about this last hour, but in 1996 we were working on the forensic investigation there on the ground, and out of the blue, the Saudis come up with a large piece of the delivery vehicle of the bomb.

They took that piece, apparently, early on and were going to do their own parallel investigation, but it was a crucial piece that we had been looking for to try to identify exactly what kind of truck delivered the bomb. We were there -- we were sifting through sand, we were digging with shovels, using wheel barrows, a lot of menial labor. They thought that we were prisoners that the U.S. government had brought over to do their menial labor, their dirty work, so they didn't really have a good understanding, I think, of U.S. law enforcement. HEMMER: Mike, let me turn the argument around. If Saudis were killed in the U.S. after an attack. You are the head of an FBI team, hypothetically speaking, you do what based on their request to get access?

BROOKS: Well, we would cooperate -- cooperate way -- go out of our way to cooperate with the Saudis.

HEMMER: No questions asked?

BROOKS: No questions asked. Now, if it were here, if there were Americans killed, we work that investigation in tandem, in parallel. In 1996 during the could bar towers bombing, they had investigative teams that were going out with Saudis, but they would not let them go out into the neighborhoods. There was some evidence out into the neighborhoods that we wanted to get access to, but they really wouldn't give us access to that back in 1996.

HEMMER: Mike, thanks. Mike Brooks at the CNN Center. We'll talk again on this, unfortunately.

BROOKS: Sure.

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