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American Morning

Al Qaeda Plots

Aired June 20, 2003 - 08:05   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.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The revelations about Iyman Faris are raising some chilling questions, like are there more like him still out there?
Well, our guest joining us now is former FBI counterintelligence official Bill Daly.

Good to see you here. Nice to talk to you not over a satellite for once.

Are you surprised at all about this capture? Does anything about this strike you as being particularly significant here?

BILL DALY, FMR. FBI OFFICIAL: The information apparently comes from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, which is quite interesting, because he was always pictured as being the tough guy. He was the leader. He was the chief executive officer of Al Qaeda. And you would think someone like this, to cave in and start providing detailed information certainly suggests that it's quite surprising, if not, certainly impressive the techniques to be used to interrogate him.

HARRIS: Do you think then, perhaps, that there are more like Faris still out there? And are you surprised to see how well this man seemed to have been embedded in the fabric of our daily lives?

DALY: Exactly. I'm really not surprised that he was found. And I believe there are others like him, unfortunately. But this guy, as you pointed out, was very well embedded. He became a citizen in 1999 after being here since 1994, blended into the background. He was a deliveryman, he was a truck driver. He didn't appear to be fanatical. There wasn't anything about him that was significant. And so that combined with him acting alone is certainly chilling, and impressive. But I don't think he in and of himself and what he was planning unravels the Al Qaeda network, even here in the U.S.

HARRIS: Well, It's clear he was not a ringleader of any sort here. So what does that tell you then about the quality of the information they're getting out of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?

DALY: Well, I mean, two things, coming from a counterintelligence background, I can tell you that sometimes you have to be careful that these aren't just throwaways, that he's given a couple of good little tidbits of information, meanwhile he's holding back on some of the larger pieces of information.

HARRIS: Just to relieve the pressure on him somewhat.

DALY: And make it look as though he's cooperating. So that's always something officials are concerned about.

But I also have to say something else very interesting about this and I think for ourselves to be cognizant of, is that when he was planning the attacks on the bridges, and perhaps on the Brooklyn Bridges, as was suggested, is he was deterred because of a high state of security, because security seemed too tight, and they thought they would be thwarted.

HARRIS: He said the weather was too hot. That was the signal he gave that said it was too many security officials around or whatever.

DALY: Right. And that goes to show us, Leon, that as we raise up these threat levels, and many people have had kind of like threat level burnout. What does this mean? What level are we at today? But it does go to show you that when we raise up the security threat level, and police are more present, there's more intelligence activity, is that people like this, or others planning some no-good deeds, will be thwarted, deterred or perhaps detected.

HARRIS: Is there anything to be read from this about the status of any other Al Qaeda plans right now? I know you've said in the past that the attacks we've seen in Morocco, Riyadh, those are footsteps to seeing something bigger happening down the road. Do you still see that being the case here?

DALY: Well, I certainly think, and our analysts, the work that we do, suggests that these are steps, and the movement of Al Qaeda is still active, although it also suggests, if you look very closely at some of the recent incidents that they weren't as well orchestrated as ones in the past, which might suggest that the breaking up of the training camps, the hierarchy of Al Qaeda, has forced us down to a kind of a lower rung on the ladder.

Nonetheless, they could be as deadly. I'm not suggesting that they're not. But just in the near term, it seems as though they may be working more on an ad hoc basis, or without that, the collective effort of a strong central management.

HARRIS: And number one folks, we should take away from this, what you said earlier about the threat level raising up and down at appropriate times does appear to be working.

DALY: I think it does.

HARRIS: Bill Daly, appreciate it. Thank you very much for coming in. Take care.

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 June 20, 2003 - 08:05   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The revelations about Iyman Faris are raising some chilling questions, like are there more like him still out there?
Well, our guest joining us now is former FBI counterintelligence official Bill Daly.

Good to see you here. Nice to talk to you not over a satellite for once.

Are you surprised at all about this capture? Does anything about this strike you as being particularly significant here?

BILL DALY, FMR. FBI OFFICIAL: The information apparently comes from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, which is quite interesting, because he was always pictured as being the tough guy. He was the leader. He was the chief executive officer of Al Qaeda. And you would think someone like this, to cave in and start providing detailed information certainly suggests that it's quite surprising, if not, certainly impressive the techniques to be used to interrogate him.

HARRIS: Do you think then, perhaps, that there are more like Faris still out there? And are you surprised to see how well this man seemed to have been embedded in the fabric of our daily lives?

DALY: Exactly. I'm really not surprised that he was found. And I believe there are others like him, unfortunately. But this guy, as you pointed out, was very well embedded. He became a citizen in 1999 after being here since 1994, blended into the background. He was a deliveryman, he was a truck driver. He didn't appear to be fanatical. There wasn't anything about him that was significant. And so that combined with him acting alone is certainly chilling, and impressive. But I don't think he in and of himself and what he was planning unravels the Al Qaeda network, even here in the U.S.

HARRIS: Well, It's clear he was not a ringleader of any sort here. So what does that tell you then about the quality of the information they're getting out of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?

DALY: Well, I mean, two things, coming from a counterintelligence background, I can tell you that sometimes you have to be careful that these aren't just throwaways, that he's given a couple of good little tidbits of information, meanwhile he's holding back on some of the larger pieces of information.

HARRIS: Just to relieve the pressure on him somewhat.

DALY: And make it look as though he's cooperating. So that's always something officials are concerned about.

But I also have to say something else very interesting about this and I think for ourselves to be cognizant of, is that when he was planning the attacks on the bridges, and perhaps on the Brooklyn Bridges, as was suggested, is he was deterred because of a high state of security, because security seemed too tight, and they thought they would be thwarted.

HARRIS: He said the weather was too hot. That was the signal he gave that said it was too many security officials around or whatever.

DALY: Right. And that goes to show us, Leon, that as we raise up these threat levels, and many people have had kind of like threat level burnout. What does this mean? What level are we at today? But it does go to show you that when we raise up the security threat level, and police are more present, there's more intelligence activity, is that people like this, or others planning some no-good deeds, will be thwarted, deterred or perhaps detected.

HARRIS: Is there anything to be read from this about the status of any other Al Qaeda plans right now? I know you've said in the past that the attacks we've seen in Morocco, Riyadh, those are footsteps to seeing something bigger happening down the road. Do you still see that being the case here?

DALY: Well, I certainly think, and our analysts, the work that we do, suggests that these are steps, and the movement of Al Qaeda is still active, although it also suggests, if you look very closely at some of the recent incidents that they weren't as well orchestrated as ones in the past, which might suggest that the breaking up of the training camps, the hierarchy of Al Qaeda, has forced us down to a kind of a lower rung on the ladder.

Nonetheless, they could be as deadly. I'm not suggesting that they're not. But just in the near term, it seems as though they may be working more on an ad hoc basis, or without that, the collective effort of a strong central management.

HARRIS: And number one folks, we should take away from this, what you said earlier about the threat level raising up and down at appropriate times does appear to be working.

DALY: I think it does.

HARRIS: Bill Daly, appreciate it. Thank you very much for coming in. Take care.

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