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American Morning
Quality of Intelligence
Aired December 26, 2003 - 09:09 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The same information that led to the orange alert may have led officials to cancel those Air France flights to and from Los Angeles over the last two days. So just how good is the intelligence that the government is getting?
Steven Simon is a senior analyst with the RAND Corporation. He's also the coauthor of the book "The Age of Sacred Terror," and he joins us from Washington this morning.
Nice to see you, Mr. Simon. Thanks for being with us.
Give me a sense, now that we've heard in the days after the orange alert first announced about these canceled flights from Air France, is that a sense that the information and that the intelligence that the U.S. is getting is much better, much more pinpointed, much more honed?
STEVEN SIMON, SENIOR ANALYST, RAND CORPORATION: Well, some of it was fairly specific, at least the intelligence relating to the conspiracy that may or may not have been hatched in France, but there was really a blizzard of intelligence of which that was just a part, and much of the other stuff was of variable quality, but worrisome, sufficiently worrisome to get the authorities to prepare for weapons of mass destruction attack in various places, to be concerned about an aviation attack from Mexico and so forth.
O'BRIEN: So how affected then, do you think this orange alert has been in thwarting some kind of attack?
SIMON: Well, the authorities, the U.S. authorities believe that they may, indeed, have thwarted an attack coming from France, just the other day. Whether or not they have actually done so remains to be seen.
The elevation to the orange threat level is, well, it's a good thing. It's takes agencies, whose readiness inevitably declines over time. After all, it's impossible to stay on a very high level of alert indefinitely, and you know, jogs them, says well, pay closer attention.
The orange alert also seemed to suggest that there was actually a truly elevated threat level.
Several months ago, the administration made the decision that after a string of elevated alert levels, which left the public somewhat jaded and unsure about what to do, that the government would raise the threshold for issuing these kinds of warnings. So seeing this warning against a background of a raised threshold certainly suggests that something serious was at stake.
SIMON: At the same time, officials say, well, they're not quite sure what was gained by canceling those flights. For example, they're talking to some of the people on those flights, but they're not sure if the people on the flights or maybe the people who didn't make those flights before they were canceled, had no intention on getting on those flights, may have been involved. A whole bunch of questions still at this point, so it really doesn't go to prove that the orange alert necessarily had anything to do with making the sky safer because we really don't know what happened, right?
O'BRIEN: No, but the hazards are so high, that better safe than sorry. I, as a terrorism expert, would rather see the U.S. get flights like these canceled than take the risk.
SIMON: Mr. Simon, thanks for being with us this morning. We sure appreciate it.
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 December 26, 2003 - 09:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The same information that led to the orange alert may have led officials to cancel those Air France flights to and from Los Angeles over the last two days. So just how good is the intelligence that the government is getting?
Steven Simon is a senior analyst with the RAND Corporation. He's also the coauthor of the book "The Age of Sacred Terror," and he joins us from Washington this morning.
Nice to see you, Mr. Simon. Thanks for being with us.
Give me a sense, now that we've heard in the days after the orange alert first announced about these canceled flights from Air France, is that a sense that the information and that the intelligence that the U.S. is getting is much better, much more pinpointed, much more honed?
STEVEN SIMON, SENIOR ANALYST, RAND CORPORATION: Well, some of it was fairly specific, at least the intelligence relating to the conspiracy that may or may not have been hatched in France, but there was really a blizzard of intelligence of which that was just a part, and much of the other stuff was of variable quality, but worrisome, sufficiently worrisome to get the authorities to prepare for weapons of mass destruction attack in various places, to be concerned about an aviation attack from Mexico and so forth.
O'BRIEN: So how affected then, do you think this orange alert has been in thwarting some kind of attack?
SIMON: Well, the authorities, the U.S. authorities believe that they may, indeed, have thwarted an attack coming from France, just the other day. Whether or not they have actually done so remains to be seen.
The elevation to the orange threat level is, well, it's a good thing. It's takes agencies, whose readiness inevitably declines over time. After all, it's impossible to stay on a very high level of alert indefinitely, and you know, jogs them, says well, pay closer attention.
The orange alert also seemed to suggest that there was actually a truly elevated threat level.
Several months ago, the administration made the decision that after a string of elevated alert levels, which left the public somewhat jaded and unsure about what to do, that the government would raise the threshold for issuing these kinds of warnings. So seeing this warning against a background of a raised threshold certainly suggests that something serious was at stake.
SIMON: At the same time, officials say, well, they're not quite sure what was gained by canceling those flights. For example, they're talking to some of the people on those flights, but they're not sure if the people on the flights or maybe the people who didn't make those flights before they were canceled, had no intention on getting on those flights, may have been involved. A whole bunch of questions still at this point, so it really doesn't go to prove that the orange alert necessarily had anything to do with making the sky safer because we really don't know what happened, right?
O'BRIEN: No, but the hazards are so high, that better safe than sorry. I, as a terrorism expert, would rather see the U.S. get flights like these canceled than take the risk.
SIMON: Mr. Simon, thanks for being with us this morning. We sure appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
