Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Sunday Morning
New Concern About Possible Al Qaeda Attacks on U.S.
Aired May 19, 2002 - 09:03 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: New concern this morning that al Qaeda could be preparing for another attack. CNN has learned that U.S. intelligence is picking up what one senior administration official calls an increased level of chatter, suggesting a new operation could be in the works. CNN's Kathleen Koch, live at the White House with details. Good morning, Kathleen.
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles. As you pointed out, that information comes from a senior administration official who did not want to be identified, and the way the official put it was that there has been an increased level of chatter and activity over the past couple of months that seems to indicate that another al Qaeda terrorist operation might be in the works. However, source cautions this information is non-specific in nature. "Not specific as to time, date, or method."
Now CNN has confirmed with another U.s. government official, a senior government official saying that the volume of communications among suspected al Qaeda operatives, "has definitely picked up in the last month or so" but that there was again, "no time, no target, no location."
The official said that obviously this information is troubling. It's caused a heightened level of concern and one disturbing point, the official says that the volume and the pattern of communications is very similar to communications that were intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies in the months prior to 9/11.
But again, the source does caution that the credibility of some of this information is questionable. The source said it does seem to point to not so much an attack here in the United States, but an attack overseas. The source did not say whether this was perhaps against a U.S. military installation, U.S. diplomatic facilities. They just don't know at this point.
A senior administration official of course says, "we are watching it" and the U.S. will "take every appropriate precaution." Now because of the non-specific nature of this information that is out there, it is considered too non-specific to issue another terrorism alert. We've had about five of those since September 11th that have gone out to Americans to exercise additional caution. No alert yet on this point.
Now this comes, of course, as the White House is doing its very best to contain the furor that has erupted since the revelation last week that President Bush in an intelligence briefing in August, about a month before the 9/11 attacks, was informed that al Qaeda operatives might try to hijack U.S. airlines.
There have been some polls of Americans since then. One poll taken by "NEWSWEEK" magazine both Thursday and Friday, about 1,000 Americans, and at this point the President's job approval rating is staying quite high at a very respectable 73 percent, where it stayed pretty much since the month of February.
But when those very same Americans were asked if they believe the President did enough with those pre-9/11 warnings, they clearly split. As you can see, 48 percent saying yes, he did do enough, but a very large 39 percent saying he didn't and another 13 percent not really sure.
Now the White House, again, is doing its very best to contain any political damage from all this. They're putting out Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on the Sunday morning news talk shows, so we'll be hearing a lot more about the administration take on all this a little bit later this morning.
And it comes, of course, as many members of Congress, primarily Democrat but some Republicans, are calling for broad investigations into just what happened. Not only what the Bush Administration knew and when, but what happened with the intelligence agencies and the law enforcement agencies that had these bits and pieces of information, these clues, but just couldn't put them together. Miles.
O'BRIEN: CNN's Kathleen Koch at the White House, thank you very much. Just how serious is this threat? Joining us for the third of his three visits, his triad if you will, Mike Brooks who's an expert on terrorism, law enforcement official. We appreciate you being with us once again, Mike. I'm trying to get an e-mail up for you because people have been sending us a bunch of good ones.
Here's one for us. This is somebody who had a bone to pick with something you said earlier.
MIKE BROOKS, FORMER FBI TERRORISM TASK FORCE: OK.
O'BRIEN: I hope you don't mind.
BROOKS: No. No, not at all.
O'BRIEN: "The American people already were beginning to forget terrorism and ignore warnings after 9/11, and this new warning issued just this weekend is but the first of many vague and ultimately useless warnings that will quickly be ignored. The gentleman who was on earlier was wrong. When the real threat comes, no one will be paying attention." Donnie Teamen has that.
BROOKS: Well, just as Donnie says, no one's paying attention. I think again as I said earlier that Americans need to be sometimes poked with a stick because they let their guard down. They get complacent. Complacency is what leads to people getting killed, whether it be here or abroad, whether it be here at your shopping centers, where you work. People before 9/11, after Oklahoma City, everybody was at a heightened sense of awareness.
Six months down the road, everyone forgot about it. There were -- everyone was calling in suspicious packages. They'd see a bag on the street, they'd call law enforcement. That's what law enforcement wants them to do. If they see something that's out of place, call law enforcement.
But again, you know, Donnie says nothing's going to be done. I tend to disagree with that. I think that people sometimes do need to be reminded constantly about what kind of things they should do and how to do it.
O'BRIEN: So it doesn't become white noise unnecessarily. From your perspective, you got to put the warning out there.
BROOKS: Absolutely. You got to put the warning out. I mean we'd be remiss, government officials would be remiss, if we did have information. This is what everybody is screaming about right now that there was information that the government had.
The government would be remiss if they had information, didn't put it out there and then something happened and people were killed and I think most citizens would agree.
O'BRIEN: All right, another question for you. Do you think the theft of a truck loaded with cyanide is part of a terrorist plan? Four armed gunmen stole the truck. Nothing has been seen or heard of it since. Is it possible that terrorists will plant the poison in various cities on July 4th, 2002?
BROOKS: On the cyanide truck being stolen, it could be for monetary gain also. You got to remember that. There's no intelligence information, there's no information that we have right now to say that this was an actual terrorist event. We have to be concerned about land transportation and anti-terrorism, have to be on guard.
The trains moving up and down the railroad tracks every single day with (inaudible) chlorine, could these be potential targets of terrorists? Absolutely. Could trucks like this that we speak of full of cyanide, they could also be. But right now, there's nothing that lends itself to believe that this was an act of terrorism.
O'BRIEN: All right, we have a new word that's entered in our lexicon. It is "chatter" and we're not talking about what happens to your teeth when you're cold.
"What is chatter? Since heightened chatter is a clue, and it existed the month before September 11, was that another missed clue? Sheila King has that.
BROOKS: Some of the chatter could be from intelligence information they're receiving from satellite over here, from telephone wiretaps, legal wiretaps that could be going on here and overseas. It could be being monitored by the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI.
But this chatter is talk, sometimes encrypted, sometimes in plain English, sometimes in a foreign language. Again, all this information has to be taken and analyzed.
The chatter could also be information that's being gained by the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. This could be information that's being thrown out there to -- they know we'll get the FBI, the CIA to react. In what way? It could be just disinformation about the apartment buildings for instance. Where is that information coming from? Can it be corroborated with other information? That's what remains to be seen.
O'BRIEN: All right, Bruce Gaither, one of frequent e-mailers has this for us:
"If the chatter is at the same level as pre 9/11, then how did we have access to al Qaeda conversations without the authority for wiretaps or the reason to suspect an attack at that time?"
BROOKS: Well again, there were a number of full open investigations that the FBI, the CIA, National Security Agency had dealing with al Qaeda. We've known about al Qaeda for a number of years, especially after the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and after the Cole bombing.
So these were -- this was information that was gleaned as a result of those investigations being open and source information that was given to the United States intelligence agencies.
O'BRIEN: All right, well this next question kind of relates to that. When you talk about tactics used by law enforcement and considering the constraints that our constitution provides for us.
BROOKS: Right.
O'BRIEN: And I don't think anybody is talking about throwing the Constitution out here. However, John Evans, who is from Ontario, Canada and perhaps has a different view of the U.S. Constitution than we do:
"Regarding information gathering, I personally think at a time like this, the 'guidelines' should be broken or stretched to protect the public. Otherwise, we are protecting the guilty and leaving the innocent prone to terror."
But I would suggest to you, Mr. Evans, it's a slippery slope. I don't know what you thoughts are on it.
BROOKS: And I agree with you. It is a slippery slope. You know where do you draw the line? We as Americans we live in a great free society. Do we want government intrusion on everything we do? Do we want the guidelines lifted?
I would say we don't, and these guidelines are there in place, are there in place to protect the liberties that we do have in this great country.
O'BRIEN: All right, Frank has this one for us. "Why do Condoleezza Rice and President Bush differentiate between reactions to 'standard' hijackings and hijackings that use the plane as a weapon? How can they tell the difference?" Is there a difference?
BROOKS: Well, you're talking about standard hijackings. Before when you talked about standard hijackings, usually it was there to free prisoners, for ransom, those kind of things that we had going back to the '70s and '80s.
After September 11th, hijackings will never be handled the same. The airline industry has a strategy to deal specifically with airline hijackings. That has been revamped now. There was a group that got together with airline industry officials, law enforcement, the FAA, DOT, all got together to come up with a new strategy to deal with these and they're going to be dealt with differently.
If for instance Flight 93, that went down over Pennsylvania, if one of those people on board had their cell phone and had gotten an FBI hostage negotiator on 9/11, the FBI negotiator would have told them, be calm. Sit back. Wait until the plane gets on the ground and we'll negotiate. Things have changed.
O'BRIEN: Things have changed, exactly. Pilots were told to submit to the requests will now be doing aerobatic maneuvers. Passengers will be taking these people out. I think the whole equation is better.
BROOKS: They won't be doing aerobatics. They won't be doing maneuvers, but the passengers, I think they've also -
O'BRIEN: You want to bet? You want to bet? I bet those pilots will just jam those guys right on the ceiling of that aircraft.
BROOKS: We'll see.
O'BRIEN: We'll see about that. Mike Brooks, always a pleasure to have you drop by.
BROOKS: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Thanks for doing triple duty for us today on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.
BROOKS: Not a problem.
O'BRIEN: The discussion will continue later today with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, mentioned in that last e-mail. That will be at noon Eastern time on "LATE EDITION" with Wolf Blitzer. Maybe he'll ask that question of her for us.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
