Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Sunday Morning

FBI Says al Qaeda Plans Another Attack

Aired May 19, 2002 - 07:02   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Details now on increased activity by al Qaeda operatives. The FBI says that suggests another possible terrorist attack. Kelly Wallace has our story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As President Bush tries to contain the furor over what his administration knew before September 11th, U.S. intelligence agencies are picking up signs suggesting another al Qaeda terrorist operation could be in the works. A senior administration official told CNN there has been an increased level of chatter and activity over the past few months, but the official said it's non-specific in nature.

Vice President Cheney, in a speech Thursday, warning Democrats not to play politics with any investigation of the pre-9-11 warnings, hinting there's a heightened level of concern.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: An investigation must not interfere with the ongoing efforts to prevent the next attack. Because, without a doubt, a very real threat of another perhaps more devastating attack still exists.

WALLACE: The vice president's comments were also part of a coordinated offensive, with Bush advisers and Republicans charging that recent Democratic criticism of the president crossed the line.

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Insinuating that the president had information and then sat back and did not take appropriate action to prevent a real tragedy. I think that's unconscionable.

WALLACE: Democrats say the White House wants to paint this as a partisan fight, instead of what they say is an attempt to find out what happened so future attacks can be prevented.

REP. HAROLD FORD (D) TENNESSEE: The tone I hear from the White House is not one of how do we get beyond this. It's more so Democrats are to blame and they're attempting to divide. By no means is that the case.

WALLACE: So far, this week's disclosure that Mr. Bush learned in early August that al Qaeda could consider hijacking American planes has not affected his sky-high popularity, with 73 percent of Americans in a "Newsweek" poll saying they approve of his job performance; the same level since mid February. But when asked if the president did all that he should have with the pre-9-11 warnings, 48 percent say he did and 39 percent said he didn't do enough.

(on camera): The administration is likely to face growing pressure to support a wider congressional probe of any intelligence failures, especially as U.S. officials say they are seeing signs of increased activity similar to what they saw in the months before the September 11th attacks.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well let's talk a little bit more about the new signs of a possible terror attack and possible intelligence (UNINTELLIGIBLE) leading up to September 11th. Joining me here in Atlanta is Mike Brooks, formerly with the FBI's anti- terrorism unit -- good to have you, Mike.

MIKE BROOKS, FMR. FBI TERRORISM TASK FORCE: Good to be here.

O'BRIEN: All right. First of all, let's talk about this latest thing. For example, when a circular comes out and it warns apartment managers to be wary, how useful is that sort of information?

BROOKS: Well I think it's kind of more of vigilance alert than anything else. Intelligence is gathered in a number of different ways. The information they get is raw intelligence. Again, this is kind of information they say is not specific. I think it's just, again, to give someone a heightened sense of awareness because of what's been going on in the world.

O'BRIEN: But all of these circulars, with all this so-called "heightened sense of awareness" that goes along with it, at a certain point, does it defeat the whole purpose?

BROOKS: I don't think so. I think Americans in general, sometimes after an incident happens such as September 11th, months down the road something doesn't happen, Americans get complacent. And sometimes they need to be poked with a stick a little bit just to say, "Hey, please be aware. Please be aware of your surroundings whether you're at home, at your apartment, at work, at the malls," those kinds of things.

O'BRIEN: So we aren't tuning it out just yet? Or at what point do people start tuning it out, I guess?

BROOKS: I don't think they're going to anymore. After September 11th, everything now is measured prior to September 11th and after September 11th. And because of all these things now in the news about terrorism, hijackings, did the president know, did he not know, I think people are continually aware of what's going on. And I think they'll take this information in stride.

O'BRIEN: All right. Now when we talked this morning about the intelligence sources telling us about the potential threat of another al Qaeda attack, and this chatter which is going on, this dialogue, give us a sense of some of the intelligence gathering without giving away the trade secrets, if you will...

BROOKS: Sure.

O'BRIEN: ... on how they might gather that kind of information.

BROOKS: Well intelligence is gathered -- information is gathered in basically three different ways. You have human intelligence, which is FBI, CIA, NSA people that have sources, human sources that they can go to and ask, "What kind of information do you know about this particular subject?" There is also signals intelligence that pick up from satellites, overhears, all legal overhears, those kinds of things.

Then you also have when they go and do a raid, like they did in Afghanistan, where they pick up tapes, videotapes, books, those kind of things. And then you also right now have agents, CIA, FBI, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, interviewing all these people that they're bringing in, all these al Qaeda terrorists or suspected terrorists, and they're trying to see if there is any links between all the different kinds of information they're getting.

O'BRIEN: Do you expect that there is more pressure now to release this kind of information in light of what we've heard about the pre-9-11 intelligence warnings that were out there?

BROOKS: Absolutely. I think it's total disclosure by the administration now. It either comes out by Mr. Ridge and the office of Homeland Security, or Mr. Ashcroft, the Attorney General.

O'BRIEN: But take us inside that decision making for a moment, because by its very nature these kinds of things don't lend themselves to a lot of public discourse if you're going to continue investigations and maintain national security. At what point do you go public on these things, how much do you tell, how do you make those decisions real time?

BROOKS: Well let's take the Phoenix memo, for instance. They're talking about the FBI agent in Phoenix, Arizona who had information about Middle Easterners attending flight schools. He probably gained that information through sources, some of his sources, through assets. The FBI prides themselves on asset development, trying to get sources of information.

He would take that memo, give it to his supervisor at the Phoenix field office, and then they would probably take it and kick it up to the headquarters level at the radical fundamentalism unit at FBI headquarters. And from there they would open up a preliminary inquiry or preliminary investigation to see if there's any activity at all that's involved in criminality.

And that's the big thing, criminality. The FBI is guided by a set of rules, the attorney general guidelines that says you can do this and you can do that. You can be -- try to be totally unobtrusive when you're trying to find out if there is any criminality going on.

So if you had a list of names, for instance, you couldn't just take those names, put a wiretap on somebody's phone. We don't want -- the attorney general guidelines are there so that people's constitutional rights aren't violated. Now, of course, after September 11th, a lot of people are going, "Well, we had to do these kinds of things." Well I think some of the lawmakers that are screaming at us right now, if these things were violated, if these rights were violated, they'd be the first ones to come out and say that they were.

O'BRIEN: All right. But having said all that, when you take the Phoenix memo, the arrest of Moussaoui, some of the other information, you put it all on one table, it seems -- with hindsight -- that the puzzle pieces were there. Is this a failure of the system or a failure of the actual people in the system?

BROOKS: I don't know if all the puzzle pieces were there. The puzzle -- again, you have -- it's a big puzzle, it's not just the FBI. It's the CIA, the National Security Agency, a lot of different intelligence agencies that are playing (ph) in and getting (UNINTELLIGIBLE) information to see if there are any links between all these different agencies and the different sources of information.

So I think the FBI right now is kind of focusing. And, you know, Mr. Mueller is doing an excellent job of trying to refocus the FBI. They're getting away from bank robberies and some of their other traditional criminal investigations and focusing on anti and counter- terrorism.

O'BRIEN: Mike Brooks, formerly with the FBI, he'll be with us throughout the morning. We're going to be taking some e-mails and calls from you a little bit later. We invite you to send us e-mails if you have any questions for him specifically to wam@cnn.com. Thanks for dropping by.

BROOKS: It's good to be here.

O'BRIEN: All right -- our pleasure.

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