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CNN Saturday Morning News

Attorney General Addresses Press in Copenhagen

Aired September 14, 2002 - 08:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Copenhagen, Denmark is the place.
Here's the attorney general.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: ... views and to develop a sort of working awareness that's more than just the formal trading of positions when you have the opportunity for conversation, give and take, and frankly your ability to elicit a contribution from virtually every member nation and to make it available to me in the framework of that give and take was very valuable to me.

I feel like that we are situated in a way so that we can really make additional progress that will be helpful to the European community and to the United States of America and, for that matter, to the defense of liberty and freedom, which is the business of all freedom loving nations in the fight against terror.

Additionally, this was a great opportunity for me to express the appreciation of the people of the United States for the extraordinary support of the European Union over the past year following the tragic events of September the 11th. As the September 11, 2002 declaration issued by the heads of state and government of the European Union stated, the terrorist attacks of 11 September have given rise to the most comprehensive international cooperation in decades. Countries all over the world have united in the common cause against cynical contempt for human lives that lies behind terrorism.

There were over 90 different countries that lost citizens on that day when terrorists assaulted the values of free societies and cultures. And as I discussed in my speech that I had an opportunity, prior to the lunch, I was given the opportunity and privilege of addressing the participants of the European Union at this important meeting. The targets of terrorism were not buildings, people, nations. The targets of terrorism were the values that these people, nations embrace and that the buildings somehow became a part of symbolizing.

And we share those values. The, America emerged as a nation in which those values were exhibited in substantial measure as a result of the cultural antecedents that America inherited from the member states of the E.U.

And as long as we're partners in these values, and, indeed, we are and we will be and must be partners in these values on a continuing basis, we will defeat those who fear the values we revere. We will defeat those who fear freedom, who hate equality, who mock justice.

The partnership to defeat terrorism that we have forged in the past year has, indeed, elevated the level of safety and security for all the nations who love and protect freedom. The European Union and the United States have successfully completed the first phase of adjusting to the post-September world of international terrorism and as was ably noted by Minister Epperson (ph), we have focused on how we communicate law enforcement information with each other, how we coordinate law enforcement operations, information, operations and how we work together in bringing terrorists and criminals to justice.

First, in order to facilitate the efficient exchange of information that would be a prevention function, we have established points of contact between our respective law enforcement agencies.

We were particularly pleased to welcome earlier this month in Washington the Euoropol liaison officers who have been assigned to work in the capital of the United States of America. When individuals are on site, working contemporaneously, information is instantaneous for that. When you have to go through protocols to transmit information, frequently the velocity of the information is impeded and information that is late can be of substantially lower value.

So whenever we have the onsite participation that we are now developing with Europol, we do not have a devalued informational system. We have a system that provides information at the right time. The velocity of information transmission is what it should be.

In the same spirit, we have assigned U.S. prosecutors to serve as liaison individuals with Eurojust and we've just entered into an agreement to share strategic data between the United States and Europol and have collaborated on terrorism threat assessments.

Not only knowing the capacity of the terrorists, but understanding our own capacities for resistance is important and these kinds of collaborations enhance our capacity.

In the area of joint action, the United States and the European Union have cooperated closely to interrupt the flow of resources to suspected terrorists by seizing assets or freezing assets of suspected terrorists, those who finance terrorist activity. Over the past year, the United States and the European Union have joined together in designating as terrorist several European-based terrorists and organizations.

The United States and the European Union have encouraged also the employment of other law enforcement tools to disrupt terrorist financing, working together to facilitate the commencement of forfeiture actions and money laundering prosecutions.

In the area of bringing terrorists and other international criminals to justice, we've laid additional new groundwork. We're discussing the possibility of an unprecedented agreement on extradition and mutual legal assistance between the E.U. and the United States. Our teams of experts have held intensive negotiations and I fully expect that they will continue their progress in the coming months.

The issues, of course, are not simple, nor do I predict that there'll easily be solutions. But I had the opportunity to discuss this. We all know and understand that very seldom do very valuable things work on the first try. Complex things require a protracted, persistent, persevering effort. And I'm pleased that the spirit and intent is there to support that kind of durable endeavor.

The key to success in the global war on terrorism is in information sharing. Information is the best friend of prevention. Prevention is the best friend of freedom.

Al Qaeda purposely fragments its operations, trains in one area, it finances from another setting, it frequently plans for specific events in another setting or a variety of settings. It fine tunes its plans, perhaps even on the other side of the world, it comes back to execute or carry out its plans in another setting. And when you fragment the different aspects of the al Qaeda operation, you make very difficult the interruption of that operation because in only small intervals is it observable in any one setting.

And it really puts an emphasis on the need for collaboration between those who would thwart terrorism. Because if we cooperate to integrate our information, we combat the fragmentation that they impose when they separate their operations. And it's with that in mind that this cooperation with the European Union becomes a model for the need to cooperate around the globe in sharing information.

So these are very important issues...

O'BRIEN: We have been listening to Attorney General John Ashcroft, the dateline Copenhagen, Denmark. He has been meeting with his peers in the European Union discussing, obviously, matters of terrorism, undoubtedly discussing matters of capital punishment here in the United States, a sore subject among the European Union when it comes to the issue of extraditing potential terrorist suspects to the United States, although he has not addressed that subject just yet in his news conference.

We're going to continue to monitor it for you and should there be anything in there that requires your attention, we'll bring it to you as soon as we can.

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