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CNN Live Sunday

Interview With Steve Pomerantz

Aired December 29, 2002 - 18:00   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.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, those are the headlines, now let's take a closer look at the top story. The FBI needs your help. Agents are trying to track down five men they say are in the United States illegally, possibly via Canada. CNN's Jeanne Meserve has been working on this developing story. Jeanne, thousands of people enter the United States illegally every week, so why is the FBI singling these men out?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Because their names cropped up in ongoing investigations and they want to know where they are and what they're up to. U.S. authorities are operating on the assumption that the five men crossed the border possibly from Canada on or around Christmas Eve.

They do know how or where they might have crossed. Administration sources say they do not know what they are doing here but they want to find out and they want to question them about what they may know about the broader war on terrorism.

Their names came up, as I mentioned in ongoing investigations and sources say they may have information pertinent to the broader investigation. They think there may be threads between the investigations in which they turned up in other investigations.

Authorities have been looking for the men without success and they are now enlisting the help of state and local law enforcement and the general public, posting pictures, names and dates of birth on the Internet.

The FBI cautions that these may be fictitious identities but that is why the pictures may be particularly useful. Officials would not say what country the individuals are citizens of. Officials describe them as Middle Eastern. Terrorism experts say the names appear to be Pakistani.

As to the level of concern about these individuals, it appears to be significant that the FBI has posted these on a Sunday afternoon, that it has gone to the extraordinary effort of asking the U.S. public to please become involved in this investigation.

As one individual put it to me, I think it's impossible to say what they may or may not be up to, how imminent that may or may not be, but clearly out of an abundance of caution, they want to find these men and they want to talk to them. Individuals are being advised to contact their local FBI office if they have any information - Carol. LIN: Jeanne, do they have any leads so far since they made this announcement this afternoon?

MESERVE: Not that I've been aware of. This has now been publicized for more than an hour, in fact close to two hours at this juncture. It's impossible for me to say from my vantage point whether or not they've gotten any useful information about this or not.

LIN: But your sense from the conversations that you've been having with your sources is that this is an urgent situation?

MESERVE: I would not characterize it as urgent. I would say there is concern about these individuals and it must be significant concern for them to have taken this route. Urgent is not a word I've heard in connection with this.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Jeanne Meserve reporting live from Washington, D.C. We want to add some context as well as expertise to this story so we are joined by telephone with Steve Pomerantz. He is a terrorism expert with us today, Steve good to have you on the telephone with us.

STEVE POMERANTZ, TERRORISM EXPERT (via telephone): Good to be here, thank you.

LIN: What do you make of this search and the way the FBI has issued this announcement, this plea to the public for help?

POMERANTZ: Well, I agree with Jeanne. Clearly, this is an unusual step to make a public plea of this kind, so I think that whatever information they have it's sufficient in their minds to warrant this rather unusual step. So, while it may not be urgent, while I don't suspect to have any information about an imminent attack, for example, they're concerned enough based on what they know to take this rather dramatic step.

LIN: What is the world in between a sense of urgency with an imminent attack and simply concern because these men are on a list?

POMERANTZ: Well, I think that there's a big difference. There are many, many people today under investigation who are of concern to the FBI because of their backgrounds, because of the activities they participated in, because of information that the FBI's received about their connection to terrorism. There are lots of people like that, most of whom are not sufficient information to believe they're ready to launch an imminent attack or other steps would be taken.

So, there's lots of people out there of concern and interest to the bureau. Clearly, these people again have moved a little bit away from that pack in terms of the fact that the bureau's gone public with it.

LIN: Has this call for help ever worked in the past?

POMERANTZ: Oh, of course. You know that's the way law enforcement works in this country, whether it's terrorists, whether it's serial killers, whether it's ordinary criminals. The whole basis of law enforcement in this country is the cooperation of the public. If you don't get the active cooperation of the public, you really have a much harder row to hoe than if you do.

LIN: All right.

POMERANTZ: Sure, this works all the time.

LIN: All right, so tying this up for us, if you were to step into the mind of the agency who made this decision to make this public announcement, what is their line of thinking in terms of if they don't catch these guys soon what potentially could happen?

POMERANTZ: You know, again, we don't know that. We don't know what kind of information they have but let's take, you know let's look at the range of possibilities. Clearly, if there's information that they're here to do a terrorist attack that's the worst case, then if you don't find them and stop them the attack takes place.

I suspect they do not have information like that. These people they may have some information about these individuals' ties to various organizations and a more likely concern is that they get into the country, they evade detection, they join up with their compatriots and they start engaging in that kind of support structure for terrorism that has proliferated in this country for years.

We've had terrorists from essentially every Middle East terrorist organization in the world active in this country in some way or other and that's what we need to be concerned about and certainly that's what we've been focusing on much more since September 11.

LIN: All right, well the FBI making it official, a call for help to the public to help find these five men who may be here illegally. Thank you very much, Steve Pomerantz.

POMERANTZ: You're welcome.

LIN: Our terrorism expert on the telephone.

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 29, 2002 - 18:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, those are the headlines, now let's take a closer look at the top story. The FBI needs your help. Agents are trying to track down five men they say are in the United States illegally, possibly via Canada. CNN's Jeanne Meserve has been working on this developing story. Jeanne, thousands of people enter the United States illegally every week, so why is the FBI singling these men out?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Because their names cropped up in ongoing investigations and they want to know where they are and what they're up to. U.S. authorities are operating on the assumption that the five men crossed the border possibly from Canada on or around Christmas Eve.

They do know how or where they might have crossed. Administration sources say they do not know what they are doing here but they want to find out and they want to question them about what they may know about the broader war on terrorism.

Their names came up, as I mentioned in ongoing investigations and sources say they may have information pertinent to the broader investigation. They think there may be threads between the investigations in which they turned up in other investigations.

Authorities have been looking for the men without success and they are now enlisting the help of state and local law enforcement and the general public, posting pictures, names and dates of birth on the Internet.

The FBI cautions that these may be fictitious identities but that is why the pictures may be particularly useful. Officials would not say what country the individuals are citizens of. Officials describe them as Middle Eastern. Terrorism experts say the names appear to be Pakistani.

As to the level of concern about these individuals, it appears to be significant that the FBI has posted these on a Sunday afternoon, that it has gone to the extraordinary effort of asking the U.S. public to please become involved in this investigation.

As one individual put it to me, I think it's impossible to say what they may or may not be up to, how imminent that may or may not be, but clearly out of an abundance of caution, they want to find these men and they want to talk to them. Individuals are being advised to contact their local FBI office if they have any information - Carol. LIN: Jeanne, do they have any leads so far since they made this announcement this afternoon?

MESERVE: Not that I've been aware of. This has now been publicized for more than an hour, in fact close to two hours at this juncture. It's impossible for me to say from my vantage point whether or not they've gotten any useful information about this or not.

LIN: But your sense from the conversations that you've been having with your sources is that this is an urgent situation?

MESERVE: I would not characterize it as urgent. I would say there is concern about these individuals and it must be significant concern for them to have taken this route. Urgent is not a word I've heard in connection with this.

LIN: All right, thank you very much Jeanne Meserve reporting live from Washington, D.C. We want to add some context as well as expertise to this story so we are joined by telephone with Steve Pomerantz. He is a terrorism expert with us today, Steve good to have you on the telephone with us.

STEVE POMERANTZ, TERRORISM EXPERT (via telephone): Good to be here, thank you.

LIN: What do you make of this search and the way the FBI has issued this announcement, this plea to the public for help?

POMERANTZ: Well, I agree with Jeanne. Clearly, this is an unusual step to make a public plea of this kind, so I think that whatever information they have it's sufficient in their minds to warrant this rather unusual step. So, while it may not be urgent, while I don't suspect to have any information about an imminent attack, for example, they're concerned enough based on what they know to take this rather dramatic step.

LIN: What is the world in between a sense of urgency with an imminent attack and simply concern because these men are on a list?

POMERANTZ: Well, I think that there's a big difference. There are many, many people today under investigation who are of concern to the FBI because of their backgrounds, because of the activities they participated in, because of information that the FBI's received about their connection to terrorism. There are lots of people like that, most of whom are not sufficient information to believe they're ready to launch an imminent attack or other steps would be taken.

So, there's lots of people out there of concern and interest to the bureau. Clearly, these people again have moved a little bit away from that pack in terms of the fact that the bureau's gone public with it.

LIN: Has this call for help ever worked in the past?

POMERANTZ: Oh, of course. You know that's the way law enforcement works in this country, whether it's terrorists, whether it's serial killers, whether it's ordinary criminals. The whole basis of law enforcement in this country is the cooperation of the public. If you don't get the active cooperation of the public, you really have a much harder row to hoe than if you do.

LIN: All right.

POMERANTZ: Sure, this works all the time.

LIN: All right, so tying this up for us, if you were to step into the mind of the agency who made this decision to make this public announcement, what is their line of thinking in terms of if they don't catch these guys soon what potentially could happen?

POMERANTZ: You know, again, we don't know that. We don't know what kind of information they have but let's take, you know let's look at the range of possibilities. Clearly, if there's information that they're here to do a terrorist attack that's the worst case, then if you don't find them and stop them the attack takes place.

I suspect they do not have information like that. These people they may have some information about these individuals' ties to various organizations and a more likely concern is that they get into the country, they evade detection, they join up with their compatriots and they start engaging in that kind of support structure for terrorism that has proliferated in this country for years.

We've had terrorists from essentially every Middle East terrorist organization in the world active in this country in some way or other and that's what we need to be concerned about and certainly that's what we've been focusing on much more since September 11.

LIN: All right, well the FBI making it official, a call for help to the public to help find these five men who may be here illegally. Thank you very much, Steve Pomerantz.

POMERANTZ: You're welcome.

LIN: Our terrorism expert on the telephone.

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