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William Cohen on Increasing Concern About Terror Attacks Inside U.S.

Aired May 26, 2004 - 13:12   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.


ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: For some perspective now on events in the news today we're joined by the former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen. He now heads the Cohen Group, it's an international business consulting firm. Secretary Cohen, good to see you.
Increasing concern today about terror attacks on the U.S. in the coming months but at the same time no elevation to the alert level. Give us a sense of why that is.

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, I think the administration is simply trying to alert the American people that perhaps we have become a bit too complacent over the last couple of years. A common statement that I, myself, have heard is that nothing has happened since 9/11 and therefore it seems that the Taliban has been broken up enough in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda on the run, that perhaps our concerns are being overstated and I think this is an attempt by the administration to put the focus back on the security issues that Al Qaeda and others have been in the United States and elsewhere for years, they've been here before, they have conducted terrorist actions before with 9/11 and they are likely to try and attack the United States and other countries again, So I think it's a matter of prudence and caution and to raise the concern and to try to dispel any sense of complacency on the part of the American people.

VERJEE: And clearly they're taking it seriously even though there hasn't been a specific threat, apparently. Give us a sense of how intelligence, Homeland Security and other agencies in the U.S. government would be operating now that we might not know about to fork (ph) this.

COHEN: Well, when this type of information types to filter in, and there are literally pieces of information that are gathered virtually every day, it has to be sorted by the various intelligence agencies and then hopefully collated, integrated and then analyzed for the policy makers to make recommendations on specific action. But what happens during these periods of stress is the antennae, so to speak, go up and they listen intently to everything taking place with a good deal more attention. And so all of that information they gather, there'll be more emphasis placed upon integrating the information and making as sure as one can that the policy makers at the very top are getting the information that has been sufficiently analyzed by the analysts and undertake specific measures if they can. Most of the information is general in nature and much of it comes in code words. Deciphering those code words, trying to determine whether they have been used in the past and where and how, all of that is part of the intelligence-gathering process.

VERJEE: To Iraq. Should the interim Iraqi government have a say over security in the country, have a say over what U.S. forces do there, what other international forces do there after the 30th of June?

COHEN: Well, the interim government obviously is going to have political authority. The question becomes how absolute or how complete is that authority? The United States has made it quite clear that U.S. troops will remain under the tactical control of U.S. commanders. If NATO, for example, were to take over and become part of the security apparatus in Iraq than that would not create any kind of a problem because the United States, of course, with the Supreme Allied Commander be in charge. If it's the U.N. that also can be worked out so that you have U.S. command over its forces and yet integrated into an international peacekeeping force so I think it depends upon what mechanism, but obviously.

VERJEE: Secretary Cohen, excuse me, we will come back to you in a moment, we want to go to the White House Press Secretary, now, Scott McClellan, speaking about the increased level of terror alert--or concerns about terror attacks in the U.S. Let's listen.

(INTERRUPTED BY LIVE NEWS EVENT)

VERJEE: The White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan taking questions from the press, saying essentially that the U.S. government is taking all threats seriously, they are taking threats as credible. There is information that has been corroborated that allows them to believe it is credible. He said that it is also possible that there are cells or people in place in the United States planning a terror attack but there is nothing specific, no specific dates, no specific target. The former Defense Secretary William Cohen is still with us.

Secretary Cohen, there was some discussion also on NATO's role in Iraq at that press conference. How do you see that?

COHEN: Well, I think there's a realistic possibility that NATO could be persuaded to develop a consensus that would endorse a participatory role in Iraq itself. There are some members of NATO currently there but not NATO as an institution. I think that President Bush has got to go to President Chirac of France, to Chancellor Schroeder of Germany and indicate that the United States needs their support even though they have indicated they would not be contributing troops to the region, nonetheless, from Germany at least, we've had indications that they would not stand in the way of a consensus, should it develop, that NATO take a role in Iraq. I think those are pretty good signals, strong signals that it's possible to develop such a consensus and I would hope that President Bush would take whatever action is necessary to gain NATO's support and I'm hopeful that he can do so.

VERJEE: Why is the U.S. reluctant to set a specific withdrawal date of its troops in Iraq. In a new U.N. resolution on Iraq that's something that France and other countries have been pushing for and it's certainly something that would be important for Iraqi perception to say, "OK, the U.S. doesn't want to be an occupying force."

COHEN: I think it would be a miscalculation to set a firm date for any kind of a withdrawal, a drawdown of American forces. It's pretty clear right now that the Iraqi people do not have sufficient trained forces to provide for their own security in the short term. To the extent that an army is professionally trained and developed in the coming months, then a judgment can be made at that point that the United States and other forces can either drawdown or withdraw. Until such time as that security can at least be reasonably measured I think we would see a descent into the kind of civil war and chaos that everyone is trying to avoid, so setting a firm date would undermine that ability of the Iraqi people to in fact train people in order to provide for their own security. So flexibility, let the Iraqi government make determinations in terms of when the United States and coalition forces should reduce or withdraw. But to set it at the outset I think would be a mistake.

VERJEE: Amnesty International has issued a report today essentially saying the U.S.-led war on terror is behind the increase in human rights abuses throughout the world. They said that America's offensive against global terrorism is bankrupt of vision and has made the world a more dangerous place.

COHEN: Well I would hope that the commission would also look at the level of violence that took place prior to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, liberation of Iraq, initially at least. And that in many other countries we see tremendous repression. What we have to, of course, resist in times of war such as this is to descend to any levels that really undermine the respect for rule of law. And to the extent that the United States has done so, it is in the process of correcting that is a process of examining itself to say that when we commit abuses we will take corrective measures to prevent them in the future.

So I think that we have clearly found abuses that are perpetrated by some American servicemen and women and they have to be called to justice on that. But I think it's important that in this war against terror that we still have respect for the rule of law, that we still have respect for human rights, and it's more difficult to maintain that rule when the war is underway. But nonetheless, the United States must remain committed to that.

VERJEE: The former U.S. Defense Secretary, William Cohen. Thank you so much. Well see you next week. Thank you.

COHEN: My pleasure.

END

TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired May 26, 2004 - 13:12:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: For some perspective now on events in the news today we're joined by the former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen. He now heads the Cohen Group, it's an international business consulting firm. Secretary Cohen, good to see you.
Increasing concern today about terror attacks on the U.S. in the coming months but at the same time no elevation to the alert level. Give us a sense of why that is.

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, I think the administration is simply trying to alert the American people that perhaps we have become a bit too complacent over the last couple of years. A common statement that I, myself, have heard is that nothing has happened since 9/11 and therefore it seems that the Taliban has been broken up enough in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda on the run, that perhaps our concerns are being overstated and I think this is an attempt by the administration to put the focus back on the security issues that Al Qaeda and others have been in the United States and elsewhere for years, they've been here before, they have conducted terrorist actions before with 9/11 and they are likely to try and attack the United States and other countries again, So I think it's a matter of prudence and caution and to raise the concern and to try to dispel any sense of complacency on the part of the American people.

VERJEE: And clearly they're taking it seriously even though there hasn't been a specific threat, apparently. Give us a sense of how intelligence, Homeland Security and other agencies in the U.S. government would be operating now that we might not know about to fork (ph) this.

COHEN: Well, when this type of information types to filter in, and there are literally pieces of information that are gathered virtually every day, it has to be sorted by the various intelligence agencies and then hopefully collated, integrated and then analyzed for the policy makers to make recommendations on specific action. But what happens during these periods of stress is the antennae, so to speak, go up and they listen intently to everything taking place with a good deal more attention. And so all of that information they gather, there'll be more emphasis placed upon integrating the information and making as sure as one can that the policy makers at the very top are getting the information that has been sufficiently analyzed by the analysts and undertake specific measures if they can. Most of the information is general in nature and much of it comes in code words. Deciphering those code words, trying to determine whether they have been used in the past and where and how, all of that is part of the intelligence-gathering process.

VERJEE: To Iraq. Should the interim Iraqi government have a say over security in the country, have a say over what U.S. forces do there, what other international forces do there after the 30th of June?

COHEN: Well, the interim government obviously is going to have political authority. The question becomes how absolute or how complete is that authority? The United States has made it quite clear that U.S. troops will remain under the tactical control of U.S. commanders. If NATO, for example, were to take over and become part of the security apparatus in Iraq than that would not create any kind of a problem because the United States, of course, with the Supreme Allied Commander be in charge. If it's the U.N. that also can be worked out so that you have U.S. command over its forces and yet integrated into an international peacekeeping force so I think it depends upon what mechanism, but obviously.

VERJEE: Secretary Cohen, excuse me, we will come back to you in a moment, we want to go to the White House Press Secretary, now, Scott McClellan, speaking about the increased level of terror alert--or concerns about terror attacks in the U.S. Let's listen.

(INTERRUPTED BY LIVE NEWS EVENT)

VERJEE: The White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan taking questions from the press, saying essentially that the U.S. government is taking all threats seriously, they are taking threats as credible. There is information that has been corroborated that allows them to believe it is credible. He said that it is also possible that there are cells or people in place in the United States planning a terror attack but there is nothing specific, no specific dates, no specific target. The former Defense Secretary William Cohen is still with us.

Secretary Cohen, there was some discussion also on NATO's role in Iraq at that press conference. How do you see that?

COHEN: Well, I think there's a realistic possibility that NATO could be persuaded to develop a consensus that would endorse a participatory role in Iraq itself. There are some members of NATO currently there but not NATO as an institution. I think that President Bush has got to go to President Chirac of France, to Chancellor Schroeder of Germany and indicate that the United States needs their support even though they have indicated they would not be contributing troops to the region, nonetheless, from Germany at least, we've had indications that they would not stand in the way of a consensus, should it develop, that NATO take a role in Iraq. I think those are pretty good signals, strong signals that it's possible to develop such a consensus and I would hope that President Bush would take whatever action is necessary to gain NATO's support and I'm hopeful that he can do so.

VERJEE: Why is the U.S. reluctant to set a specific withdrawal date of its troops in Iraq. In a new U.N. resolution on Iraq that's something that France and other countries have been pushing for and it's certainly something that would be important for Iraqi perception to say, "OK, the U.S. doesn't want to be an occupying force."

COHEN: I think it would be a miscalculation to set a firm date for any kind of a withdrawal, a drawdown of American forces. It's pretty clear right now that the Iraqi people do not have sufficient trained forces to provide for their own security in the short term. To the extent that an army is professionally trained and developed in the coming months, then a judgment can be made at that point that the United States and other forces can either drawdown or withdraw. Until such time as that security can at least be reasonably measured I think we would see a descent into the kind of civil war and chaos that everyone is trying to avoid, so setting a firm date would undermine that ability of the Iraqi people to in fact train people in order to provide for their own security. So flexibility, let the Iraqi government make determinations in terms of when the United States and coalition forces should reduce or withdraw. But to set it at the outset I think would be a mistake.

VERJEE: Amnesty International has issued a report today essentially saying the U.S.-led war on terror is behind the increase in human rights abuses throughout the world. They said that America's offensive against global terrorism is bankrupt of vision and has made the world a more dangerous place.

COHEN: Well I would hope that the commission would also look at the level of violence that took place prior to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, liberation of Iraq, initially at least. And that in many other countries we see tremendous repression. What we have to, of course, resist in times of war such as this is to descend to any levels that really undermine the respect for rule of law. And to the extent that the United States has done so, it is in the process of correcting that is a process of examining itself to say that when we commit abuses we will take corrective measures to prevent them in the future.

So I think that we have clearly found abuses that are perpetrated by some American servicemen and women and they have to be called to justice on that. But I think it's important that in this war against terror that we still have respect for the rule of law, that we still have respect for human rights, and it's more difficult to maintain that rule when the war is underway. But nonetheless, the United States must remain committed to that.

VERJEE: The former U.S. Defense Secretary, William Cohen. Thank you so much. Well see you next week. Thank you.

COHEN: My pleasure.

END

TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com