FBI Issues Most Specific Terrorist Alert Yet
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now for some more perspective, James Steinberg is joining us. He is a former deputy national security adviser, and he now works with the Brookings Institution. He joins us this morning. Good morning, how are you?</s>JAMES STEINBERG, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Good morning, Leon.</s>HARRIS: Let me ask you, first of all, have you seen the list of names of these Yemenis now who are being scrutinized? Are any of them familiar to you at all for any reason?</s>HARRIS: These are not names very is seen much of before, but I think we are beginning to learn a lot of new members of the organization coming out of these interrogations in Guantanamo.</s>HARRIS: Well, what have we learned?</s>STEINBERG: I think we're learning there are cells around the world, that some of the people there are beginning to give us some information that can help try to track down people who may be involved in terror.</s>HARRIS: What strikes me as interesting is we have been hearing that this information that they have been gaining from these detainees in this particular case was so specific. But what I can't figure out is if it was so specific, why is it we still can't say exactly what the threat is here?</s>STEINBERG: Well, I think it's -- in many of these cases, the terrorists go and organize themselves into cells, they keep the information very quiet. But the fact that we can actually put names to it and potentially dates gives us a lot more information than we have had in the past this. This is a very different kind of warning than the earlier FBI warnings, where there was just a general sense that there was a heightened danger.</s>HARRIS: So how do you read that then? Do you read any more importance into this one than the other ones?</s>STEINBERG: I think the thing that's most important is we have names and faces, it gives law enforcement and intelligence officials things to work with. You may recall that just before the September 11th hijacking, a state trooper in Maryland stopped one of the a hijackers for a speeding violation, but because they didn't have the database and the information, they had no way of knowing that this guy could be dangerous. So getting these names out, identifying individuals, gives us at least a better chance of trying to interrupt some of the potential terrorist actions.</s>HARRIS: Lee let me ask you about the date. Today is the 12th, 02-12-02. Is there any specific about the date, or I guess that would trip anyone's trigger, if I can use that terminology here? Is there anything significant about that date?</s>STEINBERG: I don't think there is a historic significance that is attached to this. I think it is more than that is a fear that there may be reason to believe it could happen now. But I think again, on the one hand, you can't put too much emphasis on the specifics here. The point is, once have you names of individuals to look for, it gives you something concrete to work with. And I think we're in a situation now where we will be constantly dealing with this problem of getting some information partially corroborated, wanting to have people to be more on alert, but recognizing we will never necessarily have a time, place and specific nature of the attacks.</s>HARRIS: You heard Brent Sadler's report there, and he talked about how Yemenis are cooperating with the U.S. government and trying to track these people down and track these cells down. What do you know about the cooperation level between the Yemeni government officials and the</s>U.S. STEINBERG: Well, the cooperation has clearly increased dramatically since September 11th. There have been a lot of difficulties during the investigation of the USS Cole bombing, a lot of tensions between the United States and the Yemeni authorities. But I think that the government there realized after September 11th that the administration was serious about saying either you are on our side or with the terrorist in this fight, and that after September 11th, the level of cooperation increased quite dramatically. But there is a problem there, because the government of Yemen doesn't have full control over all of the area under its nominal territory, and so there is still terrorist organizations and terrorist individuals operating out of Yemen that haven't been fully tracked down yet.</s>HARRIS: James Steinberg, thank you very much for your time today, and appreciate it, appreciate the insight.</s>STEINBERG: Thank you. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com