Bomb Suspect Tied to Taliban
BROWN: Breaking news right now as Times Square terror suspect, Faisal Shahzad, continues to talk willingly with U.S. interrogators. CNN is learning new information that could establish that link between Shahzad and the Pakistani Taliban. We've also just learned about the possible motive for the attempted attack. Also, tonight, the fed's tightening security at the nation's airport after Shahzad nearly slipped through the cracks and escaped to the Middle East. We're going to talk in a moment with former homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff. But first, CNN homeland security correspondent, Jeanne Meserve, brings us up to speed on the investigation. Jeanne, I understand you've --</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A photograph from Dawn News of Faisal Shahzad as he went through immigration in Karachi, Pakistan on July 3, 2009. According to a senior Pakistani official, a few days later on July 7th, he was driven to Peshawar and eventually on to the tribal area of Waziristan where he is believed to have met with one or more Pakistani Taliban leaders. With Shahzad, Mohammed Rehan, a man believed to have strong ties to Jaish-e-Mohammed. The militant group has strong ties to the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda. Rehan was taken into custody on Karachi on Tuesday. But U.S. officials say at this point, there is nothing definitive connecting Shahzad to any extremist group.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are international implications to what it occurred in Times Square. We are investigating those, but as to where that investigation takes us, it's still too early to make that judgment.</s>MESERVE: A federal law enforcement official says there is no indication that Shahzad had any associates here in the United States, but he appears to have prepared and placed the bomb in Times Square on his own. One component, M-88 fire works were purchased from the Phantom Fireworks store in Northeastern Pennsylvania, according to a federal law enforcement source. He spent about $100 eight weeks ago.</s>WILLIAM REIMER, PHANTOM FIREWORKS: Nothing that we sell that would make any kind of impact. The only thing remotely connected would be a fuse, but our fuse, the safety fuse burns so slowly that it would not be very effective. So, honestly, I think this fellow is just barking up the wrong tree when he thought these fire crackers would do something.</s>MESERVE: Just how close were authorities to losing him? According to an administration official, Shahzad was added to the no-fly list 12:30 Monday afternoon. Nine minutes later, an automated message went out to air carriers advising them there was a special add to the list, but Shahzad's name was not caught by Emirates Airlines at 6:30 when he made his reservation while driving to the airport or at 7:35 when he showed up at the counter and bought his ticket with cash because the airline had not yet updated its no-fly list. To close that loophole, the TSA is now requiring that airlines update no-fly lists within two hours of getting a special notification from TSA.</s>BROWN: And Jeanne Meserve is with us now live. Jeanne, I know, you received some new information about a possible motive for Shahzad. Give us your sense of what you're hearing right now</s>MESERVE (on-camera): This is something that will sound very familiar to everyone. I just talked to someone who's familiar with this investigation who says that Shahzad felt that Islam was under attack and that was his motivation -- Campbell.</s>BROWN: You are also learning, I know, there was a specific reason that the TSA didn't call the airlines to alert them about Shahzad. What was it?</s>MESERVE: Well, an administration official tells me that this is something they've done in the past, that in addition to putting out an alert saying we have an addition to the no-fly list, they have picked up the phone and say be on the lookout for this individual. But, according to this administration official, the TSA did not notify all airlines at the request of the FBI for investigative reasons. I did reach out to the FBI for a response. And Richard Colco (ph), a spokesman for the FBI, says we do not comment on specific operations or investigative techniques. But one can surmise, Campbell, that this was very tightly held information. They did not want this name leaking out and so they were being quite careful about who they distributed it to. In the end, of course, there was another trap in the system that did catch this individual.</s>BROWN: All right. Jeanne Meserve for us tonight. Jeanne, thanks very much. Just a short time ago, I spoke with former homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff who served in the Bush administration and asked him about whether these new no-fly rules announced today perhaps would have stopped Faisal Shahzad from getting aboard that airplane. Take a listen.</s>MICHAEL CHERTOFF, FMR. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: The problem in this case is that the no-fly list is still operated by the airlines and not by TSA. There's a program called secure flight which re- launched a few years ago, although it was delayed frankly by the airlines, that will, when it is fully implemented, eliminate this problem, because it will no longer be up to the airlines to deny boarding but it will be up to TSA. But I should point out, Campbell that there was a backup here which did work, which is customs and border protection's ability to look at the manifest before the plane leaves. It's that backup that's a very important part of the entire system.</s>BROWN: It was a crucial part in this case, certainly.</s>CHERTOFF: Right.</s>BROWN: We also learned today that a high value interrogation group is handling the interrogation. What does that mean, exactly? What additional powers or skills does that group have?</s>CHERTOFF: Well, I think the purpose of this is to make sure that when decisions are made about how to interrogate somebody and what kind of techniques to use, or frankly, whether someone should be mirandized or not, you're getting input from people who are skilled representing all the agencies that have relevant information to bear. That means the intelligence community as well as the law enforcement community. That avoids the problem where the law enforcement people do their own thing without considering the possible impact on intelligence gathering. So, that's a good thing.</s>BROWN: So, give me your take, based on what we know and we don't know that much, but we do know some about how he's been interrogated so far. How do you think it's being handled?</s>CHERTOFF: We don't know much. I can tell you generally, though, here's what you want to be able to do. You want to be able to question the person and then check what they are telling you against other information you're getting. And then if there are discrepancies, you go back and you challenge the person. The issue here isn't is somebody talking. It's whether they're giving you the whole story or whether they're minimizing or concealing certain facts. And that's why you can't treat interrogation as a fast thing. It's got to be something that takes place over a period of time so you can do the cross-checking that's a critical element in evaluating the truthfulness of what you're getting.</s>BROWN: So, let me go through some of the stuff with you that we solve a lot of questions about. Investigators right now looking into a theory that would link this attack to the Pakistani Taliban. If that were the case, this would be the first time that this group has struck against the United States. Do you believe that they are behind this given what we know?</s>CHERTOFF: Let me say, first of all, I think there's a tendency to treat these groups as if there's a meaningful difference among them. In fact, they do work together and there's an awful lot of interrelationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda, for example. They've lived together in the frontier area. They've fought together. What is important, this is yet another example of a Westener, someone with U.S. citizenship, going back to Pakistan, getting some training, and then being launched against their home country. And that is really part of the new set of tactics that al Qaeda has been working on over the last couple of years.</s>BROWN: So, how do you protect against that?</s>CHERTOFF: This is very difficult, because they are deliberately selecting people who have no criminal record. They're picking people who are citizens or permanent residence so they have free access to the United States and they know how to work in the United States, and presumably, they're minimizing communications. That means we've got to be looking for other kinds of intelligence indicators. Some of that is the awareness of the ordinary citizen, like in this case, who sees something anomalous and reports to the police. It's the ability of the police to react quickly. It's the presence of all kinds of additional tools that can be used in order to conduct surveillance or to intercept communications. All of these are part of a total strategy that is designed to minimize the risk but also frankly recognized that you cannot guarantee that some of these attacks will not work.</s>BROWN: So, let me go back to the point you made earlier about his possible connection to the Taliban, because there's sort of conflicting reports I guess about whether he was kind of a want to be who inflated his ties to the Taliban or to al Qaeda or whether he was trained in a camp in Waziristan by known extremists. And, I guess, the question is, does it, in the end matter either way? What is the significance of this given that they can obviously both achieve a very similar result?</s>CHERTOFF: I look at it this way, Campbell. I'd say there are really three types of operatives that we look at. One is the hard core, well trained operative that would be used in a major attack, the kind of thing which happened on 9/11 or which they tried to pull off with the airline plot in 2006. The next level is the person who's brought in. They're not necessarily given access to the core al Qaeda, but they are giving some basic training and trade craft and then launched back to use their western passport. That is perhaps this case, the Zazi case, the Vinias (ph) case. And in the third category is the person who just gets on the internet and gets radicalized. They're not really trained, but they go off and do whatever they can accomplish on their own, and that was, of course, the Ft. Hood shooting.</s>BROWN: Right.</s>CHERTOFF: So, we're going to have to build a capability to anticipate each of these different kinds of operations in putting together our intelligence program.</s>BROWN: And that was, of course, former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff. When we come back, should investigators be skeptical of just how much this guy is talking? We're going to talk about that right after the break.