Transcript: Ashcroft, Mueller Discuss Terrorist Threat

ASHCROFT: We certainly don't come to that conclusion.

MUELLER: Can I add one thing to that, if I could?

In response to the question here and the question with regard to Boston and New York, there are -- extraordinary precautions are being taken in both those cities for the conventions as there are the G-8.

And the police chiefs in New York and Boston have undertaken extraordinary efforts to protect those sites during both the conventions as well as the G-8.

And so, we have every expectation that they will be free from any terrorist attacks by reason of the fact of the efforts that have been undertaken to protect those sites.

QUESTION: In this (inaudible) that you've outlined here, do you have any reason to believe, first, that any of these seven are in the United States? And does the intelligence indicate that there's a new wave of people who have been attempting to enter the United States?

ASHCROFT: I said in my remarks that Al Qaida had indicated that it was at one point 70 percent complete in its planning and at another point 90 percent. You might interpret that as including its own sort of projections of the human resources necessary.

I don't think we could go beyond those kinds of assessments at this moment.

As to these individuals, we know a number of them have spent a considerable amount of time in the United States. We know of their familiarity. We know of their attempts both successful and unsuccessful in the past that have resulted in their being here.

We are not able to say with certainty where they are at this particular time.

STAFF: We only have time for two more questions.

QUESTION: General Ashcroft, with all of these events this summer, I'm wondering if you are planning any series of periodic announcements such as this? And how do you balance the need to discuss a serious threat with the inevitable criticisms that you're scaring people unnecessarily and that you're covering your own bases for purely defensive purposes?

ASHCROFT: Well, we don't have a specific plan.

ASHCROFT: We plan to make announcements whenever they would be in the national interest to make announcements. And one of the reasons we make announcements is that the American people can help us reduce the risk by participating in an aggressive approach to disruption.

Over and over again in the intelligence which I read on a daily basis, I find it said that activities in law enforcement and by an alert population disrupt and prevent and cause the discontinuance of terrorism. These are statements that are part of the intelligence we receive, and it indicates to me that the activities, both of the American people and of the American law enforcement community, can be very valuable in saving American lives by virtue of disrupting terrorism.

So we do not have a specific schedule. We don't have any next planned announcement at any time, scheduled or unscheduled, except to say that whenever -- if it's later this afternoon or if it's later this month or next month or later in the summer, whenever it becomes in the national interest for us to make an announcement, we would make such an announcement.

QUESTION: But there are inevitably skeptics who say you're overdoing it or you're scaring people or you're just protecting your behind, or what have you. Do you worry about those?

ASHCROFT: No.

QUESTION: You can't overdo it, in other words.

ASHCROFT: Well, no. I just don't think my job is to worry about what skeptics say.

My job is to do everything I can to protect the American people and to help the American people protect themselves.

In a country as substantial, as large and as free as the United States is, it takes the coordinated effort of law enforcement officials with their feet on the street, 670,000 state and local law enforcement officials, and an alert American population and everything we do, I think, to preserve that liberty and that freedom by being alert.

ASHCROFT: And so, my job is to do that. My job isn't to worry about whether someone will be second guessing. I'd far prefer that they second guess a plan which led us to safety than a plan which somehow provided us with risk.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) putting a threat level up, if there's credible intelligence suggesting the United States is going to be attacked between now -- there is a plan to attack the United States between now and the election, why not raise the threat level?

ASHCROFT: We believe that the kind of activities that are engendered in this task force which has been developed and the elevated conduct of law enforcement might well produce the kind of information which would result in hardening assets and disrupting specific activities and elevating, perhaps, even the threat level based on that kind of information which is developed.

And the Homeland Security Council, led by Secretary Ridge, would make such a decision, and for me to try to speak for them at this time would be inappropriate.

Thank you very much.