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 Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers  HEAD OF INTERPOL: AGENCY UNDERUSED IN WAR ON TERROR; SEEKS PRIVATE FUNDING Thurs Oct 4 2007 14:15:21 ET Interpol is often overlooked and underutilized in the war on terror despite having valuable resources, says its secretary general, Ron Noble. Noble, the first American to head the storied international law enforcement agency, tells Steve Kroft he fears more people may lose their lives in a terrorist attack that his agency could help prevent. Noble's interview will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES, Sunday, Oct. 7 (7:30-9:00 PM, ET, 7:00-900 PM, PT) on the CBS Television Network. "What I don't want this to be is an interview that's played after a terrorist attack occurs where thousands of people have been killed�.and people will say, �You didn't check his passport... you didn't run his fingerprints against Interpol's database?'" worries Noble. He communicates this message at a time when his health is in question: he disclosed in a private memo that he has a benign tumor near his brain. Interpol has maintained a database of lost or stolen travel documents since 2002 that became operational two years ago, but the U.S. has only begun to phase it in at border crossings over the last month. "Every significant international terrorist attack... has been linked in some way with either a fraudulent passport, an authentic passport that's been modified or with a counterfeit passport," says Noble, "so by catching the people with stolen passports, you get yourself closer to catching terrorists." Noble also says that the heads of the CIA, the FBI and Homeland Security have never visited Interpol in the seven years since he took it over. Moreover, "We don't have any Department of Homeland Security employees here at Interpol, except for a Secret Service agent, but none working on border protection," says Noble. "I just feel like they don't get it," he says. The Department of Homeland Security told Interpol that it is considering sending an officer to the agency by the end of the year. Another oversight is funding, says Noble, whose annual Interpol budget, contributed by member countries, is about $50 million. "LAPD, $1 billion a year. NYPD, $3 billion a year. FBI, $6 billion a year. DHS, $42 billion a year," he tells Kroft. He plans to ask private entities for donations to Interpol. Noble becomes emotional as he expounds on his view that to overlook Interpol is to put people's lives at risk. "I think about �how can I make the U.S. understand this?' and I just can't.... And we know that terrorist activities are being planned," says Noble, wiping a tear. "I can't get the U.S. and other governments to understand that the problem is a billion-dollar-a-year problem... not a million-dollars-a -year problem. "I keep thinking about Sept. 11 and all the other terrorist attacks and I'm seeing the mistakes that are being made... and I think about one of these days it's going to happen again," he says. Noble says he was never called by officials after 9/11. "I promised myself and... my staff that that would never happen again -- it would never be that a terrorist attack would occur anywhere in the world and we wouldn't be called," he tells Kroft. Developing... |
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