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• "What Tom Ridge Actually Says In His New Book"
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Former Homeland Security chief sets the context of the recent domestic terrorists arrests. (2:33)
 

Full Interview (11:27)
 

Tavis: Tom Ridge has a long record of public service dating back to his days in Congress and as governor of Pennsylvania. In 2001 he of course became the nation's first-ever secretary of Homeland Security following the attacks of 9/11. His latest book is called "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege and How We Can Be Safe Again." Mr. Secretary, nice to have you on the program.

Tom Ridge: Pleasure to be with you, thank you.

Tavis: Let me start with the obvious - can we be safe again with all these arrests of late?

Ridge: Well, I think we have become progressively safer and safer every day since 2001, but I think the recent arrest of Zazi in New York and Colorado and you had some of the lone wolves I think in Illinois and in Texas, it's just a - unfortunately it's a reminder that the work is not over and that we can't afford the luxury of being complacent about either domestic terrorists or those tied in with the international jihadists.

Tavis: Are these arrests of late to your mind coincidental or is there something happening that we need to be paying attention to?

Ridge: Well, that's a wonderful question and it's a very insightful question. I think it remains unanswered. As I take a look at the background of some of those individuals, they seem to be operating, at least from what I know, and I'm not on the inside anymore, almost independently, perhaps looking to bin Laden or al Qaeda in terms of an aspirational goal, but operating independently.

Some of the others may be part of a larger network. I'm particularly intrigued by the recent arrest of the individuals in New York and in Denver, given that Zazi was born in Afghanistan, moved to Pakistan, came to this country when he was 14. He's only 24 years old, yet he makes his way back over there for training. So was he a zealot before he got here? Was he a jihadist before he got here?

Which is a reminder that America, 300 million people, we've been welcoming people across our shores for a long time and again, one of the biggest challenges I think we have is the notion that there might be still terrorists among us who have been here for a while.

Tavis: You'll recall some months ago Joe Biden - of course now our vice president - made the comment, and I'm paraphrasing here, that he knew that the Obama administration was going to get tested. "They're going to test us." He was speaking in terms, of course, of a terrorist attack. I want to take that comment and ask this question - whether or not what we are seeing now has to do with the fact that there is going to be a testing of Barack Obama on this issue of domestic terrorism. Could Joe Biden have been right, and is this the proof that he was right?

Ridge: Well, I know that poor Joe Biden got hit from a lot of sources when he made that observation, but I think if you look back historically presidents do get tested within the first year or two in many different ways. And I think right now, President Obama is confronted with several tests - dealing with the recent disclosure of a secret nuclear facility in Iran, a continuing challenge with North Korea, the huge domestic - aggressive domestic agenda. And now on top of all that there seems to be percolating to the surface some of these FBI investigations which suggest that there are domestic terrorists within.

Tavis: Two questions about Obama and I'll move on - about President Obama of late. One, he has made, over the last week or so, the most news of his administration so far around his international agenda. I don't want to get too specific here unless you want to, but what's your sense of how he's handling the challenges that you've just laid out on the international front?

Ridge: Well, I think his ability - I'm sure it was accidental, but in the sense that they were together at the United Nations and later at the G20 with leaders from France and Germany and the like, and that united front against Iran I think projects a very strong message of multilateralism and hopefully very aggressive sanctions if the Iranians don't comply. So with regard to that particular challenge that he's confronted with now, so far, so good. The meeting is amazing. They're going to meet today in Geneva and the Iranians agreed to talk about nuclear issues but not about their nuclear capabilities and aspirations.

So again, I think with regard to Iran, strong, multilateral presence, strong American leadership, and it's a chance for him to answer, frankly, the question that was part of his primary campaign - who do you want answering the phone at 3:00 in the morning? Unfortunately, it just rang and he answered it, but so far the initial response I think is very appropriate.

Tavis: You're speaking only for Tom Ridge, not for Dick Cheney. You're no longer speaking for the Bush administration, but let me ask you, because it's made such news of late, your thoughts about the push-back that former vice president Dick Cheney has been delivering against the administration about the issue of security and safety and terrorism. And you know that drills down awfully deep.

Ridge: Well first of all, with regard to terrorism generally I don't see too many operational differences presently within the administration as it conducts military affairs in Afghanistan and in Iraq. I think again the next test - again, another test - is what is this president, what is President Obama's strategic view, and what will he assess are the operational needs of the military and what's he going to do about Afghanistan? What's the long-term goal there?

He's said before we're not going to allow the Taliban to reestablish itself, to create a safe haven for al Qaeda. Time will tell. Operationally, from a military point of view, I don't see too much difference with Secretary Napolitano. I think it's continued to move and do all those things very appropriate to deal with domestic terrorism.

The FBI is obviously still focused and centered as the counterterrorism unit. The one area where I disagree with the administration completely is the notion that we would have a special prosecutor go back and take a look at and possibly criminalize conduct of interrogators four or five years ago.

I, for one, am on board as saying torture is - that waterboarding is torture, but I don't think you ought to criminalize it. He's now the commander-in-chief. If he and Secretary Gates and General Jones and others want to change interrogation techniques, that's their prerogative, but I don't think we ought to go back and even think about criminalizing anybody that was involved in interrogation before.

Tavis: But if the truth of the matter is, as we believe it to be, that the Bush administration wrote that language in such a way that it would not be criminal so that they could have the cover that they needed, if you don't want to criminalize and go after the people who engaged in the terror, and we could debate that, what's wrong with going after the people at the top in the White House specifically, that you worked for, who authorized them to do that in the first place? What's wrong with going after them?

Ridge: Well, I think - obviously, as an attorney by profession - you can, just like several witnesses at the scene of an automobile accident, they may view in differences as to what they - opinion as to what they saw, the recollections are different, I also think the reason you end up getting cases to the Supreme Court of the United States is because lawyers have opposing views.

It doesn't mean that they're contrived, it doesn't mean anything other than they viewed a set of facts and a law in a different fashion; the Supreme Court decides it. So I just don't think that even holding - personally holding attorneys with regard to their interpretation of the law.

Post-9/11 world obviously conflicts with President Obama's interpretation or the attorney general's interpretation - that doesn't need to be a criminal act. Attorneys differ all the time.

Tavis: I hear your point of view on it. To the book here, one of the things you argue in the book is that whether or not - and I'm paraphrasing your argument - whether or not we are safe or not depends in large part on the economy. Explain what you meant by that.

Ridge: Well, I think America's future in the world and the security of the world are tied to our relationships around the world. The economy, or prosperity and our security are intertwined, and in the 21st century, I think more so than ever before - and, I might say, in perpetuity. And in order for us to be secure, in order for us to prosper, we have to be more connected with the rest of the world, not less connected.

To that end, the political isolationists and I think the economic isolationists, the buy America crowd, that point of view, regardless from the right or the left, undermines, I think, the long-term best interests of this country. Because our economy and our prosperity do intersect at the borders. We saw that every single day at Homeland Security.

The best example is an anecdote in the book. Right after 9/11, the president had called me in and he said, "We did a good job of security at the land borders in Canada and Mexico, but certain areas we brought commerce to a screeching halt."

So the point is you can raise security to a certain level that you'll impede the flow of goods, you'll impede the flow of commerce, and you'll restrict your relationship and really inhibit ongoing relationships with the rest of the world, and I don't think that's in our best interests.

Tavis: To your point about Canada and Mexico, you talk in the book also about immigration. One of the things that troubles me is that in this immigration debate one can have his or her point of view on it, but I get sick and tired of hearing people suggest that we've got to secure the borders on Mexico down south so that terrorists don't come into the country, and there's no evidence ever that a terrorist has come into this country via Mexico or anywhere down south. Your thoughts about that argument, the intersection between terrorism and immigration?

Tavis: Well, I think it's a legitimate argument but not - and it may be a reason not to deal with the overall problem. My judgment is you don't only need enforcement, but you need some kind of system where people can lawfully go back and forth across the border and I talk about that very specifically in the book.

But I think the concern would be if there is an infrastructure that enables hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers to come across this country every year, could that same infrastructure be used to bring across terrorists? The answer is absolutely yes. If an infrastructure can bring across drugs, could it be used to bring across arms or anything else - weapons? And the answer is yes.

But the bottom line is in my experience there was never anything that we saw viewed as credible that suggested at least for the time being that was an avenue that the terrorists had tried to exploit.

Tavis: In less than 30 seconds here, finally, given the - I want to end where we began, Mr. Secretary. Given these arrests of late we've seen, all this news of people being arrested who want to do us harm, your word to the American people right about now is what?

Ridge: It's a real threat, foreign or domestic, but it's manageable. Let's just make sure we resource those who are responsible for our safety. I make some very strong recommendations, a little criticism as to things I think we should have done a long time ago that they could accelerate. But also remind ourselves in a historical context that we, under the threat of a nuclear war - and remember, we had thousands of missiles pointed at the Soviet Union; we had thousands pointed at us.

And underneath that nuclear umbrella we did a lot of great things in this country. We advanced the interests (inaudible) there was the Civil Rights movement, we built the most comprehensive economy and raised the standard of living unlike anything else in the world.

So it's a real threat. Let's not be breathless about it, let's do all those things that we need to do, but the government has and we have so many other responsibilities in this country, we will manage it well. The real test of our times is making sure we manage it in a way that's consistent with our own Constitution and the rule of law. We will manage it, but let's just do it the right way.

Tavis: Tom Ridge's book is called "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege and How We Can Be Safe Again." Mr. Secretary, good to have you on this program.

Ridge: Great pleasure being with you as well.

Tavis: Thanks for coming out.

Ridge: Thank you.