Interpol Director weeps at lack of terror war funding(Video)

Ron Noble, the head of the international police coordinating organization known as Interpol, appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes for an emotional discussion about how he believes his agency is being underfunded and underutilized in US efforts to combat terror.

Noble, the first American to run Interpol, says that even though his organization has unique resources valuable to counter-terrorism initiatives -- including the world's largest database of known terrorists -- they are being largely ignored by the US government. Interpol also maintains the only database of stolen passports.

"Every significant international terrorist attack that's occurred has been linked in some way with either a fraudulent passport...or with a counterfeit passport," Nobel said. "So by catching the people with stolen passports, you get yourself closer to catching terrorist."

Acknowledging that many US officials consider Interpol irrelevant, Noble said he is working to help the agency shake its lazy reputation.

"Al Qaeda has said they want to kill four million of us," he said. " So I'm asking myself, what do we need? What does it take, what will it take for government to say forget the past. If Interpol didn't exist today, we'd invent it."

The US contributes only five and a half million dollars a year to Interpol, compared to billions for agencies like the Department of Homeland Security.

"I just feel like they don't get it. They don't get it," said a frustrated Noble, who said that his agency's $50 million total budget is approximately the "same amount the Los Angeles Galaxy is paying for David Beckham to play football."

"I get up every day, you know, and I think about how can I make the US understand this," a clearly emotional Noble continued. "And I just can't. I can't, I can't. "

More here with video from David Edwards and Jason Rhyne:

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Interpol_Director_weeps_at_lack_of_1007.html