Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Event/Special

CNN Hotline

Aired September 16, 2001 - 00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening or good morning depending on where you are. I'm Jack Cafferty. This is CNN HOTLINE. For the next couple of hours we'll give you the opportunity to talk to the experts and to our CNN correspondents in the field about the events of the last five days. The telephone number to call is a toll free one. It's 800-310-4CNN.

Aviation security and terrorism, the hotline topics of the moment as you might expect. Over the next couple of hours we will talk to Mary Schiavo who left the FAA and has some rather harsh things to say about that agency. She's a former Department of Transportation inspector general and she wrote a best selling book about the short comings of the airline industry called "Flying Blind, Flying Safe."

Also, terrorism expert Harvey Kushner who has written a book called "The Future of Terrorism." Plus senior political analyst Jeff Greenfield and all of our correspondents in the field. We have them at ground zero at an armory here in the city for the families of the victims as well as in Washington, D.C.

First let's get all the latest news. Up to the minute on the investigation of the World Trade Center bombings from Pentagon -- and the Pentagon tragedies from our senior correspondent Garrick Utley -- Garrick.

GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Jack. Well, as we know, there's now a second person being held as a material witness in connection with Tuesday's attacks. The man had been held by U.S. Immigration authorities and he has been questioned by the FBI. The first material witness. That's someone who has believed to know something important about a crime was arrested on Thursday.

Every military operation has to have a name it seems and there's none yet for the war on terrorism whatever that's going to be. But there is now for the military's current domestic effort following the attacks. It's being called Operation Noble Eagle. Like father like son, President Bush's father went to Camp David to make his few decisions leading to the Gulf War 10 years ago. Now George W. Bush is there. Saturday he said we're at war and he labeled Osama bin Laden as suspect number one on his list for the attacks on Tuesday.

And in New York City, the digging, the searching, the hoping continues. But on Saturday as on Friday, as on Thursday, no survivors were found. The number of people believed to be buried under that mountain of rubble has now been raised to nearly 5,000. Only 159 bodies have been recovered and 187 people are missing and believed dead at the Pentagon site.

And now four days after the attacks, the funerals are beginning in New York City and elsewhere. Mourners gathered Saturday at the funerals of three top New York City fire department officials. There may be some 300 services for fire fighters alone. Fire Department's Chief Peter Ganci, Department Chaplain Father Michael Judge and First Deputy Fire Commissioner William Feehan (ph) all lost their lives on Tuesday while trying to carry out their rescue missions there. A lot more of that to come unfortunately.

A growing question now of course is when and how will the United States respond to the attacks. President Bush does not want to be held to any specific timetable. His officials Saturday are putting out the word saying that it will be a long term struggle. Here's our David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An angry and determined president is promising action.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will find those who did it. We will smoke them out of their holes.

ENSOR: But if Osama bin Laden is the culprit, revenge against him or against his hosts, the Afghan Taliban government will not be easy. Cruise missiles fired in 1998 missed bin Laden and they only have strengthened his image. Even if bin Laden is killed many analysts say that would not stop terrorism by his followers.

GEN. WILLIAM ODOM (RET.): I would want to destroy as much of bin Laden as possible. I'm simply saying that's like picking a wart off your neck or something. That doesn't do much. That's a very superficial blow against this kind of capability.

MJ GOHEL, SECURITY EXPERT: To get rid of one man or to launch any kind of revenge attack isn't going to help. Revenge alone is not an answer. There has to be a complete eradication and elimination of all the training camps.

ENSOR: But bombing alone would not likely achieve that. And there are indications those terrorist training camps in Afghanistan are today largely empty. Much of bin Laden's support is across the border in Pakistan in the area around Pishower (ph). One reason the promise by Pakistani President Musharraf to help the U.S. against the terrorists could be crucial.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We especially want to thank the president and people of Pakistan for the support that they have offered and their willingness to assist us in whatever might be required in that part of the world as we determine who these perpetrators are.

ENSOR: But can Musharraf convince his military and intelligence services to stop their long and active support for the Taliban?

GOHEL: Pakistan is supplying fuel, funding, infrastructure, training, arms and administrative help to the Taliban. Without the Pakistani lifeline the Taliban would not survive.

ENSOR: Senior administration officials warn none of this is going to be easy or quick and that the United States cannot do it alone. It could in fact take years, analysts say, of political, economic and military effort before Americans can overcome their new found fear of mass terrorism on U.S. soil.

PAUL BREMER, FMR. COUNTERTERRORISM AMB.: We're talking about a war and it's a campaign, a new campaign. There are going to be a lot of battles. We're going to win some of these battles. We're going to lose some of these battles. There are going to be more civilian casualties on both sides. More Americans will die.

ENSOR: Before it is over many analysts say it could even require U.S. ground troops in the region. For now though the main focus of the Bush team is diplomatic, building a strong international coalition much as the president's father did before the Gulf War. David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UTLEY: There is however, Jack, one major difference between now and 10 years ago. George Bush, Sr. then had a very carefully narrowly defined goal focused to hold that coalition together. This time as we all know and as the president acknowledges it's a much broader agenda out there, so many targets you're looking at. It's been much more difficult to hold a coalition or alliance together.

CAFFERTY: They're not only Osama bin Laden's group but there were other terrorist groups. Bin Laden's active in 55 different countries including the United States. Some of the people that are suspected in these crimes against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were living right here in the United States going to flight school, learning how to fly these planes. So it's a much more far reaching and probably tougher to define objective...

UTLEY: Much more difficult because there's no singular Saddam Hussein out there. It's a network and how many heads do you have to cut off.

CAFFERTY: You've covered a few stories back down the road. You and I worked together over at NBC a few years back. What do you do with this story? Where do you rank it? How do you...

UTLEY: This is the top.

CAFFERTY: ... put this in the file.

UTLEY: I started my journalistic career I think at 23 as an office assistant for NBC a week or two before JFK was assassinated and in terms of impact hitting the nation this is up at that category.

CAFFERTY: Where were you? How did you find out about it?

UTLEY: I was in Brussels as an office assistant. It was the evening and the -- I got a phone call in my apartment from the wife of John Chancelor (ph), the former NBC correspondent anchor man who was there. He was off on assignment and she said have you heard the president has been shot. And I said they don't do that anymore. And she said oh yes they have.

CAFFERTY: Garrick, you'll be back with us throughout the program. News updates. Keep us up to the minute on the latest developments. Also with us this evening, as I mentioned, terrorism expert and author of Terrorism -- "Future of Terrorism," Harvey Kushner, and our senior CNN political correspondent, Jeff Greenfield.

Jeff, you've had five days to cover this story. The emotions of day one are not the emotions or the feelings of day two. What's getting your attention now? Where are you focused?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: How much more serious this is I think than anything in my lifetime. We lost a president. We mourned for four days. We had a new president. When I remember Linden Johnson bringing in the heads of state. It was very solemn. It was a very big signal that the government was going to go on. It affected people for years to come.

You can argue it was a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) moment, but there was no danger to the United States. The Vietnam War was ugly, divisive, tore the country apart in many ways but it never put the United States physically at risk. And the Gulf War as Greg said, while it was serious and it was a big moment as it turned out blessedly it -- you know, I think it weren't for one lucky scud hit the deaths would have been in a few dozen.

CAFFERTY: It was clean and it was surgical and it was short.

GREENFIELD: We knew who the enemy was. We knew what the goal was. Saddam Hussein was not only a perfect villain, he had done a clearly villainous deed that threatened diplomatically geopolitical interests. It did not threaten us.

CAFFERTY: Yes.

GREENFIELD: I mean, you know, in the physical way. So you add up -- you put these things on the table. Everything we thought about the world that we were going to be living in and that our kids were going to be living in has been put at least at risk. The thing that we never thought could happen, a massive deadly assault here at home which never happened in World War II.

We see pictures of blackout curtains and air raid wardens walking through towns to -- you know to make sure that there were no lights. The Japanese were not coming over here with their airplanes. I think there was a group of saboteurs, German saboteurs that landed a submarine off Long Island. They were captured. They were executed within six weeks. We were not at risk in that sense. It was clear where the risk was. The risk was where your sons or fathers or husbands were over there, as the song goes.

CAFFERTY: Right.

GREENFIELD: So when you put that on the table and then as I'm sure Harvey will get into with you start talking about how you even define what the mission is.

CAFFERTY: Yes.

GREENFIELD: Where is it? What constitutes victory? I mean the hardest question I know how to ask about all this is how will we know when we've won. So I don't know, if it ranks at the top in terms of story and effect. I think it's the most difficult situation this country's found itself in in my lifetime.

CAFFERTY: In a couple of minutes I want to ask you a question about whether or not we have the national resolve necessary to do the kind of nebulous long term expensive things that are being talked about in Washington. Life's been good since the end of the Gulf War. The economy boomed. The Cold War ended. The Gulf War was won and this nation has been not only at peace but kind of living high on the hog.

And all of a sudden it changes just like that and you wonder now whether we have the patience. We tend to be an impatient country, the strength, the intestinal fortitude. So think about that for a minute. Judy's on the phone from Connecticut. Judy what do you want to bring up with us this evening? Are you there? Judy?

JUDY: Hello. You there?

CAFFERTY: Hello. Yes I'm here.

JUDY: My comment is, do we have a government who is intelligent enough to do this now? Do you think? What's your comment?

CAFFERTY: You don't want to know my comment. I'm just kind of here to preside over this thing. I don't know -- I don't know if it's just a question that's fair to address to the government. I don't know if anybody's intelligent enough. I mean this is -- we talk about going after terrorism. What does that mean? And where is it and who is it? I mean they're living here. They're living in 55 other nations. They're supported by state governments. What about that question?

GREENFIELD: Well, I'm just thinking of the question she raised because of the title of David Halversham's (ph) book, "The Men Who Led Us to War in Vietnam, the Best and the Brightest." It was an ironic title. It was a title meant to convey his profound sense of disappointment and anger and even rage at the quality of decisions. Those men were celebrated in "Life" magazine article by Theodore White, the man who wrote "The Making of the President" as the action intellectuals.

And then, it turned out that these people as smart as they were and as educated as they were clearly some of those decisions were not the right ones. I think this question is on everybody's mind right now even though when you look at them on paper Colin Powell, Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, these are experienced folks, but what's the resume to fight a war like this?

CAFFERTY: And the other -- and the parallel on Vietnam is not lost. We were fighting an enemy we didn't understand, we couldn't find. We didn't know exactly who they were. They were soldiers. They were women. They were kids. They were carts fool of vegetables that had been booby trapped. We didn't know how to go into those jungles and fight. And there are parallels I suppose with the kind of thing we're about to undertake here.

Lauren in Florida, what's your question?

LAUREN: I just want to say that I'm a native New Yorker and I lost -- right now two cousins of mine are missing and my husband and I we both work for American...

CAFFERTY: We lost her. She said that she had two cousins that were missing. I think she was saying that she and her husband both work for American Airlines. The impact on the airlines obviously coming as a result of this is not insignificant. Continental has announced it's going to layoff 12,000 people. Midway Airlines suspending operations and 1,700 people are going to be out of work. And the cost estimates on money lost per day something in the neighborhood of 250 to $300 million.

One of our guests that we'll have on here in a couple of minutes, I heard her earlier in an interview talking about the fact that she wouldn't buy a ticket. She wouldn't get on an airplane now.

GREENFIELD: The other question you have to put on the table is the whole notion of locking the barn door, you know, after the horse has escaped. You understand fully the impulse to ratchet up security in the airlines. But as far as I can tell none of the steps that have been taken would have stopped any of these hijackings.

So -- and you know that when you impose these levels of bureaucratic and logistical demands on an already overtaxed system what you're going to get and maybe a price we'll have to pay is going to be massive -- it's not just the inconvenience -- it's not just having to check in two or three hours early but it's also what that's going to do to an already economically depressed airline and then the question is at what benefit in terms of security.

Last night I had on a fellow who lived in Israel 30 years, a writer named Esev Chafits (ph) who worked for the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) government. He said do you really think that if the terrorists plan a strike again they're going to do the same thing they did before?

CAFFERTY: Of course.

GREENFIELD: So you -- that's where you begin to ask yourself at what point are these steps which are taken out of security, out of caution, out of fear. It's not just a question of what's it going to do to us but what are we going to get from it.

And I actually think when you ask a question about patience and resolve, one of the real questions is going to be when you add up all the costs of this human and financial and logistical and burdensome, I don't know how you calculate it. I don't know how you do that. It's way more than money and it's even more -- believe it or not than 5,000 lives. The ripple effect of this I think is going to ultimately wind up effecting millions of people.

CAFFERTY: Is this a doable thing we're talking about?

HARVEY KUSHNER, TERRORISM EXPERT, AUTHOR OF "THE FUTURE OF TERRORISM": I think so. And if I may just for a moment almost myself since it's happened commenting you know worldwide answering questions it's had a traumatic shock on my body.

But hearing discussion when you opened up Jack mentioning what events of you know in the past in light of a monumental and each one mentioned. Certainly the assassination of John F. Kennedy and -- but you're in the business to look at the news and to pick out and report to the general public. But someone like myself who has spent his entire life almost studying just this -- just this day, this possibility and then to see it happen, it's my greatest fears were visited.

And so, unfortunately, I don't wish this upon America but we are coming to an age where each one of you and everybody out there is going to have to think about it and give the thought that I have over 35 years of in this business of studying the terrorist mindset and seeing what happened on the 11th. And that's the type of effort that's going to have to be launched in these United States.

I consider myself a sane person. I consider myself able to focus in on what I love in the United States, our Constitution and our freedom of access. But yet my life is spent looking at just this possibility and I think I'm traumatized by it but I think if we all put our efforts (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sort of a Marshall plan or a monumental approach to taking a look at what's going to happen then we're going to solve it.

If we're going to take the approach that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) this singular effort, this one shot deal, firing some missiles in and walking away from it it's going to be over with, because the front is not just going to be outside the United States gentlemen, but the front will be inside the United States. We're going to have a fifth column of subversive acts occurring here.

CAFFERTY: We want Jerusalem with the car bombings and the...

KUSHNER: Absolutely. That's the kind...

CAFFERTY: ... daily...

KUSHNER: That's the next stage and Jeff mentioned that Osama bin Laden himself has never considered the same thing twice. He's always ratchet it up. So the next thing might be somebody in Penn Station with 40 pounds of explosives pressing that button. Because make no mistake about it, you can't pull off a monumental effort like this unless you have support.

You know, Osama's not sitting in the bat cave in Afghanistan on his cell phone saying you do this, you do that. He's adherence (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with a message beyond what he's already told us.

CAFFERTY: All right. We're going to get to Dave in California who's on the phone. Jeff, I know you got a long day and you've got Greenfield at large to look over and you've got demands placed on you by other CNN programs. I thank you for helping us launch this and I look forward to talking to you again on this program.

GREENFIELD: Thanks, Jack.

CAFFERTY: Jeff Greenfield.

GREENFIELD: Thank you.

CAFFERTY: Dave in California, what can we do for you?

DAVE: Thanks for taking my call.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

DAVE: I actually had two questions. One at first about the military response and then if I can a second one about immigration. But ...

CAFFERTY: We'll start with the military response question.

DAVE: The military response question. I'm a 32 year old father of two here in California. My grandfathers fought in WWII. In fact one was a B17 pilot in Europe. You folks had mentioned the question about, you know, do we have the intestinal fortitude for this.

Yesterday, I saw an interview with Norman Schwarzkopf about -- and this question about -- has been raised about ground troops. And I think we need -- the American people need to prepare themselves for the question of that this is going to take years.

But here's my question. I've only heard phrases of -- on the news of well U.S. hasn't ruled out any options. I'd like to hear from the experts if they think that if this does drag out years would we consider -- I mean you've shown pictures in the last 10 minutes bin Laden is literally and figuratively maybe under a rock and...

CAFFERTY: Right.

DAVE: ... would we consider the use of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons to end this in lieu of losing 50,000 United States and coalition and British and French and German forces? Because we better start talking about it now because the question might arise two or three years from now. That's my question.

CAFFERTY: Well, it's a good question. I'm not capable of answering. I suppose the question on top of the question is whether even in the case of someone who has dug in to the degree that he apparently is whether even tactical nuclear weapons would be effective. I mean there is a school of thought that says the only way you'll get this guy is to go in and dig him out, get him out by hand.

The other part of the story is as the reading I've done, he's surrounded with people who are instructed to make him a martyr rather than allow him to be taken alive. So that in the event that the security around him is penetrated, his people have instructions to put a bullet in his head so that he becomes a martyr for the Islamic fundamentalists. But what about the question of nuclear weapons and while we're on the subject a country very much involved in this is Pakistan and they have nuclear weapons.

KUSHNER: Well, certainly at this stage nothing's left the table. I mean if you take the president literally smoking them out of their holes...

CAFFERTY: That is...

KUSHNER: ... you know, with nuclear weapons. But there are geopolitical considerations that need to be discussed. First of all, you have the concept of Iran, is in the area, and certainly Pakistan and realize that when you launch a nuclear attack, you launch it against the world and you launch it against the atmosphere and I don't know whether or not American citizens, certainly environmentalists you don't want to get them up on something like this.

So I think it would be serious to use a tactical nuclear weapon. I think there are other ways of dealing with this rather than the ultimate. That seems to me something that these people would think of using and certainly Osama already thinks of himself as a dead man walking...

CAFFERTY: Sure.

KUSHNER: He knows his life is numbered. So that's not a way to win this type of war.

CAFFERTY: What's -- what was the other question Dave? Are you still there? All right. Calvin in Texas.

CALVIN: Yes sir. I was just wondering the FBI most wanted done so good in everything else why can't we put their pictures and their faces up on the TV so we will know who they are. Like in Florida, they didn't know who they were but the CIA and FBI were looking for them. But yet you know, we didn't know...

CAFFERTY: I'm not sure...

CALVIN: Why can't we put their picture up on the TV?

CAFFERTY: Calvin I'm not sure that the identifications of these -- you're talking about the hijackers, I think those identifications were made after the fact if the reading I've done is accurate. And prior to the event we didn't know who they were. We obviously didn't know the event was even going to take place.

But within a matter of hours because apparently they left a trail that was fairly easy to follow knowing that they were going to die in this thing. They did have IDs and the names and the pictures were published shortly thereafter. I'm not sure they would have been able to publish the pictures of the people who did the crime before they knew the crime was going to happen if you get my drift.

KUSHNER: And, you know, Osama's picture is the most publicized in the world in the last couple of years and there's $5 million on his head. And he's number one in the world. I don't think that that's going to do any good in this particular instance at all.

CAFFERTY: All right. Why don't we bring our other guest into this who is a woman who has had some very harsh things to say about the airline industry in this country, Mary Schiavo is a former inspector general of the Department of Transportation. She has written a best selling book entitled -- and I had it written here. Where is it? Flying Blind, Flying Safe. She joins us this evening from Columbus, Ohio. Mary, nice to have you with us. Thank you.

MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Thank you. Thank you very much.

CAFFERTY: If you got a call that you had to be in California in the next couple of days would you go to the airport, buy a ticket and get on a plane tonight to go?

SCHIAVO: No. I already got that call and said no.

CAFFERTY: Why?

SCHIAVO: Well, because we had a rush to get everything "back to normal" and the response has been very piece meal. And Mr. Greenfield was absolutely right. The trouble is that we've rushed to put in these stop gap measures. Many of these things we've done we've tried before. It's piece meal. We have the same security screeners that already allowed the breach -- you know the breaches in the past and this is kind of too little too late.

We're doing the same old thing and the threat is much greater than that now. One of the things for example, the FAA had many different terrorist scenarios on the table that they were worried about and many of those aren't covered by the current security plan. So really with the piece meal reaction and the reaction to get things to normal that's not really the response I want to see because we are going to have a whole new way of looking at security.

And people -- I'm old enough to remember. I hope a lot of other Americans are. You know, we didn't use to even have security in airports and people complained about that. Oh we have to go through metal detectors and oh now we have to produce IDs and oh now we're going to have to answer these two ridiculous questions. We did it and we all complied with it and we got used to it and now we have to build the airports for another threat. And I think that people saying oh this is going to destroy the airlines they aren't really thinking very clearly about what we've been through.

CAFFERTY: Well, the airlines are well on their way to being destroyed by these events already. They were struggling under the weight of declining...

SCHIAVO: That's right.

CAFFERTY: ... revenue, high fuel costs, just inimitable delays that were occurring -- I remember particularly earlier in the spring and last winter, I mean you couldn't get any place either out on time or arrive on time...

SCHIAVO: That's right.

CAFFERTY: I mean the service was just atrocious.

SCHIAVO: That's right.

CAFFERTY: They -- a lot of them are in financial trouble already. Now comes the total cost of this thing, the fact that airlines are cutting back...

SCHIAVO: Right.

CAFFERTY: Let me talk to you a little about security measures. I mean, it was almost as though people tried to keep from laughing out loud when one of the first things we heard after this was we weren't going to have curb-side check in anymore. Is it just me or is there some absurdity hidden there?

SCHIAVO: That's right, there's an absurdity hidden there and particularly I mean when people got to thinking about that, they realized that before basically our terrorist check consisted of the side caps (ph) asking us if we had packed our own bags and the curb side check doesn't do anything to eliminate the kind of threat that we just had or the additional threats that the FAA has considered in the past.

And then, the other thing that just really made us wonder if anyone in the FAA really flew is when they said they're going to ban steak knives off of airline meals. I really -- I mean I couldn't laugh because this is so tragic but I really wondered who's in charge.

CAFFERTY: The other thing, as I understand it, airline security is sort of up to the airlines...

SCHIAVO: That's right.

CAFFERTY: ... up to this point. Is that true? And it was up to them to pay for it.

SCHIAVO: Well...

CAFFERTY: Now the other thing that -- I'm sorry. Go ahead.

SCHIAVO: Well, not exactly. It -- we have a piece meal plan. The way it works is the FAA asks each airline to submit their security plan and each airport to submit their security plan and the FAA will approve them and then the airline and the airport then contract out the security function to the lowest bidder.

So it's a -- you know a thousand different plans with you know a thousand different ideas how to meet it and we have -- what we have done over the past though is pay ticket taxes and facility charges, et cetera that went into the aviation trust fund which was supposed to be for aviation safety and security but we use it for things like, you know, the nice concourses and the airport and the stores...

CAFFERTY: Sure.

SCHIAVO: ... and the parking lots.

CAFFERTY: Also, the quality of the personnel themselves and how carefully they're screened and how much they're paid and based on the compensation, the kind of individual you can attract to do that kind of work. What ought to be done with who's guarding the airports and the boarding gates now? Who ought to be doing it? How much ought they be paid? Who should do the screening? You know who should take over the supervision of the airport security system in this country? The FAA doesn't seem to have done...

SCHIAVO: No.

CAFFERTY: ... a bang up job here.

SCHIAVO: Well, you're exactly right and we are one of the few nations in the world that allow our airport security, which is our national security, to be literally run by a civilian contracting out agency. In most other countries airport security is considered national security and is either run by federal law enforcement authorities or by the military. And in this case, I think that's the -- really the only long range viable option we have.

Now they -- I have heard suggestions that the FAA will take back over the security function but what really is the difference if the FAA contracts out to these low paid screeners or if the airlines do. I think we need our own national airport security force and in the meantime there are ways we can handle that with current forces.

But the long run -- this is never going to work. It has not worked for 10 years. We had the same warnings and fears after Pan Am 103. We had the same warnings and fears and the same measures during Desert Storm and people forget that these suggestions have been on the table for years and we've had very real tragedies before and we have not changed.

CAFFERTY: All right. As we move forward, some other things I'd like to talk to you about in the next hour-and-a-half or so. Things like cockpit security and why Al-El, the Israeli airline doesn't have these kinds of problems and what a transponder is and how come they can be turned off and other things that I'm sure you won't have a problem with. Let's talk to Barbara in California. She has a question. Barbara.

BARBARA: Yes. I do have a question but I also have a certain amount of resentment about the idea that only people of faith can join a prayer and remembrance service for -- with President Bush. I am an atheist and I believe there are many many patriots who are also atheist. I...

CAFFERTY: Fair enough.

BARBARA: I am a person who believes in reason and a rule of law. And I think that that's what our founding fathers gave us. They didn't give us a religion. They gave us freedom from religion actually, if we chose it and I...

CAFFERTY: That's a fair comment.

BARBAR: I think reason will eventually prevail if we give it a chance and I believe there's a lot of discussion going on in the government which is reasonable. So think we should not become fanatics to fight fanatics.

CAFFERTY: All right. Barbara, thank you for your comments. Who's next on the telephone? Susan from Indiana. What can we do for you? Or what can you do for us maybe is a better way to say that? All right. Let me go back to Mary Schiavo. El-Al airlines has the best security in the world. Why?

SCHIAVO: Well, because they take the threat very seriously and they have learned from very very serious tragedies and of course others will point out because they are small. They also tend to be very expensive. What they do is they hand search all the luggage. They know what's going on to the plane. You get asked many many many questions, not did you pack your own bag -- and by the way other carriers and other airports do that too.

Several European airlines and airports question you in depth when you're traveling and do much greater security screening. But El-Al also has literally four to five planes, hardened luggage containers. They have a double door to the cockpit.

So, you know, people are talking about putting absolute fail safe locked cockpit door for the flight deck and the flight personnel but on a long flight obviously they're going to come out for human reasons. So El-Al has solved that with the double door. The pilots can come out and use the restroom facilities and there's still another door between them and the cockpit.

But that won't do it alone. You also have to have the policies that go along with that because even a double locked door, a pilot who has the responsibility for the safety and well being of everyone on that plane at least in our country are blessed with pilots who you know care enough about their passengers to come out. We will have to have policies that say you can't come out.

So the locked door may not solve that entirely either but El Al just goes you know to great lengths to secure the passengers.

CAFFERTY: And nobody's hijacked one of those in a long time have they if ever?

SCHIAVO: No. But then they learned from some terrible tragedies.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

SCHIAVO: And decided simply to make their people safe. Literally if we opened up an El-Al airline tomorrow the airline would be flushed with business, not that Americans want to give up flying. We are a nation of flying. We conduct our business on the airplane. I mean some of us work in three locations across the country. And this is difficult on everyone.

But people don't feel safe. And if you want to save the airlines the best thing you can do for the airlines is make it safe. So the objections to the cost and the delays are actually very counter productive to the carriers. If we made them safe it would be a much better situation for them in the long run. Much better.

CAFFERTY: All right. More to come with Mary Schiavo, former Department of Transportation inspector general. It's 12:32 in the east and time to get caught up on the very latest news developments in connection with all this. Here's Garrick Utley.

UTLEY: Thanks, Jack. Well, now a second person is being held as a material witness in connection with Tuesday's terrorist attacks. The man had been held by U.S. Immigration services and he's been questioned thoroughly, no doubt, by the FBI.

Another development on Saturday. New York officials revealed in a news conference here in the city that a hijackers passport was found blocks from the World Trade Center crash site if you can believe that. No other details were given but the discovery prompted the FBI and police to expand the search area down in lower Manhattan.

President George W. Bush has been meeting with key advisers at Camp David in the Maryland mountains. And he is warning the American public "as we know now we are at war". He labeled Osama bin Laden as the top suspect in the attacks and he's told the military -- given the military a simple order, get ready.

And in New York City the number of people believed buried under the ruins has now been raised to nearly 5,000. But the digging, the searching, the hoping continues. Mayor Rudy Giuliani says he is holding up only slight hope that survivors can still be found. On Saturday, as on Friday, as on Thursday nobody was. Only 159 bodies of those maybe 5,000 have been recovered. And at the Pentagon 187 people are missing and they are presumed lost.

Funerals are beginning now, four days after the attacks. Mourners gathered Saturday as New York buried three of its top fire department officials. Up to 300 firefighters are believed to have died in the city.

And slowly, as far as air transport is concerned, air travel has resumed across the land. Boston's Logan airport where two of Tuesday's planes took off reopened on Saturday. The three major airports in the New York City area are operating but very sharply reduced capacities. John F. Kennedy airport, LaGuardia and Newark International resumed services on Friday. One airliner that was hijacked on Tuesday of course took off from Newark across the river from Manhattan here.

Well, Tuesday's hijackings turned airplanes into flying bombs. Perhaps that was the perverted genius of the terrorists. And now the group representing the people who fly those planes is advising its members to take a firm stand. Here's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For pilots the rule of thumb in hijackings has always been be passive, be cooperative. Get on the ground and into negotiations. Tuesday the rules changed instantaneously. Commercial pilot Paul Emens was in the air.

PAUL EMENS, PILOT: My copilot and I basically looked at each other and said: "You want to fly or fight?" And he was had his big steel flashlight and if anybody came through the door he was going to go after them and I was going to get the airplane on the ground.

MESERVE: According to the airline pilot's association, pilots and flight attendants, the airlines, the FAA and law enforcement are engaged in an unprecedented cooperative effort to improve aircraft security quickly.

DUANE WOERTH, AIRLINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION: We are at war and we're thinking of treating it that way and everybody's cut into the red tape, making decisions.

MESERVE: Among the changes being considered on an expedited basis whether to provide law enforcement escorts, whether to arm pilots with weapons and how to modify equipment like the cockpit door so it is a more effective barrier.

EMENS: This new door that we want I hope by Friday -- really by Friday I want a certification process approved by the FAA and the manufacturer and I believe we can have that and are on our way to getting that door.

MESERVE: Some airlines have told their pilots to do what they must to save themselves, their aircraft and their passengers. Pilot Paul Emens says if his plane is under threat passengers better hold on.

EMENS: You should be wearing your seatbelt.

MESERVE: What does that mean?

EMENS: We can start to maneuver that aircraft so that he cannot function.

MESERVE: Depressurize?

EMENS: We can depressurize the aircraft. We can throw it around the sky. We can do all sorts of things. And he won't be rocking when it's over.

MESERVE: Despite the financial distress of the airline industry the Airline Pilots Association says no security measure is off the table no matter what the expense. But some aviation watchdogs are critical. The say the problems and the solutions were known long ago and they ask why are we seeing corrections so late? Too late.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UTLEY: And, Jack, a moment ago you were talking about the impossibility of knowing who these terrorists are before the terrorist act is actually carried out which is not...

CAFFERTY: Not exactly right.

UTLEY: Not totally true. CNN is reporting now that two of the suspects of these terrorist attacks were on a watch list. These are lists that U.S. Intelligence puts together and these are -- well you're supposed to keep your eyes on them. Indeed one of them was actually under surveillance -- picked up by a surveillance camera when he was meeting in Kuala Lumpur -- that's in Malaysia, southeast Asia, long trip to take.

CAFFERTY: Right.

UTLEY: Meeting with a person who was suspected to have been involved in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole which killed 17 Navy men and women.

CAFFERTY: Wow.

UTLEY: So the fact is there is a watch list out there. Sometimes these names are known. The question is can you follow them 24 hours a day.

CAFFERTY: Years ago you remember when Carine Gilanti (ph) was killed here in New York City and he was shot down in a courtyard of a restaurant in Brooklyn and I was working at local news of channel four at the time and we raced to the scene and we got this live remote up and he too was being followed. He had just gotten out of prison and the FBI was trailing him and he was under surveillance and of course his enemies got him anyway in the courtyard of this restaurant.

So I'm doing a live remote with Chuck Scarboro (ph) as the anchor, channel four in New York back at the studio. And when I get all finished we were live on the air and Chuck said, well if the FBI was watching him why was he killed?

UTLEY: Well, that is a good question. But answer obviously is that there are so many of these suspects out there how much manpower do you have and are we now going to authorize and budget the manpower...

CAFFERTY: For the effort.

UTLEY: To track all of these people.

(CROSSTALK)

KUSHNER: It's not only the list. It's communication between these federal agencies, between themselves. I mean we've seen cases here in this country where customs had one guy, couldn't communicate to the FBI. We saw it in one of these serial killers a couple of months back.

So it's the communication between these thousands of people being watched who enter the country each day and whether the FBI gets the information out to local law enforcement and that's a major problem. You know, one thing we fail to realize here we're going to be fighting on a front inside this country and we're going to have use the military in a different way than we ever used before.

(CROSSTALK)

KUSHNER: In a sense -- think about this, you know (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you know, if you're going to fight a war against terrorism you have a front inside the United States. You actually have these cells operating here not just five years. Back as much as 15 years ago they set up shop in this country.

And you're going to have to have concerted effort by law enforcement. You have 50,000 different law enforcement agencies. How do you coordinate that effort? So you need one agency to do this. I think a federal agency. And you need some military manpower. This might be (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we think the use of military assets both outside the country and inside the country.

CAFFERTY: Gary in Missouri. What can we do for you?

GARY: How are you this evening?

CAFFERTY: I'm good. Are they still charging $5 a gallon for gasoline out there? I heard some ugly stories. I used to work in Kansas City years ago and I heard that within hours after this happened there were some opportunists that jacked up the price of the pump to four and $5. That's not still going on is it?

(CROSSTALK)

GARY: ... Missouri law so it brought them right back into check real quick.

CAFFERTY: OK. Good. What can we help you with?

GARY: I guess my concern and my next question is, I did several years in the United States Navy. I see that there is a big concern as regards to the commercial airline safety, what are we doing in regards to private airlines? I just think of myself here in St. Charles, Missouri. There are several different private airlines. It's very accessible to Cessna aircraft and other smaller aircraft. What are we doing about those?

CAFFERTY: Little airports all over the country. That's a good point. They contain virtually unwatched aircraft that are sitting tethered. You hop a fence and if you know what you're doing you can be airborne in 10 minutes. What about that?

KUSHNER: Very little watching going on. I mean even during the Persian Gulf War. I myself went to one of those private aircraft on Long Island, walked right on the tarmac, got on a plane. I mean, so you know, again there's about 400 some odd airports in the United States. How do we ratchet up security with a system that's not working now. How do you put extra layers on that, you know?

CAFFERTY: Right.

KUSHER: It's an absurd system that we have and I think Mary said it before and I would go one step further. I think we must develop a federal force. You know somebody that watches our borders also has to watch the people go in. I don't...

CAFFERTY: ... immigration policies...

KUSHNER: Yes. But I don't think the FAA hasn't shown any ability to do this. They've been more puffing the airlines...

CAFFERTY: Sure.

(CROSSTALK)

CAFFERTY: What about customs or the Coast Guard, Mary? Do either of those make any sense?

SCHIAVO: They both make sense and I was actually very fortunate to work with both of them when I worked aviation crimes as the inspector general. The Customs was a very reliable law enforcement counterpart when we worked international cases on bogus parts and other aviation crimes.

But I'm rather partial to the Coast Guard for a couple of very real reasons. The Coast Guard is in the Department of Transportation so it would provide seamless transportation coverage. And the Coast Guard already has jurisdiction over the ports. And most airports are ports. You know port of New York, New Jersey...

CAFFERTY: Sure.

SCHIAVO: Port Columbus, et cetera. And they are trained. They are already trained in law enforcement. Many of them are trained in drug interdiction. They have a fleet of aircraft. They are very experienced in over water operations. They already do our aircraft down in waters search and rescue. They are very familiar with the rules.

And the most important thing about the Coast Guard is they're already used to dealing with the transportation public because they are responsible for the oversight enforcement and law enforcement against bad boaters and protecting boaters which outnumber pilots and aircraft. So they're extremely experienced and, you know, they can do an amazing job with very little. I'm very high on the Coast Guard.

CAFFERTY: All right. Good. Mary, we'll get back to you in a moment. What I'd like to do if we can -- Gary Tuchman has been reporting all day today and all night tonight on the ongoing search and rescue which are rapidly becoming search and recovery efforts going on at what we have dubbed ground zero, the news media. This is where the World Trade Center came down. The pictures you see on television -- we'll switch to Gary here in just a moment. They'll really I think begin to tell the story of the size, the dimension of the rubble removal task that is faced by the city of New York.

As of this afternoon, the city had removed about 13,000 tons -- 13,000 tons of rubble from the World Trade Center site. That's less than one percent. The World Trade Center, 110 stories tall, contained -- these are staggering numbers, 200,000 tons of steel, 425,000 cubic yards of concrete and 14 acres of windows. So let's get an update from Gary Tuchman at ground zero in downtown New York on what's going down down there tonight and perhaps more importantly, how the spirit and resolve of these dedicated people is holding up -- Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jack, I'll tell you when you talk about spirit and resolve, the people who have been working here have it in abundance. But the problem is, they've had absolutely no good news over the last three days. A few survivors were found on Tuesday. A few on Wednesday. Since then not one survivor has been found. Behind me you can see the smoke is still billowing. It's billowing because the fires continue to break out. They put out a fire in one place. Then they remove steel at another place. It provides oxygen to that area and another fire breaks out.

So you see the situation there. It's still very dangerous for the rescue workers and they have no good news to tell over the last three days. They're still hopeful there could possibly be survivors but they haven't found any for more than 72 hours. Jack.

CAFFERTY: Isn't it conventional wisdom Gary that in a situation like this the first 48 hours is absolutely critical and after that the survival rate drops off to almost nothing?

TUCHMAN: Survival rate drops down very low but there's certainly is precedent for finding people a week or two later from earthquakes all over the world. But there's also precedents to show that it's unlikely in the sense that during the Oklahoma City disaster they were hopeful they would find survivors. They did the day of. They did the day after and nobody after that.

CAFFERTY: All right. Gary Tuchman at ground zero. Of the list of the missing and people who are expected at some point they will recover their bodies and identify them is approaching 5,000. Maybe it's worth thinking about for a moment that the World Trade Center, the capacity of those two buildings was 50,000. And that often times during the summer time they would have things like concerts. They would have entertainment in the plaza area down around the World Trade Center.

And I guess what I'm trying to get at here and it's tough to put any kind of positive spin on this but it's conceivable that not just the 40, 50,000 in the World Trade Center might have been lost but an additional how many thousand on the ground. And if those buildings had collapsed in a different way, if they had tipped instead of simply imploding and dropping almost straight down, all the buildings around them could have been at risk. So the potential loss of life while 5,000 is certainly a horrible situation, the potential loss of life could have been much much higher. And then when you think about the fact that this time those planes didn't have nuclear weapons. They didn't have chemical weapons. They didn't have biological weapons. But if you think these folks are going to not use those if and when they get their hands on them I would guess you have another thing coming. It's a matter of time. That will be next.

KUSHNER: You know when back in '93 Ramzi Yousef calculated that one would topple into the other...

CAFFERTY: Right.

KUSHNER: And they were thinking in terms of what you're saying 250,000 potential casualties then. At that time he put cyanide gas right at ground -- B2 level, but the heat of the explosion evaporated it. This time I would imagine the planes were timed to come in almost simultaneously and take both towers down in exactly that same scenario.

But, you know, the chilling thing is when Ramzi Yousef was brought back from Pakistan on the plane with the federal marshal he looked out over as they came over the trade towers and he said if I had a bit more time and little more money, I could have done the correct job and then to see it come down. You know, and quite frankly I worked on the civil litigation on that case with a couple of plaintiffs.

And there were reports that the port authority had as far back as '88 pinpointing that level and at that time they felt they didn't want to stop public access. It would be too chilling to the economy of the area. But this is a telltale sign of what a terrorist will go to havoc in our society.

CAFFERTY: John is on the phone in Texas. John.

JOHN: Yes. Hello. I'm in the military at Ft. Hood, Texas with the 4th infantry division mechanized and I was -- I'm a little concerned about our current situation. I know that the weeks prior to this incident they were actually contemplating reducing by two divisions in the Army. And I'm not sure what the thought is on that now.

But I know that the Army is severely undermanned right now. My platoon is an entire tank crew down. We have one tank that's just sitting in the motor pool without a crew. We're waiting for NCOs. Right now the majority of our gunners are E3s and below which they should be E5s and below. And noticed the people want that instant gratification. They want us to go out there and you know...

CAFFERTY: That's right.

JOHN: ... kick some butt. But I think we really have to sit back and be prudent and think about what we have to do. We have to reorganize and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the new force 21, they're using the new M182 sep (ph) tanks. It's all pretty new and a lot of the stuff you know there's a lot of kinks that need to be worked out.

CAFFERTY: John, there was some debate obviously between the administration and members of Congress about funding for the defense department military spending in the matter of hours after this happened. The congress appropriated I think $40 billion as a down payment on the funds needed to do this. Your point about being patient is a good one. It's going to take some time to plan this and to define the targets and mount the plans for the operations.

And my guess is and it's just a guess but I've been covering news for a number of years that you will see a lot of resources poured into the military in very short order and we just hope when it's time that you guys can get the job done and all get home safely. Nice to have you on the program with us. We have Steve Harrigan who's a CNN reporter in Northern Afghanistan and he is joining us now. Harrigan? Steve Harrigan, can you hear me?

STEVE HARRIGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I can hear you fine Jack.

CAFFERTY: What's the latest over there? What can you tell us? We're hearing all sorts of scary warnings coming out of the Taliban, the Afghani leadership. The last report I heard they are in hiding. Give us an update on the situation there if you can.

HARRIGAN: Sure. Jack, we're in northern Afghanistan. That's the part of the country about five to 10 percent that's still under control by Afghans who are in opposition to the Taliban. So these people here want to fight against the Taliban and they are welcoming, even calling for U.S. military action against the Taliban. They want to take part in that fight.

What's happened here today, the reason we are here now is they just buried their top commander, Akmed Shakh Masud (ph). Now he might not be familiar to many of your listeners but he was the top commander here of the opposition. And he was assassinated immediately before those terrorist attacks in the United States.

So the opposition here sees a clear link, an attempt by the Taliban to knock out the opposition here before going ahead with those terrorist attacks in the United States. But people here now -- it's the position are standing firm. They say they want to fight. We've just seen a very emotional funeral when they buried their top commander Masud (ph). They carried the body out of a helicopter by hand. People whaling. Villagers here from northern Afghanistan lining the roads. A very emotional scene as they lay to rest their top commander, Masud (ph) -- Jack.

CAFFERTY: What kind of numbers and what kind of resources do they have, Steve?

HARRIGAN: As far as regular fighters go the northern alliance says to have about 15,000 fighters, trained fighters and perhaps about 15,000 more irregular fighters. And as you know, they've been battling the Taliban for about five years now. They've been driven back here into one of the most remote regions on earth.

We're giving you this live shot now without electricity. We're in a mountain range. It's a very difficult place to get to but we see men armed with Kalashnikovs, the very same Kalashnikovs they fought against the Soviet Union with. And they're hoping that this crisis could be an opportunity for them to move against the Taliban. They say contact so far with the United States had been minimal but they hope to use their experience to put that experience to work in working against the Taliban.

CAFFERTY: Do they expect the United States to fund whatever operation they have in mind?

HARRIGAN: They are hoping and calling for aid and to fight together. The question really is how firm an alliance is this northern alliance. We've seen in the past a lot of squabbling between top commanders and now their very top man has just been assassinated. So can they hold together as a fighting force? That's the real test.

CAFFERTY: All right. Thanks, Steve, very much. Steve Harrigan reporting live from northern Afghanistan. Is that a formidable and significant opposition force that he's talking about over there?

KUSHNER: I don't think so. I think the Taliban has Afghanistan wrapped up. You know, I wonder why is all this interest in finding a state sponsorship of a terrorist organization to enact the war act when in fact the Taliban gives him cover. They give him logistics. They give him support. They give him free reign from money raised by the poppy trade. I mean, it's clear to me that they're a terrorist supporting state. I just cannot understand the logic of commentators and politicians not to see that clearly. I mean it's harder to make a case against Iraq, certainly Syria, Iran...

CAFFERTY: Sure.

KUSHNER: But clearly there's an arrest warrant out for this man. They're giving him shelter. They're housing him and...

(CROSSTALK)

KUSHNER: They deny that he is capable of even doing this. So it seems to me that the -- it boggles the mind that in the modern era why we don't consider the state sponsorship of terrorism.

CAFFERTY: That's the very thing President Bush was talking about.

KUSHNER: Yes.

CAFFERTY: And Colin Powell went to great lengths to talk about over and over in the early briefings in the day or two after this happened that states that sponsor these people harbor them, fund them, protect them in any way are as guilty and as liable for retaliation as the terrorists themselves.

KUSHNER: Exactly. But that seems like the perfect model of this behavior. I don't understand why we're not ready to say other than it's just one of pariah states that it is a state sponsorship of terrorism.

CAFFERTY: Let's bring in Major Garrett who's live at The White House this evening and get the latest from him on what's going on down there and perhaps he can address what he may have heard concerning the subject of a possible declaration of war at some point in the future. Major Garrett, nice to have you with us.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to be with you Jack. To take on the point that Harvey was just making it's very clear talking to senior administration officials that when the president said -- the first time a president has ever said on Tuesday that not only will the United States hold accountable those who were directly responsible for the terrorist acts but states that provided them shelter or aid and comfort.

No one around here is calling that Bush doctrine, but it is a significant change in U.S. policy and the president has gradually with his rhetoric and with what he asked Congress to approve as an act of providing him the legal authority to use force, is trying to turn the American people from traditional definitions of war fighting against nation states, against nations with borders as he said in his radio address today a battle with beachheads.

To one that is of entirely greater more complexity and saying it's not going to be just one place. It's not going to be just one agent of terror, but the United States is going to try to hold and will do everything in its power to hold accountable multiple sources of this -- what the President has often described as evil.

And in the use of force resolution the Congress approved almost unanimously one descending from one house democrat from California, the Congress has embraced that new notion of warfare. That it is not just the perpetrators, the direct perpetrators of an act but any other nations that may have provided aid and comfort.

It is a significant shift and not only U.S. policy but the way United States is going to act within the confines of international law. And I think you're seeing and have seen over the days, the president trying to explain this to the American public. Things are moving so rapidly that it is even hard at times to fathom these changes.

But I think the president is trying to work the country through it and to communicate as best he can the shift moving away from the traditional understanding of warfare and the concepts geographical and otherwise of warfare to one that has many many more layers, a higher degree of complexity.

CAFFERTY: Mike in Ohio, be patient. You're coming up in just a minute. Major Garrett, though before we leave you, what's the difference between a resolution authorizing the use of force and a declaration of war?

GARRETT: Well, minimal actually. I mean, it is now clear and the president of course has the constitutional right to respond militarily to this attack on the United States without a use of force resolution coming from Congress. But he sought it for one very strategic political and constitutional reason, so there would be absolutely no question that all legal authority was placed in his hands to respond to this act of terror committed against the United Stats.

The president has said we are at war. He said so today at Camp David. He has made it clear in days before this was an act of war. We have been attacked. He will now prosecute a war against terrorism and now he has the full and complete legal authority to do so given to him by a nearly unanimous Congress.

It's worth pointing out that the last time Congress debated a use of force resolution the reaction and the ultimate vote was much narrower. You'll recall the United States senate, his father President George Herbert Walker Bush received support of congress by a vote of 52 to 48 to prosecute the war against Saddam Hussein and liberate Kuwait.

CAFFERTY: Right.

GARRETT: There is no such ambiguity now and the president knows it and he intends to carry that lack of ambiguity forward on the international stage prosecuting this war. Jack.

CAFFERTY: Major Garrett live in Washington. Thank you. As we move forward, it's 12:57 eastern daylight time. You were talking about states that harbor and sponsor terrorism, Harvey Kushner, this gets a little trick doesn't it? I mean the obvious ones like Iraq and Afghanistan and perhaps Yemen and the Sudan and places like that, that's one kettle of fish.

What about places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Iran and Afghanistan, who have -- we have requested certain concessions and cooperative efforts from? I mean, you could make the argument that some of Osama bin Laden's troops have been educated in those Islamic fundamentalists schools inside Pakistan.

I mean, their hands aren't clean in any of this. How do you sort out -- I mean is it a black and white issue? They seem to create the impression that it is. You're either with us or you're against us. If you sponsor terrorism or harbor them or grant safe haven to them, you're our enemy. But are they all really?

KUSHNER: Well, that's just it. That's the ambiguity in that region in the world. I mean, you mentioned -- let's take Egypt for example. Certainly in this particular operation I would imagine that some of these suicide bombers might have come from Egypt and might have gotten some training inside there as well.

But the Egyptian government under Mubarak really is under siege by terrorism itself. He's looked to be toppled at any given time. So I don't think the spirit of the Egyptian government really is to support terrorist actions against these United States whereas other states as you mentioned Iran, certainly Iraq, questionable Syria. Another...

CAFFERTY: Syria is a perfect example.

KUSHNER: Well they do. They supported, certainly in Lebanon in the training camps there...

CAFFERTY: Of course. The Bekaa Valley...

KUSHNER: Absolutely. And they used the drug money from the Bekaa Valley to finance this but...

CAFFERTY: And the leader's father, Asad's (ph) dad...

KUSHNER: That's correct.

CAFFERTY: Ran this whole operation for years. Now the son has come out with the statement -- I mean can you believe what these people say. The son issued a statement -- was it yesterday or the day before, we deplore these acts. We deplore terro -- blah, blah, blah, blah.

KUSHNER: That's the problem we face, the ambiguity of who the enemy is.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

KUSHNER: It seems that the structure that's been set up worldwide and especially in the United States has this ambiguous and sometimes specific support of these actions. You know it's important to state over and over again that if we take out Osama bin Laden, the problem is not going to go away. There are other people who are going to step up to the plate. It's the same thing in a drug trade. It's because you have people who are willing to die for that particular cause. And there's a significant number in that region of the world and here in the United States.

CAFFERTY: Mike, I apologize, in Ohio. I didn't mean to keep you waiting this long. What can we for you?

MIKE: Well, thank you very much for taking my call...

CAFFERTY: Sure.

MIKE: And thank you for the dialog, the conversation, the insight that all of you are providing...

CAFFERTY: Glad you're enjoying it.

MIKE: But I think what you need to hear from us as many times we're referred to in the heartland of the United States. But I think heartland of the United States is every part of the U.S.A. What you need to hear is we do understand. We do know that the front can be both here in the United States and worldwide.

We do know that it's going to take time, it's going to take patience. And I think everyone in the country needs to tell you now we're ready. We will correct the problems. There are many problems that we understand.

There's problems with not only the way our safety is handled at the - through the airports and so on. But I think you need to hear from us, we're ready because what we're fighting for is our very way of life.

CAFFERTY: Fair enough. That's pretty well put. I'm not sure I could have said it any better. Mike, thank you. It was worth waiting for.

All right, so on one-on-one, you're watching a new endeavor around these parts. They've dubbed this CNN hotline. And before we get to Garrick Utley for the latest news, let me just give you the number to call, it's toll free and we'd like to hear from you.

You know that one of the things that occurred to me from walking into the studio everybody from - in Washington and New York City, the people at the Pentagon, the phrase our lives have been changed forever. I'd be interested in hearing how you think your life is going to change. Now what about your kids? What about your travel plans? What about your spending plans? What are you going to do when the stock market opens on Monday? It's been closed for the longest time since World War I. Our lives are going to change. It'd be interesting to start hearing perhaps from some people on how they think their lives are going to be different as a result of this awful thing that happened on Tuesday.

Time now to get caught up on the latest news and with that here's my friend, Garrick Utley.

UTLEY: Thanks, Jack. We're going to look first and foremost right now the investigation that is underway. The -- and some progress is being made. And we're happy to report that authorities are now holding a second person as a material witness in connection with the attacks. He had been held by U.S. immigration services.

The first material witness was arrested Thursday at New York Kennedy's airport. And the FBI says it's questioning two other people who were found at a New Jersey apartment. The address of the apartment was supplied by other people believed connected to the attacks.

And at a news conference in New York City it was revealed that the passport, standby and listen to this, the passport of one of the suspected hijackers on that plane that flew in to the towers was found blocks away from the World Trade Center crash site. Somehow the passport survived and nobody else did unfortunately.

Rescue crews continue to dig through the remnants of the World Trade Center still hoping to find survivors, any survivor there. But the wreckage did not yield any on Saturday. It hasn't really since Wednesday, I think. Only 159 dead have been recovered. Only some of those have been complete bodies and nearly 5000 are still now listed as missing. But Mayor Giuliani says he has some hope, but really it's only slight hope he acknowledges that some survivors may yet be found.

And elsewhere in New York City the funerals have now begun. Three top fire department officials were buried and honored on Saturday. More than 300 of the city's firefighters are among the missing.

At the Pentagon, authorities say 187 people are missing and presumed dead. On Saturday, family members of the victims were brought by bus to the scene. Many brought flowers and balloons as they mourned their friends and members of their families.

While President Bush has put out a terse order on Saturday for the men and women in uniform, simple, quote "Get ready" unquote. Here's Kelly Arena (sic) on the president's weekend at Camp David.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spending the weekend at the secluded presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains, President Bush huddles with his national security team and prepares the American people for war.

BUSH: We're at war. There's been an act of war declared upon America by terrorists. And we will respond accordingly.

WALLACE: The president refuses to discuss military options, but for the first time, he specifically named suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden as a quote "prime suspect" behind Tuesday's terrorism spree. Bin Laden is believed to be hiding out in Afghanistan with the ruling Taliban government providing him safe haven.

BUSH: This act will not stand. We will find those who did it. We will smoke them out of their holes. We'll get them running. And we'll bring them to justice.

WALLACE: When asked if those words mean President Bush is considering using ground troops to attack terrorists aids say nothing has been ruled out. But winning this so-called war and finding the elusive bin Laden won't be easy says a former Clinton administration official.

JIM STEINBERG, FORMER CLINTON ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We're not fighting a military. We're not fighting an organized power, but we're fighting a very diffuse and shadowy organization that has links in many different parts of the world.

WALLACE: Knowing Americans are hungry for swift retaliation, the President uses his radio address to say a sweeping response will come in time.

BUSH: You will be asked for your patients, for the conflict will not be short. You'll be asked for resolve, for the conflict will not be easy. You'll be asked for your strength because the course to victory may be long.

WALLACE: And aids say President Bush has gained strength from his meeting Friday with more than 200 family members with loved ones still missing, believing his job is to turn their sorrow into something positive for future generations.

(on camera): While the American people overwhelmingly support a military response, keeping that support up will be another big challenge for the President, especially if a prolonged military attack means some U.S. troops lose their lives.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, near Camp David Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UTLEY: And Jack, as the President's up at Camp David, his advisers planning and plotting what do next. An interesting fact we should revisit. Now this week's CNN/Time did it's poll.

CAFFERTY: Right.

UTLEY: Found that 62 percent of Americans supported the idea of Congress declaring war. When in effect it's done that for this resolution support (UNINTELLIGIBLE) any action. Behold the number 62 percent declare war. Sixty-one -- when people were asked against whom do you declare war 61 percent said I don't know.

CAFFERTY: I don't know, yeah.

UTLEY: I don't know. And yet, it was interesting to hear Mike in Ohio just a minute ago on this you know calm, collected thought or voice saying, "hey we know what the situation is. We know that the front line is here as well as abroad in Afghanistan." And that's very encouraging I think.

CAFFERTY: Yeah, you could probably go broke under estimating the innate intelligence of the people of this country. A couple of their observations, I was having dinner in a restaurant tonight. I live in New Jersey about 15 miles west of New York City. A guy came in with his family. There were probably 50 people in the restaurant. He sat down. He called the waiter over. He said I'd like to buy a drink for everybody in the place, and he did a toast to America. Just a very spontaneous thing.

And then last night, I was driving home through a little town called little falls, New Jersey, the next tower over to mine. And people had come out of stores and restaurants and bars and stuff. It was a Friday night. And they were standing on both sides of the street holding candles and singing God Bless America. And the cars were going in both directions with American flags. People were honking their horns and shouting "USA." I mean there is -- there are emotional signs of what has happened out there that I have never seen before.

UTLEY: There's the emotion. There's the anger. And this is something that Bush has to face, the President has to face. On the one hand, the public support is there. Every leader has to have it. On the other hand, that support of that anger could put undue pressure on the President.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

UTLEY: He's got to control the timeline on this, the timetable and not be swept away by it. And as somebody said act smart.

CAFFERTY: Well there's one other story of exactly the opposite kind. In my town there's a Dunking' Donuts. And they're open 24 hours a day and it's a town of 12,000. And people go there on -- particularly on the weekends. I go on Saturday morning, get a couple of donuts and a coffee. And you always see somebody you know.

The day after this happened, I drove by and it was closed and there as a police car sitting in the lot. They're open 24 hours a day. The kids that worked in there, kids they're probably in their early 20s half a dozen of them look -- you could look at them and assume that they might be Arabic. The rumor going around town was that they began some sort of celebration on news of what happened at the World Trade Center. And that they had put some sort of anti-American slogan in the window. And that the police had come and closed the place out of fear for their safety. And that's the rumor that spread all through the town.

It turned out absolutely untrue. I stopped this morning. I asked the cop who was still in the parking lot I said, "What happened here?" And he said they got 150 threats in the first two hours after this thing happened and we had to close the place. It turns out the kids are Indian, they're not even Arabic. And it was that you know rush to judgment based on appearance, that stereotyping. And it's just an ugly, nasty, horrible example of the kinds of things that can happen but I guess shouldn't happen in the country.

So the good, the bad, and the ugly is out there. And it's going to be with us I guess all of it in some form for a while. Ken, in Texas. What's your question?

KEN: Yes, sir. I'm a native New Yorker, I was born in Queens in (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Hospital, I now live in San Antonio, Texas. I spent five-and-a-half years in the United States Army. I just heard the commentary from John from Fort Hood.

CAFFERTY: Right.

KEN: Saying that they have a tank sitting in a motor pool with no drivers.

CAFFERTY: Right.

KEN: I'm an ex tank mechanic. I spent my time in the service. I was wondering what about us? What about the service members that spent their time, got out, now would love to put a uniform back on. I would wave all my rights for benefits, everything just to put a uniform back on to serve my country. I have no other way to do it. I sit here helpless. And I wonder what happens to us?

CAFFERTY: You know, I don't know the answer Ken, but I can tell you where you might get it. If you call your Congressman's office or called you know a local mil -- armed forces recruiting office. I don't know if down the road they've make provisions to take some of us old guys back. And I say us old guys, I wore a uniform too. I -- they wouldn't take me back at my age.

But depending on how this thing unfolds there might be some sort of state side duty or volunteer work that people that served in the armed forces can do. You might be able to go over there and get that tank running for Mike or Ken, whoever it was. But call your Congressman's office. I'll bet he could tell you. And that would -- and we'll see what happens. That may happen.

Who from North Carolina? Salim (ph), you're on the air.

SALIM: Thank you very much. Just concerned if the Americans understand, we in America, that there is a Holy Jihad and what we're up against in the long-rum as Americans. It's like a spiritual war. And I'm concerned the Americans, that we as Americans do not understand that for example in a couple of year a disgruntled Russian physicist who needs money or a Chinese or maybe Iran if they get nuclear technology, they don't get a small suitcase size nuclear bomb into one of our cities and level us to the stone age.

So I don't mean to sound Machiavellian, but I'd much rather have more of Truman and less of Chamberlain. The Arab states are very identifiable that support terrorism. And they use these people like surrogates and blame them and say oh we're not as militant as them but they give them protection.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

SALIM: And so what I'm saying is this, I don't mean to sound Machiavellian but if we don't take out their infrastructure we would be more merciful to them of course. As Americans we would say get your women and children out of all of your cities which are very identifiable, Kabul, Tehran, Damascus.

I'd say get all of your women and children out in three days. We bomb your cities with nuclear bombs, tactical nuclear weapons and destroy your infrastructure. Take you back 200 years. Then maybe they have the fear of God to come against America again. Or should we wait for them to do that to us? That's my first question. Should we wait for them to do that us?

CAFFERTY: What's the next one?

SALIM: Or should we preempt them with superior technology and ability to deliver it? Number one.

Number two, shouldn't there not be some questionable, I agree with you in Japan in World War II it's terrible the way the Japanese were treated. Racism is horrible. And dark skinned people should not fear, OK. And I had that happen to me the other day. That is not the point.

The point is there should be some tactical profiling of Arab males that have come into this country in the past 10 years, let's say. And some designated profiling by the immigration department, the U.S. government to determine whether or not these people should be here. Because obviously someone of non Arab descent and an male of non Arab dissent be extremely highly unlikely that they would carry out such a terrorist attack because this is a spiritual thing. We can say ...

CAFFERTY: I understand. Salim (ph), I've got to run. I want to pursue your mention of the Holy Jihad though. Harvey Kushner can tell us more about that. That's a phrase that we hear and it's in the media and I'm not sure I understand it. What does that mean exactly?

KUSHNER: It's misinterpreted. Actually, Jihad or a holy war or a holy ethic in face of saving the society, the Islamic society, is viewed upon as a noble deed. And in that case, everything goes. War is justified against an enemy in the protection of Islam.

But clearly within the Arabic world, particularly the interpretation of Islam, traditional Islam is a piece loving religion. And we must be careful not to put -- to paint the broad brush of the 1.5 billion Muslims who live around the world as all looking to destroy the United States.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

KUSHNER: They're taking a very narrow interpretation of the Koran. The Koran is specific. There are the sayings of the prophet Mohammed in these Hadits (ph) which these incendiary stem lining clerics misinterprets. Issue fakwas. We hear bin Laden issuing fakwas. And quite frankly, technically he can't issue a fakwa, he's not a cleric. But this is the problem we have now. We're tending to throw everybody into the same pot.

I would imagine Jack that in the upcoming months, we're going to learn a lot about Iran, about Afghanistan, about Pakistan, about Turkmenistan, about that area of the world and Islam itself. That needs to be clarified. If we're going to take on a enemy that supposedly Jihad against the United States we're going to have to know what they're fighting.

And clearly, you know we mustn't now act -- lessens learned in the past, certainly it's a shameful part of American history the internment of those Japanese Americans. Italian Americans as well as German Americans who were also attacked.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

KUSHNER: And clearly, that's not the American way. This country was not founded on those principals. But in terms of Jihad I don't know of peace loving Muslims worldwide that support really the destruction of the West and its religions and certainly the United States.

CAFFERTY: The other thing that I'd like to get your comments on, we'll have to put it off until a little later in the program, but what is it about American policy in the Middle East that has engendered such hatred on the part of these people? What has this country done over there to build these emotions? And what source of policy initiatives might be possible? Starting yesterday preferably to try to ameliorate some of this intense hatred for want of a better way to say it. But that's for a little later in the broadcast.

Jason in New Hampshire is with us. And Gary Tuchman is covering ground zero tonight, the site of the collapse of the World Trade Center. And Gary, Jason has a question for you. So we'll see if we can do a three-way hook up here. This is a new program. We'll try this technology out here. Jason are you there?

JASON: Yes, I am.

CAFFERTY: OK. Gary, are you there?

TUCHMAN: I am here, Jack.

CAFFERTY: All right. This may work. Go ahead Jason.

JASON: I have a quick question and I don't -- I really don't want seem macabre with this. But I remember hearing on the news a couple of days ago that the piles from the World Trade Center is approximately 100 feet high. And they're saying that maybe a lot of the material, the big cloud was actually steel and concrete and chips (ph) and what not vaporizing. What's to say that didn't happen to A, a lot of the people in the building?

And two, I mean, the human body is fragile, what's to say that we haven't -- the victims or the missing haven't been, well for lack of a better way to put it, pressed into their component pieces by all of the falling rubble.

TUCHMAN: Well the sad fact, Jason, is that much of what has been found are remains, that's very sad but it's very true. There are actually workers on the scene just behind me a few blocks carrying buckets to collect that.

However, what they are hoping is that people survivors are in pockets, which they're referring to as voids. The six people who have been recovered, survivors were found in these pockets and weren't touched by any of the rubble. They were just well below it. And that's the hope. Certainly if they're within the rubble that would be very hard to survive. But there's great hope that people are below all of the rubble and haven't been touched by it.

CAFFERTY: All right. Jason, thank you. Gary, thank you. Let's go back for a moment to Mary Schiavo who is a severe critic of the airline system in this country. And she brings her opinions based on a strenuous background as a Deputy Inspector General for the department of transportation.

We were talking earlier, and I told you I wanted to ask you about this transponder that all commercial airlines carry. It's my understanding that the transponder, these guys who hijacked these planes knew what they were doing. They turned off the transponders. And the transponders as I understand them are the only way that air traffic controllers can identify which flights these are.

So when they strayed off their flight paths, which they did rather dramatically, the transponders had been turned off. And they're reduced to simply a blip on the radar screen. And the FAA has no way of knowing what that blip is. Is that -- am I somewhat in the ballpark with what those things do?

SCHIAVO: That's right. Well Americans will remember a couple of years ago even Air Force One was reduced to a blip on the screen. You can do that various and sundry reasons, but when you turn off the transponder, the air traffic controllers could still tell who was whom because they had been tracking the flight. But you lose things like altitude information, identification information. So they could see the blip on the screen but they didn't have too much else to go on except the one transmission to one of the towers, one of the pilots was able to leave his com line open.

CAFFERTY: Would it make any sense to fix these things so they couldn't be disabled? I mean would that be of any help or not?

SCHIAVO: Well, actually we have many things that we could do. One of the recommendations after Egypt Air, and there's a lot of misunderstanding about this, but after the Egypt Air tragedy on October 31, 2000 or 1999, one of the recommendations by the NTSB was to actually install cockpit video. And that is not just static video that you recover like a black box.

It's also possible to have video that is transmitted. And that recommendation will undoubtedly become a prominent one again, because then we would have an idea. And there's actually you know question whether between the first plane and the last one, the one in Pennsylvania, maybe even the Pentagon we would have had enough information to know more fully what was going on.

The transponders...

CAFFERTY: Is this what they call ...

SCHIAVO: Go ahead.

CAFFERTY: Is this what they call real time video?

SCHIAVO: Yes.

CAFFERTY: Is that what they refer? Where they put a little camera in the cockpit that just like you put a camera in the nursery to watch the baby, right?

SCHIAVO: Yes. And it's curious that the pilots had objected to that before. And over the last four days I have gotten many, many calls from pilots talking about things like wanting to arm themselves, et cetera. And now I think everyone realizes that video would actually protect the pilots and the passengers some. So that would be another thing besides the transponder.

And one other thing we really, I'm hoping that we can get good data off the cockpit voice recorder or off of at least one of these flights because in another suicide attack on a plane, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) plane crash has been ruled a suicide. And in that case the suicide pilot was so savvy that he pulled the fuses on the cockpit voice recorder. Now that would give us a real indication if this -- that was done here how well they had studied other tragedies and how well they were acquainted with the planes. It would really give a tremendous amount of insight.

One other thing I wanted to add and you'd mentioned about general aviation and the small planes all over the country.

CAFFERTY: Right.

SCHIAVO: And the fact that we have 655,000 pilots in America. It's pretty hard to track them all. Only those airports with commercial service have to have a security plan in place, a secure perimeter. Only those airports that are so designated at certain levels have to have it. There are lots of little air fields literally all over the country that have little small planes sitting on them.

And it was those planes curiously when I was in the government, it was those small planes, you know moonies (ph), the Cessna's, the Bonanza's sitting all over the country that the FAA perceived as their terrorist threat. The did realize that terrorist could steal planes, but for some reason the FAA thought they would steal small planes. And even if that -- even though that was their worry, we really don't have a security plan in place for all of these small planes all over the country.

Now we see they aren't the threat. The threat they have -- terrorists have much bigger things in mind for those planes. And there's one other thing that's very interesting about the terrorists. We actually have a federal statute of 28 USC 16 something and that is our list of countries which harbor terrorists. And the State Department puts the countries on that list by publishing it in the federal register. Afghanistan is not on that list. And that's something important ...

CAFFERTY: You're kidding?

SCHIAVO: No. And that's something that the state department will have to do because it is that list which allows people to go after the assets of a country that harbors terrorism. So there's much to be done even on the -- even on sort of the end of putting all of the ducks in a row.

CAFFERTY: All right, Mary we've got a viewer in Illinois, Bruce who has a question for you. Bruce go ahead.

SCHIAVO: OK.

BRUCE: Yes, hi, Mary.

SCHIAVO: Hi.

BRUCE: I thought about sky marshals. What would you think of the idea of having 20-year veteran retired police officers? They'd be 45 to 55 years old. Obviously with a track record that you could check as sky marshals?

SCHIAVO: Well and not just a track record that you can check. You make an extremely important point. You know -- and you probably know we did have sky marshals, but over the years the program was gutted. That was one of the security measures that I fought against ending. We used to have a couple of thousand. It dwindled to something like 250 and finally dwindled to about 30. And I and some others objected to that. And people now talk about well we're going to put sky marshals back on the plane.

What's very important to realize and since you've been through police training, you know this, it takes a lot of training to know when -- to have a shoot, no shoot situation. When it's a passenger panicking versus a terrorist standing up to start a hijacking. And it is that training that is going to be crucial. I taught, not that particular part of the training but I taught legal things at the FBI academy and they had a chance to experience that. And the shoot, no shoot decision making you don't learn overnight.

So someone like yourself who's had that kind of training would be someone who would be much more valuable to start up or to expand the program again from our dwindled number. And that's going to be the biggest problem with air marshals getting them through either FLATSE (ph) or Glenco (ph) or Quantico and getting them this training. So air marshals aren't going to be here overnight.

CAFFERTY: All right, Mary thanks. And Bruce thank you for the question. What about, Harvey Kushner, the fact that all of these airplanes were less than half full. I've heard it debated as to whether or not that may have been significant. This was a Tuesday morning. There are a lot of flights that leave from the east coast. These were all bound for California. But all of them had less than half a passenger load. Is that significant? And if so, what would it possibly mean?

KUSHNER: Well my belief if I had to go back and trace the mindset of these hijackers they probably knew those routes. Probably even knew -- maybe flew them before.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

KUSHNER: Knew the pattern. You know which day is most likely to have the least amount. Clearly if you want to it wasn't a question of how much fuel and how many passengers you had aboard.

CAFFERTY: Right.

KUSHNER: You know it was a clear day. So it looks like it was selected exactly like that. I don't know if it worked out that way.

CAFFERTY: Somebody suggested that they may have bought all of the seats, the hijackers -- somebody could have bought all of the seats so that there would be fewer passengers to handle when you try to physically take over the aircraft.

KUSHNER: It could have been -- you know you could have made a lot of calls and say hold the seats.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

KUSHNER: I notice that some people mention that these terrorists used Travelocity.com to buy a ticket. The rented cars. And they act as if these are some stone age people.

CAFFERTY: Yeah, right. They're on the Internet.

KUSHNER: The people like you and me ... right. So I mean you know we shouldn't be surprised. But I do think it was well orchestrated and it might have been the luck of the draw, Jack, rather than doing something like that on that particular day.

CAFFERTY: Mary, you have a couple of thoughts on this?

SCHIAVO: I do. Actually, there's a strategic reason also for that early morning flight, and that is as it was the first flight out you didn't have to worry about a delay on the inbound. And obviously a large percentage of U.S. domestic flights are delayed.

So by strategically selecting the first flight out, I know some people thought well it was the first flight because they loaded weapons on overnight. No. It was the first flight out because the timing was important. You know because once people figured out what was going on we did get fighters up there, scramble to get up in the air. So the first flight of the day offered a strategic advantage to them as well.

So I agree with Harvey. This was clearly extremely well planned out. And there are many other things that will certainly come out in the days ahead. For example did they make reservations and change them? American Airlines has a very good tracking system. They keep -- the literally keep book on us. They keep book on us so they can supposedly keep us happy.

But they also keep very careful records of how we've changed our reservations, et cetera. And that will be interesting to see if they had to wait for another day or an opportune time or had changed their reservations at all.

CAFFERTY: George is in North Carolina. George I'll be right with you. But Mary, I want to ask you one other thing. I read a story and I hope it's not true. I read a story that one of the airlines involved in this had gone to Congress to ask for some sort of legal immunity from civil prosecutions, law suits on the part of folks who died on those airplanes, almost before we knew what had happened. Is that story true? And if so, where does that stand.

SCHIAVO: Well that's on the Internet and it's widely reported. And in fact, there are some quotes by Senator McCain and he's usually right on an aviation issues. And he actually took the airlines to task. It's reported on the Internet that it was American Airlines literally the day after was lobbying Congress. Now whether it was American Airlines or not I know we've got a choice of two here.

CAFFERTY: Right.

SCHIAVO: But that they were lobbying to have Congress declare that people injured on the ground, only those on the plane and no one on the ground could seek any kind of accountability from that airline. That goes against literally everything that's been developed in American law to date.

But what's more shocking to me. I mean it's too early to be making those decisions right now. What's more shocking to me is before the care teams were even in place to take care of the victims, an airline was lobbying Congress to be absolved. Now that does not bode well. And I predict there will be a big backlash for that. That was in incredibly poor taste. And it was unbelievably crass and really did not reflect well on the aviation industry.

CAFFERTY: Yeah, Harvey.

KUSHNER: Yeah, Mary I have a question for you.

SCHIAVO: OK.

KUSHNER: I believe that a couple of the hijackers had first class tickets one way and sitting in seats 1A. Our computerized system of profiling wouldn't you think -- and I believe a first class ticket, one that was paid by cash, even by credit card. But shouldn't that have raised some eye brows in a computer some place. It seems to me that that to me is a typical exercise in what you should look for.

CAFFERTY: In what way? I'm not sure I understand.

SCHIAVO: Oh, yes. He's absolutely right. He is absolutely right. Buying a one-way ticket, particularly with cash is supposed to set off alarm bells. But unfortunately we have a piece meal system and so the alarm bells that sets off usually is to reconcile the passenger to the baggage. And buying a one-way ticket -- if you buy a one-way ticket with cash that's supposed to also set you up for closer profiling.

Unfortunately, the profiling that we do is very limited. You know did you pack your own bags, et cetera. If you checked a bag did you really get on the plane? Did you present the right credentials? You know the photo drivers license? And did you use a credit card? So that should have set off alarm bells. One way ticket cash is always supposed to gin up closer checking.

CAFFERTY: All right. Fair enough. George in North Carolina if you're real quick, what can we do for you? I'm getting behind here and it's my first night doing this.

GEORGE: Well my question is about the economic impact of -- if we have a long, drawn out war. I was wondering if we were going to step up production in the textile, plastic and the steel industry? Or are we going to reward these companies that moved off to Mexico and other countries?

CAFFERTY: That's a pretty fair question. I'm not sure how that would be done. My guess is that whether the factories are located in the United States or not that American companies will be called on first to do as much of the production that is necessary to gear up for this as possible.

And I would guess that it would be logical that only in the event that American companies couldn't produce all that was needed, well they'd go shop some place else. But your question, you're referring to the fact that a lot of American companies under NAFTA are located outside the United States and the jobs producing these goods now are no longer American jobs but rather foreign jobs, I don't know what to tell you. But it's a good question and that's another something that will be debated in the weeks and months ahead.

All right, Garrick Utley is going to update us on the news. And then as soon as we get finished with the news update, we have Tom Mintier, Tom Mintier rather who is in Islamabad, Pakistan who's going to join us on this program as we move into the final half-hour. Garrick, what's the latest?

UTLEY: Well Jack, our focus this evening on story number one is the ongoing investigation. Here are some of the newest developments this evening. The investigation of Tuesday's terrorist attacks. The U.S. justice department tells CNN that a second material witness has been brought into custody. The man was one of 25 people who were being questioned by the FBI or being held by U.S. Immigration services, the first material witness. That's someone who's supposed to know something or someone connected to the crime itself was arrested on Thursday.

And the U.S. justice department has also released photographs now of eight of the suspected hijackers. The pictures include four from American Airlines flight number 11, that was the first plane that hit the World Trade Center on Tuesday. There is one hijacker from United Airlines flight 175, which hit the World Trade Center's south Tower. And then there are three from United Airlines flight 93 which went down in rural Pennsylvania.

New York City rescue crews continue to hunt for survivors in the rubble there at the trade center even as hope is dimming. As we know, nearly 5000 people are listed as missing somewhere in that rubble at that sight.

Also, Saturday at a news conference it was revealed that investigators, searchers have found something of interest, the passport of one of the suspected hijackers. The passport somehow survived floating down from above. It was found some distance from the World Trade Center crash site itself.

And at the Camp David presidential retreat, U.S. President George W. Bush met with his advisers and told Americans to brace for what may come. He said U.S. Military personnel should be ready for a war. He said quote "We are at war."

And sources are telling us now that two of the hijackers of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon had been under surveillance by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence circles. The reason? A link to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen last year. Here's Eileen O'Connor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They booked the tickets on American Airlines flight 77 from Washington to Los Angeles on Travelocity using a New Jersey address of Mail Boxes Etc. And names U.S. officials confirmed were known to them, Khalid Adhmad (ph) and Salim Ahanzi (ph). Once on board. together with Ahanzi's (ph) brother and an old roommate and known pilot they took over the flight crashing it into the Pentagon. Within minutes, the facade of a simple of American strength crumbled.

As the search and rescue efforts continue sources say the FBI was informed that Halid Almedhar (ph) and Salim Ahanzi (ph) were associated with Osama bin Laden and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. One source confirms they had concrete evidence. Alhmedhar (ph) had met with a man who was later involved in the attack on the Cole.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One was kind of short and the other two were tall.

O'CONNOR: Almedhar (ph) was a frequent visitor of Ahanzi (ph) and his brother Nalwac (ph) in this San Diego apartment complex.

LEBARON COKER: They were always together. They left they were together. They'd come back stayed together.

O'CONNOR: They hung out a lot at the pool despite telling their neighbors they were studying at a nearby college.

FREDDIE EVANS: You would see three of them in pool swimming. Or you'd see the dude always looking at the window. Another one outside the door on the phone.

O'CONNOR: At one point, they left, telling one landlord they were in Arizona. Living in different cities at different addresses. As it turns out, rooming with another hijacker aboard that plane, Hani Hanjour (ph). Hani attended this flying school CRM Cockpit Resource Management, but left without a certification.

PAUL BLAIR: He's kind of a waste of time. He wouldn't show up for flights on time. He didn't his homework.

O'CONNOR: Not a promising student, but skilled enough to carry out the mission. Eileen O'Connor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UTLEY: And of course, the fact that that mission was successful and brutally and lethally carried out raises questions, Jack, of how is it possible. Nobody yet is pointing fingers of responsibility or blame. But that's going to come one day with the question of what -- how can you account for this massive intelligence failure?

A couple of facts. We have all kinds of agencies, CIA, you know spy satellite, defense department agencies. This nation spends, the figures are classified officially. You won't find it in the budget.

CAFFERTY: That may be one of the problems, yeah.

UTLEY: Thirty billion dollars a year is the biggest estimate. Now of those $30 billion only about three billion, that's about $10 billion this is an estimate again, goes to the CIA. Most of it going to defense related, to high tech, to satellite and certain NSA. These are very expensive operations. But they're designed basically by and large for the old kind of war. So some thinking is going to have to be done about where those intelligence dollars go.

CAFFERTY: Yeah, dawn of a new era. Gary, thanks very much. Thanks for being with me on the maiden voyage. If they let us come back tomorrow night I'll see you then. Garrick Utley.

Let's go to Tom Mintier. One of the early statements out of the government in the wake of this happening was that Pakistan was going to be called upon to meet a list of requests, in quotation marks, because of their geographic proximity to Afghanistan. And some other things of those requests included changes in border restrictions, possible cutting off of fuel line.

Tom Mintier is live in Islamabad where it's now 1:36 in the morning here in New York. Tom what's the latest?

TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well it's the middle of the morning here and the consensus building is continuing. You just look at the globe and you see where Pakistan sits. It's right next to Afghanistan. And if there is going to be any kind of military operation, the piece of the puzzle that may be the most important is Pakistan. And the United States realizes this and they called on Pakistan quite early on for their support.

Now yesterday there was a four hour meeting at the President's office in the cabinet room between the cabinet, the President and the National Security Counsel. And after that meeting, they said they had consensus to help the United States combat terrorism and bring whoever perpetrated the crime in the United States to justice.

What's going on today? The President is meeting with editorial writers. He's meeting with politicians. He's also meeting with religious leaders later in the day. Now this is part of an effort to sell the plan of helping the United States.

Now the foreign minister last night when he briefed reporters about his consensus that was reached within the Pakistani government, talked about the U.N. resolutions of the Security Counsel, not so much the United States. Saying that Pakistan would carry out its international responsibilities under the charter of the United Nations, reminiscent of what we saw many Arab countries going up into the build of the Gulf War as the coalition was being built. Relying on U.N. cover, if you will, to sell the assistance to the United States military at home.

So that's apparently what's going on here. There are very important meetings.

If President Musharraf if to sell this plan to his people in Pakistan, the meetings that are going on now with the opinion makers, the movers and shakers in Pakistan and the religious leaders to basically put the word out of why the assistance is being offered.

So we should know later in the day and maybe even tomorrow in the editorials in the newspapers how effective he was in swaying their opinion and putting it into print for the public to read here.

Because at first blush yesterday when they heard that there was consensus to help the United States there were a lot of upset people we talked to in the streets saying that this puts Pakistan out in the front. And we've already heard the threat from the Taliban that anyone who helps the United States is seen as an enemy of theirs, and that they would be attacked as well.

So there are some very nervous people in and out of the government in Pakistan. The government is now trying to put together consensus within the country. Trying to make sure that everyone is on board of the decision that the government has made.

You must remember that this is not a democratically elected government. This is a military government. So there are no real divisions in the military. They're running and controlling things here. And as one government official pointed out to me very strongly that they're all together on the same page pushing forward.

Now U.S. President George W. Bush called the Pakistani President last night. They spoke on the phone for about 10 minutes -- 10 to 15 minutes after the decision was made by Pakistan to assist the United States. So that is the first time we know of that the U.S. President has called President Musharraf.

He has -- Colin Powell has made several calls in the days leading up to this meeting yesterday. But President Bush spoke for 10 minutes to President Musharraf. So we'll have to wait and see in the coming days how this offer of assistance plays out here domestically -- Jack.

CAFFERTY: Tom, thank you. One of our viewers, Tom, has a question you might be able to answer. Lisa is on the phone from Florida. Lisa, what's your question?

LISA: Hello. Well I have a question and I have quick comment afterwards. Now Pakistan seems begrudgingly agreeing to all of our requests but at the price of economic aid. Why do we need rented allegiance like this? When we can go a few miles to the North to Russia and her former satellite states, use their facilities, recruit their veterans from the Afghan war.

I mean the Russians share a lot of common ground with us. They're desperate for the money. They have a lot of the same problems that we have. And are more likely to remain an ally as opposed to Pakistanis. So why don't we do that as opposed to go with the Pakistanis?

CAFFERTY: That's a very good question. But you do have to understand that Pakistan is one of just a couple of nations that have relations with the Taliban. The intelligence that the Pakistanis may have on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden could be critical for any U.S. military planning.

There is also the fact that the Taliban are still talking. You find that anywhere else. The intelligence from this side of the Afghan border is critical. And it's apparent that the Russians are on board. So you have both sides of Afghanistan basically being isolated and boxed out. While they'd like to keep the diplomatic channels open and continue to work the diplomatic efforts, the military options are being weighed and considered.

And I'm sure those at the Pentagon are looking at the maps and looking at the intelligence where the centers are that they can gather the best intelligence on the Taliban and on Afghanistan and on Osama bin Laden. And Pakistan is a critical player in that. If there is to be a plan put together, Pakistan is vital. And you can see that in how quickly the Secretary of State made the reach out to Pakistan to join in. They know how critical it is. And they made the effort very early on to get Pakistan on board.

CAFFERTY: All right. Tom Mintier, thanks very much. He's live in Islamabad, Pakistan. Lisa, thank you. Major Garret at the White House. What about this idea of Russian cooperation? Are they paying lip service to what happened in the United States? Or can we count on them for something besides rhetoric?

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Oh Jack, I think the United States and President Bush and the senior advisers expect much more than rhetoric from the Russians. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One thing I'd like to share with our viewers. Out State Department reporter Andrea Koppel was able to provide some information today about the scope, the international scope, of the casualty list at the World Trade Center.

Let me start off with one nation, Russia, 96 missing. Let's talk about some other nations as this coalition broadens out then I'll return to the question about Russia. The United Kingdom 100 dead; Switzerland eight dead, 280 missing; India 250 missing; Germany four dead, 550 missing; Canada 150 missing. As the United States broadens this coalition it finds willing nations because they too have suffered this act of terrorism.

Now let's get back to Russia. There are several angles here. One of them is Russia as you may recall has a terrorism problem of its own. Bombs have exploded in Moscow set by Chechen rebels, have killed many dozens of Russians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is acutely aware of this. And he sees within this world revulsion at the terrorism committed against the United States an opportunity to also create the same revulsion about the terrorism that has affected his own capital, his own people.

And it is the understanding of the U.S. government that as Russia provides assistance, provides aid, it will also at least tacitly be seeking a green light to prosecute it's own internal campaign against Chechen terrorism as a way of responding to terrorism in the way the United States no doubt wants to respond to the act of terrorism against the United States.

Tom Mintier is absolutely correct. The entire effort here is to isolate as much as possible not only the Taliban but Osama bin Laden. And Tom Mintier's other point about the intelligence, the human intelligence simply cannot be underestimated. One of the problems that disabled, and in many respects hamstrung, President Clinton in 1998 when he was trying to respond with cruise missiles and other means to the terrorism attacks of the two U.S. embassies in Africa was the United States simply had no human intelligence from Pakistan because it was not provided about Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

You'll recall those cruise missile missed their targets. There was intelligence suspecting that a camp was in fact there and that many of the Osama bin Laden followers would have been killed. Nobody in fact turned out to have been there. A huge failure of human intelligence. That's something U.S. government believes Pakistan can provide. And so in addition to isolating Osama bin Laden, the United States government wants to as best as it possibly can obtain that human intelligence which may only be available to Pakistan.

CAFFERTY: All right, thanks. Major Garrett in Washington. Let me ask our terrorism expert, Harvey Kushner author of the "Future of Terrorism." How much realistically can we demand on the Soviet Union or Russia -- not the Soviet Union anymore -- for?

KUSHNER: Jack, I think very little. I'm not sanguine about Pakistan aid either. I believe that Osama bin Laden has infiltrated Pakistan in a quite official support in the Chechens infiltrated with bin Laden's supporters. And I think that the Russians, Putin would rather just look at this as America's problem. Give lip service to the world communities how could he not. The same thing with the Pakistanis they're going to do it but can they deliver it?

I wouldn't station American troops in Pakistan. I wouldn't trust them. I might want to use their air space. I think the issue is very complex. Let's face it, that whole area is a powder keg. We have Iran who would love to move in on a crippled Afghanistan and you have also Russia. This is why the problem is immense and at this point in time everybody's jumping in. But when it gets hot I don't count on the Russians for support. I wouldn't count on the Pakistani government for support as well.

CAFFERTY: Now you wonder based on history that you know when the bullets start flying who's going to be standing there along side us to be ...

KUSHNER: Not only Jack, more importantly Peshua (ph), Pakistan is really the thoroughfare of the terrorist ferrying back and forth between.

CAFFERTY: Right. A wide open border.

KUSHNER: And that's where we picked Ramzi Yousef in safe house that Osama bin Laden has supported all of these years.

CAFFERTY: Jerry in New Jersey you have a question -- Kelly I'm sorry. Excuse me. That's what I said Jerry in New Jersey.

JOEY: No, it's Joey.

CAFFERTY: Joey, I apologize. It's very late and I'm tired.

JOEY: First of all my sympathies to the families of the terrorist attack of the World Trade Center. But I have a question, my sister and my brother-in-law tonight came up with something. Why on the airplanes can't they just half a gas to release that they can put the passengers to sleep for an hour if in fact there's a hijacking where the pilots could go land safely somewhere?

CAFFERTY: Mary Schiavo would probably know the answer to that. It sounds like a good idea to me. I don't know -- I'm not a sophisticated aviation expert what but about that? Some sort of disabling agent?

SCHIAVO: Well that is one that I hadn't heard considered in the FAA during my 10 year at the department of transportation. But it would work for this reason. The only people on the aircraft that have smoke hoods that have protective breathing equipment or PBEs are the pilots and the flight attendants other than passengers like myself who happen to carry their own.

But literally those would be the only people that would be protected from the gas because passengers don't have them. And those little oxygen masks that fall from the ceiling wouldn't do a thing.

So theoretically it would work, but you'd have to make sure you know the pilots and the flight attendants got the PBEs on and not the hijackers.

So I've never heard that one. I've heard lots of stuff. Even gases for fire extinguishing but not that one.

CAFFERTY: I'm just sitting here thinking, I wonder, too, what kind of potential liability you might encounter if you found somebody on the plane who had a sensitivity to whatever the agent was. I mean you could get into a whole long discussion I suppose. But it's not a bad idea.

SCHIAVO: Well you actually did have that problem on one foreign flight where they had a very unruly passenger and they did inject him something to calm him down and that passenger died. So you probably would have liability like that. But the caller said to put them sleep, lots of people are sensitive to it. But that is one that I can honestly say I hadn't heard discussed in the department of transportation.

CAFFERTY: Interesting. Adam in Kansas what's your question?

ADAM: Hey, I was wondering with the talk of a ground war in Afghanistan that we heard rumors of is the administration worried this could turn into another Vietnam with as mountainous terrain -- this terrain is?

CAFFERTY: You know the Russians spent 20 years in there. They finally had to give up and go away. I mean they couldn't get it done. I mean this is arguably the toughest terrain in the world to try to fight a ground war in. What about that?

KUSHNER: Yeah, British also as well. No -- and we built the structures for the Osama to withstand Soviet carpet bombing for years.

CAFFERTY: Yeah, with western money financed the effort against the Russians.

KUSHNER: Exactly. Gave them stinger missiles which we're trying to purchase back not. No I don't think we want to get involved in a protracted war because the country still has memory of Vietnam. And you know again, America has a blessing I that philosophically we forget very easily. And sometimes ignorance is bliss. But in this case, I think we're in for a long protracted war but certainly not on the ground in Afghanistan. That would be as bad as getting into a land war down in South America with the drug trade.

CAFFERTY: Yeah. Major Garrett in Washington, one of the great fears when the current President's father, George Herbert Walker Bush committed to going in against Saddam Hussein was that the American appetite for prosecuting a ground war would pale very quickly with the body bags began coming out.

For wont of a better way to phrase it that ground war in Iraq would be walk in the park compared to the kind of thing potentially that ground troops would get into in Afghanistan. What about that potential for simply destroying in a very short period of time perhaps the American will to do this thing?

GARRETT: I don't -- I think we want to be careful and not get too far ahead of ourselves. You know there is a sense -- people look at the maps strategically to talk well would it require ground troops? All the administration has said so far is it's not ruling out ground troops. It has never given a wink or a nod that we should prepare for ground troops. What the President has said is I'm ruling nothing out. We should prepare for every eventuality.

But we had a caller earlier asking about are we going to try to find ways to domestically produce more textiles, more steel, more other goods associated with a 20th century type of war. And again, the President is trying to prepare all of us to understand that those kinds of thoughts Rosie the Riveter and a massive industrial build up is probably not what we're going to be encountering here because the enemy is shadowy, elusive, in many different places.

And he's also saying, you know, don't think about this in a traditional or military sense. And that I would suggest to you perhaps argue against active contemplation of a ground war in a place as distant as Afghanistan.

CAFFERTY: Fair enough.

GARRETT: Though it's worth pointing out the administration has ruled nothing out. But I don't think it is laying the kind of ground work yet for that. And of course, you referenced a point about Iraq, it was very much on the minds of the President, George Herbert Walker Bush to stay within the confines of the U.N. resolution and not pursue that ground war through Baghdad. There's been innumerable second guessing about that. And one of the factors of course was can the United States sustain the kind of casualties politically and otherwise.

CAFFERTY: No, there's a lot of second guessing. And hindsight being 20/20 a lot of people wondering why we didn't do more than what we did I think in Iraq. Tom, on the phone in Connecticut what's your question. Oh, I'm sorry Arlene in California, what can we do for you?

ARLENE: Yes, hello. It's a well-known fact that people all over the world get their information from CNN. Knowing this why do you give the specifics on passenger profiling that could be of great interest to future terrorists? And shouldn't you as responsible journalists exercise discretion when it comes to divulging articulate information or critical information.

CAFFERTY: That's a legitimate question. And I don't -- it doesn't even need defending. But let me in context just suggest that comment came up in a effort to understand why our security people and the agencies charged with preventing the kind of tragedy that happened last Tuesday were unable to pick this up? And the man sitting to my left Harvey Kushner has been studying this stuff all of his life. And I think he was trying to shed a little light on the fact that there were some signs. If we'd really been paying attention that perhaps there were some signs. Harvey you can ...

KUSHNER: And Jack, I wasn't giving up the profiling system which I'm not privy to the inner workings of. But the question I ask Mary is one of the most basic things, a one-way ticket by cash.

CAFFERTY: Right.

KUSHNER: You know this begs the question Jack, I just want to move back for a second. We've been looking at really the nuts and bolts of you know reactive measures. I'd like to ratchet up our efforts in human intelligence. You know, we're calling this Operation Noble Eagle. We should have Operation Noble Effort. And make it a noble profession once again to join the CIA, join the SA -- NSA, FBI.

In other words, I want to be able to get people inside these organizations that would do us harm. So they're going to make that call prior to somebody boarding the plane, so it makes our people at the airports look good that they stopped them as they got on a plane.

CAFFERTY: Is it a legitimate criticism that we've come to rely too heavily on technical intelligence and the ability of gizmos and things. And you know you talk to New York City detectives, they'll tell you want to catch the bad guy you've got to put money in the street. And you've got to be willing to associate with the guys. And there's no substitute for that.

KUSHNER: Absolutely. You look at domestic crime and I think it's the same in fighting terrorism. It's the tipster. The person, informant that gets the case done.

CAFFERTY: I had promised I wanted to ask you this and we're coming up on the end of this thing. What is it that is engendered so much hatred toward the United States in that part of the world? And what if anything can be done about it besides going to war over that?

KUSHNER: Jack, it's a multi-faceted problem. Certainly we could begin by the support of certain countries in that region. America's support of -- steadfast support of the state of Israel obviously is a thorn in the side of the Arab communities. America's involvement in what's perceived as the holy land defiling. You know being in Saudi Arabia.

What's an irritant particularly to Osama bin Laden is the fact that the Infidels, the United States in particular got involved in a Muslim issue which was the rape and invasion of Iraq of Kuwait which they view that Kuwait was drawn by the west itself.

So it's not just one particular thing. It's a whole group of things. And interestingly enough many different groups there focus in one the irritant is. And they all come together as one thing, the hatred for the United States. It's that pot that brews continuously. It's not just the Israeli issue. It's not just being in Saudi Arabia. It's not just our involvement in the Persian Gulf War. It's the fact that within this interpretation of Islam that technology and the West and the Western way of life is blasphemy, is an apostasy to these people. It's a whole very complicated groups of issues. And it's not just one thing.

CAFFERTY: Is it too late to get involved in some sort of proactive foreign policy in that part of the world? We are dependent on oil perhaps because again of our complacency about energy problems in this country. We consume a tremendous amount of it. And a lot it has to come from the middle east. We are strong supporters of the Israeli's in a political alliance that goes back over 50 years now. But is there something in the way of a foreign policy initiative that could be started that might begin to at least blunt the intensity, the white hot heat of the hatred over there?

KUSHNER: Well we need to support, you know I said before when Jeff was here earlier, the misery, the poverty in that region precipitates this type of behavior. So obviously a foreign policy that addresses that particular issue.

But we also have to understand the world is a bad neighborhood and there's some bad people out there who want to do us harm. And we can't fight what is it the Marcus (ph) of Queensberry (ph) rules of fair fight, you know. Role up your sleeves.

CAFFERTY: Right. A gentleman's agreement.

KUSHNER: You know we might have to roll back President Ford's directive not to assassinate people. I don't want to get into a policy of assassination. But I think everybody out there understands what I mean. We need covert operations sometimes to take somebody out when that's a particular issue.

And we've got to get that human intelligence in the ground so we put people in the right positions in government. And not necessarily despots. Maybe good people. And understand that that region in the world doesn't get democracy overnight.

CAFFERTY: All right. Harvey, author of Future Terrorism. Harvey Kushner thank you very much for being with us tonight. It's been most interesting. I've enjoyed it.

KUSHNER: Well good luck in your show.

CAFFERTY: And Mary Schiavo, thank you. Former Department of Transportation inspector general, author of the best seller Flying Blind, Flying Safe. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll do this again. And mostly thank you people for watching this. This is maiden voyage of CNN HOTLINE.

We leave you tonight with some remarkable images of New York's firefighters who are some of the real heroes of all of this as captured by the photographers of the Associated Press and put together by a friend and colleague of mine Peter Viles. We caution you some of these images are graphic, disturbing but they are moving and very germane to what's going on.

Thanks again. I'm Jack Cafferty. I think we'll see you again tomorrow night.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com