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CNN Live Event/Special

America's New War

Aired September 17, 2001 - 22:00   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.
ANNOUNCER: This is a CNN Special Report: "America's New War."

The president vows retribution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our heroes will now open the marketplace.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: And Wall Street is back to business.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are one country today committed, unified in the pursuit to find and punish and obliterate those who committed that horrible act against this great nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: But by the closing bell, the Dow suffers its worse point loss ever.

Now in New York, here's Aaron Brown.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. America was back in business today. The markets opened, the computers and the telephones all worked. Only investors were uncooperative. They showed up in droves and sold. Not the worst day ever, not even close to that, but it was plenty bad enough. And if you were counting on airline stocks to fund your retirement, don't give up your job. Not yet.

And how's this for a contrast? Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our heroes will now open the marketplace -- the green button. (APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: The New York Stock Exchange alive with activity for the first time since Tuesday's attack. Thousands of traders roaring their approval as firefighters rang the opening bell, the beginning of today's brutal session.

The other image, brutal in the truest sense of the world: the ruins of the World Trade Center, where perhaps thousands lost their lives. Workers today continued to pour through the rubble hoping to find survivors, but that hope continues to dwindle as we near the one- day (sic) mark.

Today's opening bell on Wall Street was seen as a critical moment in the crisis. The free market was confronting the tyranny that was unleashed on New York last week. And in one vital way, at least,the free market won.

That the market was opened at all was a remarkable fact, given the destruction just blocks away. Political rivals gathered on the podium for that opening bell, and the Federal Reserve delivered an emergency interest rate cut before the market opened. But fear overwhelmed investors.

The market today lost a staggering $600 billion, about $1.5 billion per minute. The Dow ended up with its worst point loss in history. And the psychological toll on traders must have been high. As one said, "it smells like death" in lower Manhattan.

And death wasn't far away for the traders in both New York and in Chicago. As they were about to begin the opening session, there was a brief moment of silence. Silence is a rare thing in those places. Here is how it went.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BELL RINGING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: That was Chicago and that is how it began. And then it got ugly. CNN Financial Reporter Peter Viles is covering the day on the markets, and he joins us now to talk about it -- Peter.

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was really strange. You had two big stories today. You had this determined, emotional and patriotic effort to get the markets reopened to show the world that America was back in business, that terrorists could not stop the world's greatest market. But then you had this very dispassionate process, involving the same people, of putting a price tag on what the terrorists had done.

And the same people had to do both jobs on a day when they went back to work and learned whose brothers had survived, whose wives were missing, whose cousins were still missing. So a tremendous amount of emotion. Markets can be emotional at any time, but usually it's restricted to greed and fear. And now you had patriotism in the mix and all these other things. But at the same time, this process of putting a price tag on it.

BROWN: Everyone talked about today as an orderly market. What does that mean?

VILES: It means that there was no portion of the day when buyers and settlers didn't match up. If you wanted to buy something, you could. If you wanted to sell something, there was a buyer. And today we heard about this as a good thing, that it was orderly and its wasn't panicked selling. And perhaps it was, but at the end of the day, your stocks were probably worth 7 percent less, whether it was panic selling or not.

BROWN: Off the top of your head, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) numbers today.

VILES: I think the Dow was down 684 points. It had been down at its worst, 721, so it closed near the bottom. The Nasdaq also lost 7 percent, down 115 points. We have seen worse percentage point sell- offs. We saw much worse selling in the spring of 2000 when the bubble burst. So it wasn't a calamitous day, as far as the selling, but it was steady selling. It was not volatile, it was pretty much straight down.

BROWN: Well, pretty much straight down. Actually, I mean, as I watched it...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: It would come back up a bit and then it would seem to push a little lower and then come back a little bit. There was never that burst at the end that I think the optimists out there hoped for.

VILES: Sure. There had been some hope for volatility, which means you'd have some sweep upward, which we never really did have today. And that would have to tell you that, regardless of the patriotic feelings among individual investors, that the big institutions today were selling.

BROWN: Peter, thank you. Peter Viles joins us today.

We said at the beginning America went back to work today. America went back to play tonight. In Dodger stadium out in Los Angeles, the ball game is about to begin, and a ball game begins with the national anthem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): "The Star-Spangled Banner."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The ballpark's filling up. I'm not sure they were filled across the country tonight. Lots of empty seats there, but the L.A. crowd, as they always say, arrives late. In any case, the game is on. Play ball.

So it wasn't just Wall Street that went back to work. Lots of people did, particularly through here in New York, where last week not a whole lot of people worked, at least not in Manhattan. But for many people, work itself seemed somewhat different today. Maybe it's just for a moment, a week, maybe less, who knows -- but it did seem to some to be a patriotic duty to get on the job, at least for people here.

Here's CNN's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It wasn't just the financial district that went back to work in New York City today. So did construction crews, cashiers and grocery baggers. Cobblers, truckers and delivery workers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody's got to go to work. Got to take your mind off everything that's happening. Got to go back to work.

NISSEN: For New Yorkers, going back to work was an important demonstration of unity. Guy Fusani (ph) opened his shoe repair shop today, even though his brother-in-law is among the missing.

GUY FUSANI, SHOPKEEPER: Part of showing that unity is to get back to work, go through the motions. I'm just going through the motions this week.

NISSEN: Even going through the motions succeeded in getting the city's economy in motion again. For days, stores and cash drawers have been closed. Today hands idled last week started working again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are all part of one economy.

NISSEN: New Yorkers seemed to appreciate a new today, that their city's economy, their nation's economy is made up of millions of interconnected pieces, and that even making a sandwich can be important, can generate cash flow and profit the spirit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody has the little share in life, from the lowest to the biggest. And I share my part by doing sandwiches and talking to my customers. I feel great about it.

NISSEN: Many workers who before last week just worked for a paycheck, today seemed to see their work as having some purpose. These men were working to replace a ruined boiler.

Even loading dresses onto a truck in the garment district had meaning today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It ain't the job you do, it's the support that you're showing while you're doing your job.

NISSEN: For many New Yorkers, returning to work was a measure of their resilience and resolve. A measure of their determination to stand up to America's enemies. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to keep going, we're going to keep growing. And there's nothing they're going to do to stop us.

NISSEN: It will be a long time before it is anything like normal in this city, but because drivers and cooks and secretaries showed up to do their jobs today, New Yorkers could do a few normal things: shop for dinner and tomorrow's school lunches, get a haircut, go on with life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just shows that we're not going to be beaten by anyone. They can't take our spirit away. We have to keep going. That's what we do in New York. That's what we should do as a country, just keep going.

NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So the country was back in business today, but ti's anything but business as usual, or business as business people would like it to be.

We're joined tonight by Earl Graves, the CEO of "Black Enterprise" magazine. And listen to this resume. He's also on the board of the federated stores at American Airlines and an honorary fire chief as well. You were also down at ground zero today.

EARL GRAVES, "BLACK ENTERPRISE" MAGAZINE: Yes, I was.

BROWN: It was horrible, wasn't it? I flew over it yesterday.

GRAVES: Absolutely. It's looks like a movie set, it's so unreal.

BROWN: Yes. Let's start with stock markets, I'm confused about this. I'm not sure if it was good what happened there or bad what happened there. Which was it?

GRAVES: Well, obviously it wasn't good. I mean, when you lose in the billions of dollars we lost today, that's not good. On the other hand, we can look forward to a turnaround, and I think we're going to see that in a couple of days. I don't think we're going to see this market stay where it is.

And each time that we've had, whether or not it's the Persian Gulf war, World War II, if you want to go all the way back -- I can go back that far -- and you look at where we are today and how the market came back, then it did come back, my sense is -- I was really surprised that it really went down the way it did today. I mean, I knew it would get hammered, but I thought the midday, when I saw the turn, it was going to stay that way. And I was surprised to see it.

BROWN: Given the that you were wrong there in sort of what was going to happen today, why do you feel so confident that it's going to make a turn within a day or two? GRAVES: Well, first of all, historically it has done that, that's No. 1. And No. 2, I think there were just some adjustments that had to be made. I think when people start looking at some of the bargains that are there, that we're going to see that turnaround. And if you just look at the travel industry, if we wanted to move to that, we're seeing layoffs by the thousands, which I think is unfortunate.

So what is happening there and what's causing it?? Well, first of all, the millions of dollars that the airlines are taking every day, that's gone away. If you look at the travel industry itself, whether you're from the car travel businesses, if you're talking about destinations where people are going to go, if you're talking about something as basic as closing National Airport and all those small businesses that are in that airport, what happens to that?

And the answer is that the federal government is going to have to step up, and step up in a big way. And still, we're going to see airlines that are going to fail and not make it. And I think that that will be one of the sign posts, in terms of what will tell us is going to be a turnaround to what happened. I don't think that turnaround, quite frankly, is going to happen before the second half of next year.

BROWN: Obviously, the economy was not in fabulous shape a week ago tonight. It was OK, it wasn't (UNINTELLIGIBLE), but it wasn't fabulous. As I looked over there today, and talking about the market, I thought boy, are they going to have to buy a lot of computers and a lot of steel to rebuild buildings and a lot of new telephones and all the rest. Does the tragedy -- does rebuilding from the tragedy, in a sense, give the economy a jolt?

GRAVES: It will give it a lift. I think you're going to see it happen sooner rather than later, in terms of that happening. I think where it's going to be slower is not so much in the building -- I think that will happen. That will happen because this is New York and we get on with it, and this is the United States and it's a great country, and therefore we're used to turning things around and making it happen. That's what makes this the greatest country in the world.

But beyond that, now, where you're going to see the differences -- what jobs are going to replace the jobs that these people from the airlines will find themselves out of? What jobs will replace the contracts that are now at Boeing for several new aircraft, and the airlines not being able to buy them. Well, does that mean there's a layoff there? So when will that stop?

As we look at it, this year, where the economy has not been going in the right direction, this will be the third-best year the auto industry has ever had, so again, that will be one of the guideposts in terms of -- consumer spending will make the difference, in terms of when we'll see the turnaround.

BROWN: And that's a product of, certainly, people working, but it's also a product of how people are thinking, what the psychology is out there. It affects enormously, for example, what people buy during the holiday season. GRAVES: Well, look at the retail industry. Now, I'm also, as I said or as you said earlier, on the board of federated. If you look at what we normally would take in within the range of companies we have and what we have done in the last week because of this, it's just devastating. I was in one of the stores today. You could roll a bowling ball down the aisles, in terms of people not being in the stores.

They're not -- first of all, their psyche doesn't say they want to do it. Secondly, they're afraid, in terms of looking at the economy, do I have this money to spend, and what we're now and what will be the last quarter of the year. This is where the whole game is played, terms of the retail industry. And if it doesn't happen in the 45 days at the end of the year -- we look from Thanksgiving to just after Christmas, it won't happen at all. And I don't think -- we didn't expect it to be but so good in any event this year, and now we look at what has happened. My sense is, it's not going to be a very happy story.

BROWN: Take off your executive hat for a minute and put on your firefighter hat for a second. This has been a devastating experience for New York's greatest. Have you been to the fire houses?

GRAVES: I have. There's a fire house right across the street from my office, and we've kind of adopted that fire station. But then again, we've been doing this -- I mean, the Volunteer Firefighters Association offices are, that's something we do and contribute money all the time.

But when you look at it, the fact is that whether or not you're talking about our police department, talking about our fire department, they are the best in the world. They are the best in the world, in terms of training and doing their job, and in their sense of purpose and desire.

Now, that doesn't mean in other parts of the country that the fire persons are not identifiable, but this is a different breed of person, when you start talking about New York.

BROWN: One final thing: Are the firefighters getting the feeling of love and respect...

GRAVES: Absolutely.

BROWN: They do feel that.

GRAVES: And you can see them saying, "thank you." I mean, if you just go by the fire house I was speaking to, I went out to the fire headquarters this afternoon, and you can see the sense of the people looking at firemen in a much different light. Maybe it was unfortunate it took a tragedy, but it did. And I think you're seeing the best of New York happening right now.

And I think we also have to applaud the mayor of New York. I think he's done an outstanding job in this situation, and has really shown real leadership. BROWN: Nice to talk to you. Thanks for coming in. Sit tight for just a moment, OK?

Are we -- David, I have to ask you, are we -- OK, it is -- sometimes this happens, it's live TV. This is the beginning of the Jewish high holy days, the Jewish new year began tonight. This is, I believe, the Sieben Weiss (ph) free synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And these are live pictures of Rosh Hashanah services going on. We'll have more on all that went on. This is one of the first real big gatherings, I guess, going on in the city today, and we'll take a look at that coming up a little bit later in the program.

On to other matters. He's been talking tough really from the start. Now the president is stepping up the rhetoric. He certainly did today. This is what he had to say today about the terrorists behind the attack a week ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Osama Bin Laden is just one person. He is representative of networks of people who absolutely have made their cause to defeat the freedoms that we understand. And we will not allow him to do so.

QUESTION: Do you want Bin Laden dead?

BUSH: I want him -- I want justice. And there is old poster out west as I recall that said, "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: No one in White House is willing to elaborate on the president's comments while they stand there tonight, as they were spoken at the at the Pentagon this afternoon. The investigation moves forward.

CNN's Kelli Arena joins us tonight with where it stands. Kelli, good evening.

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Well, while the FBI is piecing together the many threads of this investigation, the attorney general is lobbying to give investigators more power to do their jobs. Now, to date: the FBI says that it has received more than 50,000 leads, and a manhunt continues for 185 people that the FBI have identified as individuals who may have information about last Tuesday's terrorist attacks.

There are at least 49 people in INS custody, and at least four people are being held in New York as material witnesses. Among those, a San Antonio doctor who was taken into custody last week, Albador Alhazmi, and he has a similar last name as two of the hijackers, and investigators are looking into whether he trained at the same flight school as another hijacker.

Now, while the investigation is making progress, the FBI is asking the public for help. It's seeking and recruiting citizens with proficiency in Arabic and Farsi. Meanwhile, the attorney general is warning, once again, that there is information that more people involved in the plot to pull off Tuesday's attacks remain in the United States.

And sources tell CNN that some confiscated materials suggest that the terrorists had backup plans to their hijacking plots. The attorney general says that's why Congress needs to move fast to change some laws, most notably wiretap laws.

And finally, Aaron, the FBI says that it has initiated more than 40 hate crime investigations. There have been reports of assaults, arson and threatening communications against the Arab American community, and at least one murder of a Muslim in Arizona is also believed to be a hate crime. The Justice Department vows to aggressively prosecute these crimes, but the investigations are taxing, as you know, already strained resources.

Back to you, Aaron.

BROWN: Well, there was a tantalizing bit in there, the idea that there was a backup plan. Do we know how they know that, and do we know what it was?

ARENA: Well, we know that there were some vehicles that were found that are believed to have belonged or driven by some of the hijackers. And we know that there was material that was confiscated from those vehicles. Sources do tell us that it's from those vehicles that they found information that suggested that there was a backup plan.

The only thing that I could get at this point from our sources, Aaron, was that it was a more traditional backup plan. Now, "traditional" -- I talked to some terrorism experts -- what does that mean? They said, well, maybe it meant a car bomb attack, or a suicide bombing, something like that, but couldn't get anything more specific.

As you know, there is a seal on all of the information and it's drying up quickly, Aaron. As this progresses and as more and more people are taken into custody, as more material witnesses are in custody, we will start to see that information flow dry up a bit. So it's going to take a little more work to get more specifics.

BROWN: When the FBI director stood up there today and made this appeal for people familiar in Farsi and Arabic, it was actually sort of remarkable in a way. It wasn't that long ago that they would have asked for people who could speak Russian and Chinese.

ARENA: That's right.

BROWN: The world has changed, hasn't it?

ARENA: It sure has. And they also said that they made it clear that they wanted U.S. citizens, and people who had been permanent residents of the U.S. for three out of the last five years. So you know, while they need the help, they are being picky about exactly who they recruit.

BROWN: A lot of work to be done. Thank you, Kelli. Kelli Arena works the Justice Department for us. Thank you for joining us.

Other parts of the investigation to take a look at. The case is also leading investigators to flight schools around the country, where some of the terrorists apparently learned to fly. CNN national correspondent Eileen O'Connor on that tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): FBI and ATF agents pursuing leads, hitting paydirt.

In custody, Zacarias Moussaoui, who came into the U.S. in February on a student visa for flight school. Picked up by the INS on August 17th for visa violations, he was still in custody when the attack on the World Trade Center began. Investigative sources say he may have been involved with associates of Osama Bin Laden, including those involved in the attack.

He has now been transferred to New York for questioning, where sources say he is not cooperating. Moussaoui was studying, according to sources, at this flight school in Oklahoma. That interests investigators, because a person linked to Bin Laden, Ihab Ali, also studied at this school a few years before.

Testimony by government-protected witnesses at the trial of those accused in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya indicated Ali trained at the Oklahoma school at the request of Bin Laden, to be a pilot in his private jet fleet.

The strategy by Bin Laden of training pilots for use in terrorist attacks uncovered at the trial appears to have been repeated in preparation for the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Hani Hanjour, one of the dead suspected Pentagon hijackers, studied here in May, at Freeway Airport, in Bowie, Maryland, 25 miles from Washington, D.C. and the White House.

MARCEL BERNARD, FREEWAY AIRPORT: So we can take a look inside to just get a general look and feel of this type of trainer.

O'CONNOR: Hanjour wanted to rent a Cessna 172, says owner Marcel Bernard, but he needed to prove he was good enough, and went up three times with two instructors.

BERNARD: On the last flight, they made it clear to him that they felt that his overall proficiency was so poor that they were going to insist that he do a little more flying with us and get some additional training before they would allow him to rent an aircraft.

O'CONNOR: Hanjour didn't come back, and while landing a Cessna is far different from landing a 757, Bernard says keeping it in the air isn't.

BERNARD: We believe that even though he didn't necessarily have experience in jets, that once the airplane was airborne, that he could have easily pointed it in any direction he wanted to, and crashed it into a building or whatever would be a real feasibility, real possibility.

O'CONNOR: A possibility that apparently became a reality at the Pentagon.

Eileen O'Connor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And while we look at the Pentagon, let's look at the Pentagon tonight. The construction cranes have moved in. The beginning of rebuilding has started. The Pentagon tonight lit up, and look at that gash. You know, how many times we've seen it, and it's stunning, or at least it stuns every time.

This CNN Special Reports continues in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Afghanistan's Islamic clerics will meet tomorrow. They're the people who run the country, and they'll meet tomorrow to decide what to do with Osama Bin Laden. They are under growing pressure to give him up, send him out of the country. A Pakistani delegation met with them today and said, point bland, we are told, "give Osama Bin Laden up or face U.S. military attack."

For more on this, CNN's Nic Robertson, who is the only western journalist in the country and files tonight from Kandahar.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Pakistani diplomats delivering a very blunt message indeed, telling Mohammed Omar, the supreme leader of the Taliban and his foreign minister, that they had very little time to make the decision, and the responsibility was theirs to do it quickly.

The focus does shift from Kandahar, the spiritual capital of Afghanistan, to Kabul, the capital, tomorrow, Tuesday. There are 600 top religious clerics from around the country who are expected to meet Mohammed Omar, the spiritual leader. The Taliban has requested they attend to make decisions on the issue of Osama Bin Laden, also on the issue of how Afghanistan should respond if attacked by the United States.

The clerics could reach decisions fairly quickly if they choose to, and interestingly, in the last couple of days, a regional group of tribal elders, including clerics, met, and their decision, their condition to the Taliban was that the Taliban should not close the door on diplomacy. They reached that conclusion fairly quickly. It remains to be seen how quickly these clerics meet their decision -- make their decision on Tuesday.

We're hearing reports this evening as well at the border of refugees -- perhaps more middle class escapees -- leaving Afghanistan, those with the money who could get out. Government officials, businessmen, who understand they've been taking their families to border with Pakistan. Now that it's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) some of those families leaving their cars in Afghanistan and walking across the border into Pakistan.

We understand that the situation at the border now is one that there is a buildup of cars and a buildup of people waiting to get into neighboring Pakistan.

I'm Nic Robertson, CNN, Kandahar, Afghanistan.

BROWN: It is easy for the United States, or any country, for that matter, to threaten Afghanistan. It's quite another thing to do something about it. It's a tough and difficult place. Just ask the Russians: after 10 years they had only casualties to show for it -- lots of causalities.

Lessons learned tonight from our Moscow correspondent, Jill Dougherty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here, more than 20 years ago in the treacherous mountains of Afghanistan, Leo Korolkov fought a war like no other. His assignment was to train Soviet special operations commandos, similar to America's delta force.

LEO KOROLKOV, FORMER SPECIAL SERVICES TRAINER (through translator): Modern weapons, rockets, laser-guided missiles -- they're useless against these mountains.

DOUGHERTY: Leo was there when Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan, and he was there when they left. After a decade of fight and 15,000 dead.

KOROLKOV (through translator): I feel sorry for the people who are going to be thrown into those deserted, mountainous regions, where the enemy knows every single rock, every cave. No maps, no computer training can prepare you for it.

DOUGHERTY: As for finding Osama Bin Laden, Korolkov says, there are a million places he could hide, just like the Mujahideen he and his tried to find during their war.

Diversionary tactics terror, suicide attacks, were the way the enemy achieved aims. Leo says he saw Afghan fighters shot to ribbons, still clutching their weapons and firing until their last breath. Many of them, he says, used drugs before launching operations. But they were, he says, the most effective force he has ever seen, honed on 20 years of continual war. They were also well supplied with Stinger missiles provided by the Soviet Union's Cold War foe, the United States.

Russia expected to stay a few months in Afghanistan. It ended up fighting for ten years. It was a searing lesson, Leo says, that scarred Russia just as Vietnam tore at the soul of America. "These fighters can bring any country," he says, "even a superpower, be it Russia, the United States or Europe, to the brink of catastrophe." Jill Dougherty, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So what is next? What do we do? We are joined by former U.N. Ambassador -- United States U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. Nice to have you with us again. It's good to talk to you tonight.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: Thank you, Aaron. It's good to be with you.

BROWN: The Islamic cleric -- the Taliban meets tomorrow. What do you think they do? Do they give up?

HOLBROOKE: They are under tremendous pressure. The only three countries in the world that recognize them -- Pakistan, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia -- are squeezing them now. I think we have to confront a really complicated "what if" problem. What if the Taliban announced tomorrow that they are expelling Osama Bin Laden or that he is no longer in the country?

First of all, we won't know it's true or not. And secondly -- and this is the key thing. It is far more than Osama Bin Laden. He himself has helped create this network which is going to go on and on and on. It isn't simply Osama Bin Laden dead or alive. It is the entire movement, which he represents.

BROWN: There is -- and it seems to increase every day in both Washington and out on the streets of this city, and I suspect most American cities -- a growing, tough-talking need to do something. Maybe now, big...

HOLBROOKE: This is really interesting, Aaron. I'm glad you raised it. We are faced with an enormously difficult problem right now as Americans. The unity and resoluteness which Americans have shown is wonderful and heartwarming. But for us to succeed, we need one additional ingredient, and that is patience. Not a famous American characteristic.

We need to give the administration time to match diplomacy and force. I'm all for the use of force, but a quick lightning strike -- like a modern version of the do-little raid against Tokyo in 1942, which is the final 30 moments of that movie this summer -- that kind of raid in Afghanistan against the targets you have just seen in the previous piece -- would not amount to much. It might feel good, but it would not help the coalition building.

We need hard, credible evidence. It doesn't need to be perfect. But we need to know who we are attacking and we need to be -- when we attack it needs to be swift and sustained and severe. And we need to keep that international coalition. So I hope the American public does not put too much pressure on the administration. I hope the administration doesn't put too much pressure on itself, because there's been a lot of understandably angry rhetoric. We are all angry, looking at this extraordinary sight. I used to work down there. But we need to give the administration time to get it right.

BROWN: We are talking the other day to some military people, and they were saying something similar. They were talking about very surgical Delta Force kinds of things, to which I said we haven't had a great -- we the United States have not had a great record. They are hard to pull off. It's not a knock on the...

HOLBROOKE: Especially in a place like Afghanistan.

BROWN: They're tough to do.

HOLBROOKE: And tougher in Afghanistan than almost anywhere else. We can't even capture Radovan Karadzic in Bosnia, in an area where we had NATO troops and we still have American troops. And he's wandering around. We're talking about one of the most difficult terrains on earth. I traveled it a while ago, and it is something. We don't know where he is, which cave in south Afghanistan he might be in. This is long, sustained effort. The administration knows it. But I hope the American public understands that we are in for a long, tough haul here. And worst of all, Aaron, we can't yet quite define -- we are at war, for sure -- but we can't define exactly who the enemy is. Nice to talk to you.

BROWN: Good to talk to you.

HOLBROOKE: It's great.

BROWN: We have talked a lot. We hope you'll come back, and we will talk some more. It seems there's going to be lots of chapters along the way. It's not a moment.

HOLBROOKE: The challenge to get the coalition and the military right is awesome. And we have give the administration not only support but time.

BROWN: Thank you, Ambassador Holbrooke, for joining us. Richard Holbrooke joins us for a few moment this evening. As we ponder a bit what is ahead, the mourning and remembrances continue.

New York's Union Square park has been one of those places. We'll talk more about that and take a look at the rest of the latest developments as this special report continues in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: As we mentioned a few moments ago, this is the beginning of the High Holy Day. The Jewish New Year began at sundown tonight. There are very important days to the Jewish religion. People went to services all around United States. Security particularly tight at synagogues here in New York City, as would you imagine. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen is at one of them, and she joins us now -- Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as you can probably tell behind me, the services at the Steven Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan have just ended. They were a service that was full of hope despite the tragedies that have happened in New York in the past week.

The rabbi told his congregants that out of the ashes of this kind of tragedy, they must cling to life. He told the story about a rabbi who was a chaplain in the army, and when he was with the group that liberated the prisoners from Auschwitz, he insisted upon saying the Sabbath prayers there at Auschwitz to show that life can still begin out of such a tragedy.

Security, as you mentioned, was a big concern. There were New York City policemen and others at this and at other synagogues. We have brought with us here Rabbi Gary Bretton-Garnatoor who just the finished sermon, and he ran right out to talk to us. What I wanted to ask you is, you had six people who were in this tragedy in your congregation. How did you pair together ushering in a new year with still mourning those losses?

RABBI GARY BRETTON-GARNATOOR, STEPHEN WISE FREE SYNAGOGUE: We can't tell people how to mourn, and some people had a very difficult time. But there were a number of families who were here who yesterday said goodbye officially to their loved ones. All we can do is say that the new year gives us an opportunity to start again, in order to have a sense of hope. It may be too soon for some, but people have to build their lives and they have got to move forward. They can't allow grief to prevent them from moving forward. The new year gives people the opportunity to maybe wipe the slate clean and start again.

COHEN: Now, you officiated at three funerals yesterday. Not everyone has chosen to have a funeral yet. There are no bodies. Tell me how there is a difference in how people are dealing with this.

BRETTON-GARNATOOR: There are some people who are not willing to give up hope. With them we are going to stay, we're going to continue to pray. We're going to hope with them. We're going to do everything we can to support them. But there are some people -- unfortunately, given the tragic events of the past week -- have to move on and have to have closure. And because of that, we try to help them through their mourning process, even though they have given up hope, we have to help them.

BROWN: Rabbi?

COHEN: I know that Aaron in our studio wants to ask you a question.

BROWN: Rabbi, I'm curious when you -- what did you think your sermon was going to be tonight when you first started thinking about the High Holy Days and the sermon you would write. What were you going to talk about?

BRETTON-GARNATOOR: Well, I really did set out to try to talk about the fact that we here in America need to have connection with Israel; not for political reasons, but to find that sense of rootedness and a sense of history. I decided to continue to preach that sermon anyway, in the event.

BROWN: So your sermon didn't change?

BRETTON-GARNATOOR: The sermon did not change. I know that some of my colleagues did rewrite their sermons. I chose instead to begin the service with the story that we talked about earlier, that a rabbi went into Auschwitz and said that before we leave, we have to make l'chaim. We have to grab on to life. I said to my congregation, "That's what we are doing. There are other things to talk about. There are other things of concern. And if we allow this tragedy to keep us focused on one event, then we will lose sight of everything else in our world."

So I went ahead with my planned sermon.

BROWN: Just one other thing for me. Did people show up? Were they concerned about security and stay away, or did they come to services tonight?

BRETTON-GARNATOOR: I think that they came knowing that we were going to do everything in our power to try our best to protect them. We are very grateful to the New York City police department for their presence here. We had own security staff and we just did our best. We were here to be together as a community. And sometimes when you need it, you just come.

BROWN: Thank you. Rabbi, it's nice to talk to you. Happy new year to you. Elizabeth, thank you for your efforts tonight.

BRETTON-GARNATOOR: Thank you, sir.

BROWN: Rosh Hashanah beginning tonight. It's hard to measure in any sort of scientific way how this tragedy has scarred the country. It's a tough thing to do. But we do know companies that provide personal protection have seen their businesses soar.

Here is CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the wake of Tuesday's four catastrophic hijackings, the FAA has called for a series of new security measures. Measures that many are (AUDIO GAP).

The garage and grounds are patrolled by roving guards. IDs get extra scrutiny. Just a few of the visible signs of ramped up security at Computer Services Corporation, a client of Vance International.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We probably have had about a 25 percent increase in all of our business. We provide uniformed guard service. We also supervise executive protection. So I'd say about 25 if I had to put a number on it.

MESERVE: Some private security firms are working guards 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and still have to turn away business. Pinkerton Bond, the world's largest private security firm, says inquiries about service were up 1 000 percent last week. Sales of some consumer items indicate Americans are concerned about their security away from the workplace, too. Inspired by last Tuesday's tales of precious goodbyes from loved ones on seized planes and in smashed buildings, cellular phone sales have zoomed, up 345 percent since Tuesday on bluelight.com, KMart's Web site. The sale of walkie-talkies on the site is also up 200 percent from the week before. There are scattered reports of increased gun and ammunition sales, and if you want a gas mask, you can forget about it in the Washington area. There isn't one to be found.

PATTI POOLE, RANGER SURPLUS: Tuesday we sold about 30, which is all we had in stock at that time.

MESERVE: An overreaction? Security experts say, "absolutely." Though there is no guarantee any of these measures would prevent a future terrorist attack, security experts worry that once fear subsides, complacency will return, as it has after other incidents. Jeanne Meserve, CNN Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: No industry in the country is taking a bigger hit in the aftermath of the tragedy behind us than is the airline industry. There are talks of major scheduling cutbacks, layoffs, certainly a possibility that some of the smaller or weaker airlines could go bankrupt if the government doesn't come in and bail them out.

In the airline industry, representatives working very hard to get a government bailout through Congress and signed by the president. On the political side of things, the Justice Department is considering a package of laws to tighten airline security, and one aspect of that is increasing the number of air marshals on the planes. These are armed federal agents who pose as passengers that are there are to stop any trouble should it happen. That sort of thing works.

More on that from Patty Davis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the wake of Tuesday's four catastrophic hijackings, the FAA has called for a series of new security measures -- measures that many observers feel do not address the fundamental problems of the U.S. air travel system. Among the fixes, a ban on all knifes carried on board.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a toenail clipper. Unfortunately, though, it has this blade.

DAVIS: An end to curb side check-in.

Also, only ticketed passengers will be allowed through security. But the new rules miss one of the main marks, according to a former FAA inspector general.

MARY SCHIAVO, AVIATION SAFETY EXPERT: What we need is a national, coordinated, federal law enforcement oversight of airports, because we are only as safe as our weakest link.

DAVIS: The main line of security at airports will still be the screeners who staff the metal detectors and X-ray machines. There are some 18,000 at U.S. airports, and their record over the years has been anything but spectacular. DARRYL JENKINS, AIRLINE CONSULTANT: The system not a good one. It's like a Swiss cheese. We all know this. I don't think any of us would congratulate ourselves or anyone else who is involved in airport security for the job we have done in the last 10 years.

DAVIS: Long before Tuesday's hijackings, the problems were apparent. When the General Accounting Office sent undercover operative carrying bogus law enforcement credential to two major airports last year, none of them was stopped by security.

ANNOUNCER: Please go to Gate Two.

DAVIS: The FAA's own test last year found that European screeners spotted twice as many mock weapons as U.S. screeners, under virtually the same conditions.

The lax security, says Jenkins and others, is a case of you get what you pay for. The airlines are responsible for staffing its security checkpoints, but they contract the work out to security companies.

TOM BALANOFF, SERVICE EMPLOYEES' UNION: The airlines are the ones who put the bids out and the airlines are who make the decision. I can tell you routinely they take the lowest bidder.

DAVIS: About 100 different companies provide security at U.S. airports. The screeners they hire are not required to have any specialized experience. In fact, one help wanted ad running now online, touts that walk-ins are welcome. Indeed,at many airports, the GAO found that security screeners often make less than fast food workers in the terminal.

JENKINS: It is very low pay and it leads nowhere. So you have really no incentives to get there, you have no places to move from that job. So we see very low quality personnel who turn over very rapidly.

DAVIS: According to the GAO, St. Louis's airport had a 400 percent turnover of security screeners in the year ending April 1999. Atlanta had 375 percent.

BALANOFF: When Logan Airport -- the turnover figure is 200 percent a year. I have got -- we can contrast that to particularly airports in Western Europe. In Belgium the turnover rate is 5 percent. At Manchester Airport, which provides probably double the wages at Logan, and health insurance, the turnover rate is 1 percent.

DAVIS: Turnover is just one problem. The largest provider of airport security in the U.S., Argenbright, is on probation with the FAA. Last year, the FAA found that some of its security screeners at the Philadelphia airport had criminal records, including convictions for kidnapping, drug dealing, and aggravated assault.

The company provides security at two of the airports where hijackers boarded planes on Tuesday morning, Dulles and Newark. After the hijackings, Argenbright had no comment, referring all inquiries to the airlines. The company failed to respond to our interview request for this story.

The FAA is about to announce new certification standards for companies that provide airport security. And there is now talk in Congress about having the federal government take over airport security. As flights returned to the skies for the first time on Thursday, Argenbright screeners and others around the country were back on the job, on the lookout for dangerous items.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a straight edge razor here. Please, do not bring this to the airport.

DAVIS: Even as screeners at the Phoenix airport collected numerous knives from carry on luggage, two Northwest Airlines crew members who were carrying a cork screw and a pocket knife passed through without detection. For some, it was just another reminder the current security screening system needs to change fundamentally.

JENKINS: I don't know of one airline right now who feels comfortable with having the contract system. I predict that in the next year we will see massive changes.

Change is always slow. Now it will come at warp speed.

Patty Davis, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We'll end the program tonight with some thoughts on work. A break first. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The chairman of the New York Stock Exchange said today that the therapy he needed following Tuesday's attack was to once again ring the opening bell. It's something that Dick Grasso has done hundreds of times. For him it meant that things were getting back to normal, people going to work. It wasn't just on Wall Street. It was around the country that people went back to work with different sense, to be sure. We put Bruce Morton to work. Here's the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the New York Stock Exchange, a two-minute silence. Then some of the rescuers formally opened the market.

Everybody back at work. The numbers were awful, but back at work. Here in Washington, back at work. Government workers with badges around their necks, subways running, flags on lots of taxicabs. Coffee drinkers in coffee shops, people at ATMs, shoppers -- what else? -- shopping. Some TV networks went back to normal programming. And the country went back. Not to the old normal, maybe, that's lost. But to the new, sadder, more cautious normal. The mayor of New York had a suggestion for people who want to help his city.

MAYOR RUDOLPH GIULIANI (R), NEW YORK: I encourage from all over the country who want to help. I have a great way of helping. Come here and spend money.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the home of the brave.

MORTON: Baseball resumed. Mets at Pittsburgh. This morning, the president said going to a game might be a good idea. Getting back to normal, it turns out, is what we need to do.

ROBERT BUTTERWORTH, PSYCHOLOGIST: We've won the first battle, here. Because in a sense -- remember the terrorists -- the goal is not to topple the buildings. But their goal is to really destroy our way of life. As long as we go through the motions, that means that we're starting to get back to normal again.

MORTON: More planes flying, of course. And at Dulles Airport outside Washington, an American Airlines flight officer, Rich Williams, with a flag and a declaration.

RICH WILLIAMS, AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT OFFICER: This is our country. These are our aircraft. And these are our skies. And we're taking them back.

MORTON: The flag was his idea, William said, and airline executives encouraged him. It will fly all over the country wherever American flies. It began its journey on American Flight 975, bound for Miami. Crew members carried it to the plane. It flew as it will at other airports as plane taxied, as people stared and cheered. Americans came back to work this Monday, flags flying.

Bruce Morton , CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We leave you tonight with some thoughts on work from workers around the country. Our colleague Jeff Greenfield up next. We'll see you tomorrow night at 10:00. Until then, good night.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MONTAGE OF AMERICANS RETURNING TO WORK)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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