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CNN Live Event/Special
America's New War: Latest Developments in Wake of Tuesday's Terrorist Attacks
Aired September 18, 2001 - 00:30 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: It's like a European city at the end of World War II. The latest news no it's 12:32 eastern daylight time. Let's go to Garrick Utley with a round up the latest developments.
GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jack, we're going to start right here in Manhattan and New York city. Monday, of course, was the first full back to day work -- to work day in New York City. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands people coming into work.
You mentioned a moment ago, Jack, that you had to wait 20 minutes to come in tonight through the tunnel, the Lincoln tunnel over here because of the congestion. There's only one tunnel operating, well this morning, that is Monday morning the traffic went all the way back up the approach ramp, back on to the interstate. It took hours to come in. The same thing is likely to happen during the rush hours to come on this Tuesday morning, the morning rush.
Perhaps those who work night shifts like Jack, you and me and others, not a bad job right now. Let's go down to lower Manhattan and take a live checking of what's happening there at the sight of the disaster. We know that sight very well by now. So far crews have removed almost 40 tons of rubble there but that's hardly a dent. It's going to go on for weeks or months. Two hundred one people confirmed dead by the city, more than 5400 missing.
On Wall Street, the stock market reopened in New York. By the end of the day it was bad news. The down was down -- it was really down 684 points to 8920. The biggest one day point drop in history, though not the largest percentage drop. The Nasdaq fell 115 points closing at 1579.
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PAUL O'NEILL, TREASURY SECRETARY: I think that's right. You have to always remember when you're looking at markets for every seller there's a buyer. And for every buyer there's a seller. My guess is you know when we look a year down the road, the people who bought today are going to be the happy people. The people who sold will be sorry they did it.
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UTLEY: Airline carriers took a major hit on Wall Street on Monday and the pain will be felt soon on Main Street. Listen to this litany, US Airways announces it will lay off about 11,000 workers, American and North western are both expected to announce layoffs this week. Continental has already said it's laying off 12,000 people. And it could go on. Trouble in the air.
Better news now, sports, major leagues baseball resumed play Monday night. Security was tight, but the fans didn't seem to mind. Flags were everywhere. Once inside, pre games ceremonies were filled with a number of patriotic song, prayers and remembrance. And then it was time to play ball.
Well we're not playing ball with this guy here. Within hours, Afghanistan's top Islamic cleric's now facing increasing pressure to hand over Osama bin Laden who will need to decide what to do with him. And Pakistani delegation delivered word to the ruling Taliban yesterday in Kabul, in Afghanistan to release bin Laden or else face a U.S. military attack. Perhaps the best known face now in the world.
And Jack, here's a thought that occurs to me. I don't know if you're a betting man. Everybody's waiting to see what the Afghan response is going to be. Do they hand them over? If they refuse to hand them over does it come to a confrontation? Or perhaps they take a third way out. They could easily say in the next day or two hey we don't know where he is. Osama bin Laden, he's packed his bags. He's taken a hike over the mountain passes. He's out of the country. We have nothing to do with him. We're innocent. We don't support terrorism. Thank you very much.
What does the Bush administration, what does the United States and U.S. military do then? Something to think about. Jack.
CAFFERTY: Yeah. And it wouldn't be at all unlikely to respond that way. And as I understand it there are four or five different compounds under ground that he moves from one to the other. They're heavily fortified, heavily armed. And the other part of this you know President Bush talking today about he's wanted dead or alive. As I understand it the people around him have instructions that in the event that his security is compromised they are to kill him. He is not to be taken alive. And he rather then would become of course a bigger figure as a martyr than perhaps even he is now.
UTLEY: And it's even said that he considers himself already martyred even though he's still alive. So he's prepared.
CAFFERTY: And the airline story -- thank you Garrick . We'll get back to you in a few minutes. The airline story, 100,000 lay offs is the anticipated into the airlines. And they are, according to figures I ready they're losing $200 million a day.
Rick in Virginia, good evening.
RICK: Hey, how are you doing? You're doing a good job out there tonight.
CAFFERTY: Well I'm glad you're watching the program. And what's going on in your life? RICK: Well I'll tell you, something's disturbing, a trend that I'm noticing is you've got all of these big stock brokers coming on and saying oh, yeah, the market is going to kick back, go ahead and buy, buy, buy. And then they're telling all of their top dollar clients to sell, sell and liquidate.
CAFFERTY: Wait a second. Let me get Ned Riley here and you can ask him about that. Ned what about -- your -- did you hear what the caller is asking about?
NED RILEY, STATE STREET ADVISORS: Yeah, no I did Jack. And we are telling our clients just what I'm telling everybody right now. We think this is an opportunity to buy. We think that the markets have already plunged dramatically before the attack. And I think this emotional reaction right now just creates a better opportunity.
CAFFERTY: But you don't buy willie nillie or go in an buy across the board or buy because it's a patriotic thing to do.
RILEY: No.
CAFFERTY: There's a disciplined and intelligent way to approach buying. And you have to know what you're buying and why you're buying it.
RILEY: I'm glad you pointed that out, Jack. Because I think some of the investors have really gotten caught in the trap of focussing on one particular area of the market over the last couple of years. I think we all know that the technology sector had created millions and had destroyed millions in just the last 15 months or so. And those that had focused myopically on just that particular sector are feeling the pain of it all. But we always tell people that focus on the long-term. The next month or two, nobody can guess what's going to happen. And short-term investing is really not for what I call the true people that are saving for retirement or college education.
You set a plan, you set what we call a very well developed asset allocation strategy. That means investing in monies that are in very different asset groups so that you have a lot of diversification in your portfolio. You don't try to engage in what we call market timing, guessing when the exact bottom of the market is and the exact top. And you clearly need...
CAFFERTY: But the caller was concerned that the big guys get a different list of rules to play by than the small investor and that's not true is it? Or is it?
RILEY: No, it isn't Jack. And clearly when we do advise our clients, we have $700 billion worth of assets under our management process and we're consistent at what we tell them across the board. And we think this is an opportunity out there and a good opportunity that hopefully is going to get a lot more support in the year 2002 and beyond.
CAFFERTY: All right, let me get back to you in a few minutes. And we'll talk about what parts of the market may look attractive if people are thinking of investing.
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