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CNN Live Event/Special
Special Report: Target: Terrorism
Aired October 05, 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.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, everyone. It's Friday night. And Friday night programs, we've always thought, should feel a little different, a little lighter as people head towards the weekend.
Unfortunately, the news has been unwilling to cooperate. We still don't know why a plane exploded in midair yesterday and crashed into the Black Sea, dozens dead, most of them Israeli. We don't know how a man in Florida contracted anthrax, something that virtually never happens, but did happen just at a time when the whole country was worrying about it happening.
Coincidence is one thing, but my goodness, this. Maybe none of this is related to September 11. We hope that's right. But like many of you, we wonder and we worry. And if you live around New York, you grieve as well.
There were 18 funerals today in town just for firefighters and police officers who died in the line of duty on the 11th, 18 of them. And there are still many more to come.
One worker's description of ground zero today: depressing, sickening, repulsive. The same can be said for the scene at the Pentagon. We haven't seen a lot of this part of the disaster, but we got a good look today. 125 Pentagon workers died there, their deaths sometimes forgotten by the magnitude of what happened in New York.
These are the realities of this Friday night. And here is another. Government sources are very nervous tonight over intelligence they are picking up. We begin with our senior White House correspondent John King, who has been working the phones.
John, good evening.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Aaron. Two law enforcement sources telling CNN that members of known terrorist cells and suspected members of terrorist cells around the world have been monitored in recent days, conducting activities that these officials tell us are very similar to the activities of the suspected hijackers believed responsible for the September 11 attacks.
Our sources stressing to us that there's no evidence of a specific threat, but in the words of one, this intelligence data "adds to the sense of unease." Now what are they talking about? Phone conversations in which they say suspected members of terrorist cells are quoted as saying, "you will be happy soon." One such call was recorded by one of the hijackers believed responsible for the September 11 attacks. People talking the same language, circles of calls, things that are just very similar.
People taking a trip. People not showing for work. Things that match the string we have put together, as we recreate the events on and just before 9/11, September 11.
It is nothing really hard, but it is eerie in some ways and it adds to the sense of unease. There is an unprecedented effort, Aaron, around the world to track members of suspected terrorist cells. These sources telling us they are noticing trips in and out of Afghanistan.
Conversations and other things that have them on high alert. Again, we should stress no specific threats to any installations or individuals here in the United States. Our sources telling us, they say most of this activity, but not all, is overseas, but a heightened sense of alert here again as officials try to track suspected terrorists.
They are quite nervous. They are telling Congress, of course, in private briefings and others, they believe there is still a high risk of a terrorist attack here in the United States, especially they say, if the United States takes military action. They believe then, there's a very high probability of some retaliatory strike.
One law enforcement official saying they know we're watching them. So some of this, we're not sure if it's hard or not, but it's just plain eerie -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, I'm a little concerned this is going to sound foolish. I'm going to try it anyway. If they had heard these same conversations four weeks ago, would they have reacted in the same way they are reacting now? And all I'm trying to get at, I think, is how edgy is the capitol?
KING: I think that's a very valid point. Of course, they would not be reacting just the same now, because much of this information is not specific. It is conversations among people they believe to be members of terrorist cells. And there was information, now that all these international agencies are cooperating and sharing information, they have been able they say to piece together a pretty good sense of what happened, among the suspects, those believed responsible for the September 11 strikes.
They're just saying the parallels are so close, that they are a little bit nervous. Again, one of these sources, a very senior law enforcement official, saying we know that they know we're watching. So they're not sure if some of this in fact is not even a ruse.
But they say the trips in and out of Afghanistan, other activities and conversations have them a little bit nervous. But you are right, there is a heightened sense of security, a heightened sense of some unease. One official saying, "Look, we're all very tired. We're all very nervous, but we don't want this to happen again."
BROWN: And just to clarify one point. These conversations are occurring overseas. They're not happening in the country?
KING: The sources said most of them, the overwhelming majority of the activities in the conversations were overseas.
BROWN: John, nice work. John King, our senior White House correspondent.
Some members of Congress were told yesterday there is a 100 percent chance of another terrorist attack if the United States makes a move on Osama bin Laden. And there are signs the clock is ticking on that move.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is on his way home after three days of talks in the Middle East and in Central Asia. How much he accomplished is not precisely clear. Uzbekistan did agree to allow U.S. troops to use one of its bases for things like food drops and rescue operations. But the president of the country it "is not ready yet" to allow U.S. troops to launch an offensive attack on Afghanistan from Uzbekistan.
And Pentagon officials told CNN about 1,000 troops from the 10th mountain, Fort Drum, New York, were expected to arrive in Uzbekistan sometime today. Their job would be to secure that airfield.
Secretary Rumsfeld is known, for among other things, "Rumsfeld's rules." One of them is, "it is easier to get into something than it is to get out of it." Another, "preserve the President's options. He may need them."
Let's talk about those options and the trip. James Steinberg. He was deputy National Security Adviser during the Clinton administration. He joins us from Washington, I believe. Am I right?
JAMES STEINBERG, FMR. DEPUTY NAT'L SECURITY ADVISER: From Washington, right.
BROWN: Well, what did the Secretary need to come establish and do you see signs that he did?
STEINBERG: He had two purposes, Aaron, I think on this trip. One was political to be seen very visibly consulting with Arab and other Muslim states showed that we're not taking our decisions without talking to them first. And also showing very visibly that they're part of the coalition.
But he also had a private objective here, which is to talk in several cases with key countries that could provide military support, either bases or logistics or staging areas for the United States. And I think that it was those private conversations that were perhaps the most important here.
BROWN: Do you get the feeling that the end game has started yet? STEINBERG: I think the administration is still carefully assessing the situation. They know that there's a lot of turmoil now in Afghanistan. They've seen signs that there's anxiety among the Taliban leadership. They've been talking to leaders of the opposition, both the Northern Alliance and some of the tribes in the south.
I think they're trying to make a judgment about when the United States should move and how that works with the activities going on in the country, how they can be most helpful in both finding bin Laden, but also dealing with the Taliban in their efforts to keen bin Laden away from us.
BROWN: I'm not sure there's a comparable experience to this, but in your time in the White House, when the White House is dealing with a crisis, what's the mood like there? Is it frantic? It is it calm? Are people there 24 hours day? What's it like?
STEINBERG: It's very focused. It's very determined. People are working very hard. They know they need to put all their efforts into this, but I think that there's a sense of determination in these kinds of circumstances. It's not a frenzy, but it's a real sense that the work is really important and you can't afford to leave any stone unturned, that you have to try to think about the way the adversary is going to be thinking about this problem. And you know what a sense of responsibility you have to both to prevent future attacks and to try to get at the source of this problem.
BROWN: You're getting in these moments, lots of information from the Pentagon, lots of intelligence information. Do you ever sit and worry that this thing, whatever this thing happens to be, could spin wildly out of control, that all of your planning somehow is just gone in a heartbeat, and you've lost control of the situation completely?
STEINBERG: I think the only thing you could do is try to cover all the bases that you can think of. You know that you have to be prepared for the unanticipated. You know that that's the thing that's the most difficult thing to deal with.
But part of what's taken place here, is by building this coalition, by getting a lot of support, the United States is in a much stronger position than if we had to deal with this alone. And I think that that's one of the strengths that the administration's team is taking in trying to deal with whatever the next eventuality may be.
BROWN: Just a final question. I hope you the don't take this wrong. This is the work you do. Is there any part of you that wishes you were there now dealing with it?
STEINBERG: I certainly have a lot of sympathy with what the people are doing. I have a lot of confidence that they're working this problem hard. I know that it's something that we lived with day and night. And everybody on the outside is rooting for them to be successful.
BROWN: Mr. Steinberg, thanks for joining us. Interesting to talk to you. James Steinberg, who's the former deputy National Security Advisor in the Clinton administration on the Rumsfeld trip and other things. On we go.
Ever since we learned that a Florida man was in the hospital suffering from a very rare case of anthrax, it has seemed like just a horrible coincidence, at the very least. And we've been told there is no connection that anyone can see to this case and the threat of terrorism. There is no factual reason to doubt those assurances.
But tonight, we now know what anthrax can do. That's pretty clear. The man died this afternoon.
Here's CNN's Mark Potter.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the home of the victim in Lantana, Florida, investigators from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remove household items for testing. The question, how was 63-year-old Robert Stevens exposed to anthrax? It is old-fashioned detective work, what one official calls shoe- leather public health.
The case begins early Tuesday, between 2:00 and 2:30 a.m., when Steven's wife brings him to this emergency room in Atlantis, near West Palm Beach. He has a high fever, is confused, and vomiting. Dr. Larry Bush, an infectious disease specialist, arrives on the scene that morning.
LARRY BUSH, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: The emergency room had done a spinal tap before I got there. And when we looked at the spinal fluid under the microscope, the organisms looked like those type of organisms that would fit into the class of the family where bacillus anthrax would be.
POTTER: That afternoon, the Palm Beach County Health Department is alerted. And cultures are shipped to a state laboratory. Immediately, county health investigators mobilize.
JEAN MALECK, PALM BEACH COUNTY HEALTH DEPT.: I had a full team of four epidemiological specialists with me. We interviewed the wife at length for many, many hours. I personally reviewed all the medical information here.
POTTER: By 8:30 Thursday morning, state officials confirm the anthrax diagnosis. And the CDC notifies Heath and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson in Washington. Thompson immediately tells National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice, who then alerts President Bush.
The White House is concerned, in part, this might be a National Security issue because some of the hijackers had recently spent time in south Florida. Thursday afternoon, when the CDC lab confirms the diagnosis, Secretary Thompson meets with the President. And it is decided that Thompson will go public with the news, to reassure Americans that an isolated case of anthrax has been found and that it is not contagious.
TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: There's no evidence of terrorism.
POTTER: Meanwhile, a command center is set up in West Palm Beach. And more than 50 investigators are dispatched in teams of five or six to try to retrace the victim's steps, and to determine if others have been infected.
Health officials say the reassuring news is they have found no evidence of anthrax, and say they doubt they will find any more. But they also warn, it is entirely possible they may never learn how and where Robert Stevens contracted anthrax.
Mark Potter, CNN, Atlantis, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Part of the problem with finding out more about how Mr. Stevens contracted anthrax is that so little is known about it. One man who knows as much as anyone about anthrax and other potential biological weapons is Wayne Biddle, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and the author of "A Field Guide to Germs." And he joins us tonight from Washington as well.
Professor, good evening.
WAYNE BIDDLE, PROFESSOR, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Good evening.
BROWN: I think I want reassurance. I don't know if I'm going get it here t. Is, would anthrax be a good weapon?
BIDDLE: The answer is simply no and that goes for almost any kind of chemical or biological weapon. Compared to bullets and blasts, they simply are not desirable as weapons of mass destruction.
BROWN: Because?
BIDDLE: Because they're unpredictable and very difficult to control.
BROWN: Tell me what that means, they're difficult to control. You're as likely to kill yourself as someone else?
BIDDLE: Well, yes and releasing a germ into the environment is not like aiming a rifle. You simply don't know where it might wind up. And even if it does infect a population, you're not all that certain about what the overall results will be.
BROWN: We saw, sir, a report, I think it was the World Health Organization study that talked about you know, hundreds of thousands dead. How does that square with what you're telling me?
BIDDLE: Well, I think I know what numbers you're talking about. And I like to call that kind of research, if pigs could fly science. Obviously, no one has ever done a real, live experiment to come up with shocking numbers such as those.
I believe quite a few years ago, the U.S. Department of Defense decided that an individual who inhaled something like 5,000 to 8,000 anthrax spores had a 50 percent chance of dying. I suppose extrapolation's are done with an urban population, but this is highly theoretical and to be take within a grain of salt, certainly.
BROWN: I'm not sure this is necessarily your field. This may be more psychology than medicine here. But if it's not a perfect weapon as such, it does seem to be a pretty good weapon of terror, that is to day, it scares us.
BIDDLE: Yes, of course. And that's its primary effect, a psychological whammy. And of course, nothing sells like anxiety. We're experiencing that in spades these days.
BROWN: And so, you're not necessarily -- you're not clearly not I guess, recommending that people go out and buy up whatever medicines they can or take the vaccinations and the rest?
BIDDLE: No, that would be absurd.
We just saw from your very good segment there that considerable federal resources are available to determine the cause of the quite unusual case that has just occurred down in Florida. But for the general population, to take any measures would be absurd at this point.
BROWN: And just a final question, professor, when you heard about this case in Florida, did you just for a second think, oh my goodness?
BIDDLE: Well, yes. We're living in the aftermath of an unimaginable horror. And it seems to cause a warping in our logic, which may be one of the long term effects. We're now forced to take every event as though it were part of some unimaginable horror.
That is not always the case. We would all go quickly insane if it were, but these are the times. It must be taken seriously, but again the federal government, the CDC especially, has great resources to examine a case like this.
BROWN: Professor Biddle, thanks for joining us. Wayne Biddle from Johns Hopkins University with us tonight from Washington. Thank you, sir. And we have much more ahead.
ANNOUNCER: Still ahead, do we have a right to be scared? The movers and shakers get a case of the jitters. Then American Muslims at the center of their biggest challenge.
BROWN: As an Arab American...
ANNOUNCER: America is their home too, but fear and prejudice cause some neighbors to pull up the welcome mats. And next, the great city New York was, is, and will be again. A talk with documentary filmmaker, Rick Burns. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It is a sprawling story called "New York," a documentary film by filmmaker Rick Burns. Two years ago, PBS celebrated the premiere of the first 10 hours at Windows on the World in the World Trade Center, but there was no plan to even mention the Twin Towers in the final episode, which brings New York history up to the present.
Like everything else, those plans all changed on September 11. That final episode aired Monday night, all produced before the attack. But the filmmaker decided to add a postscript because of the crisis to try remind everyone of New York's place in the world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, there's so much talk now about globalization, our global economy, about one world, all the peoples of the world coming together as one world, one world at last. Well, it's in New York that we're going to find out if that's really going to happen now.
Because if it's going to happen, New York is going to be the center of it. And because New York has always been the place where all the peoples of the world gather together. It's the melting pot. It's the great cauldron of humanity. It's the place where all the many different religions and creeds and races and ethnic groups of the world come together in one place.
And they're so opposite, of course, some of them that as if their oppositeness and the conflict between them makes this cauldron a very turbulent cauldron, makes it bubble and seethe.
And out of it somehow, over and over again during New York's 400 years, we see that when the parts come together, something comes out of it that's greater than the sum of the parts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think a country has to have one soul, like we have to have the geographic center of Kansas and say, "Here's our national soul." There are different parts of the national soul. And New York has a part of the national soul.
New York represents something good for all Americans. And it's been a good thing for Americans. It's not a foreign place. It's what we're about. And in a way you know, what William calls, William said about the United States in the '40s, that the world spirit was here.
That nations, people learning to live together, not surrendering their identity, but accepting their identity and then accepting other peoples' identity and learning to live together.
Well, that's what's going in New York. That's what's going on in the United States. And that's what has to go on if the world's going to survive. In that way, New York possesses part of the world soul too.
You know, we're either going to blow the planet up or destroy it in a different way or learn to live together. And that been doesn't mean getting a washed out identity where we're all one people. It means learning to live together with one another with our differences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Ric Burns is with us tonight. Welcome.
RIC BURNS, FILMMAKER: Thanks for having me.
BROWN: There is, you probably heard everyone react to it actually when it went by. I wish we could freeze it and bring it back, but there's a shot there where you see that sort of lattice- like piece that we have all come to know. We know exactly what it means now, going up those years ago. It means something else.
BURNS: It does indeed.
BROWN: Yes. What did you want, when you sat down to redo the end, which must have been difficult in any case, what was your thought? What were you thinking there?
BURNS: The original ending which is about as long, had about seven or eight on camera moments interwoven with the credits as they rolled. From New Yorkers like Fran Liebowitz or Donald Trump or Spaulding Gray. I mean, it was brash and ebullient and irreverent.
And sort of in a moment on Tuesday, the 11th, New Yorkers didn't feel brash or ebullient or irreverent anymore and couldn't afford the luxury of feeling irreverent anymore.
And really, the entire 4.5 hours of this broadcast earlier this week, the only part that seemed to all of my colleagues and me not to fit anymore, was that kind light-hearted ending. And so we threw it to one side and settled on those two moments that you just saw.
BROWN: Did you think of not using the towers in the shots?
BURNS: You know, we rushed over to get footage actually of the building coming down initially. We were rushing to recraft the ending and discovered that was almost the one thing we couldn't show.
We happened to have in our offices, because we had shown some scenes of the World Trade Center going up in earlier parts of the film. We happened to have the only, I think now the only extant 18- minute version of a film made about the World Trade Center. The Port Authority's archives were on the 65th floor of one of the towers.
BROWN: That's the shot. I mean, you see that now. Whatever it would have meant 3.5 weeks ago, I don't know, but I know what it means now. Stay around for a bit. We'll talk about the city, why it is, what it is. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We're back with filmmaker Ric Burns. I want to talk about New York and the documentary in a minute, but we were talking here, that the city feels to me smaller now. Am I nuts, which is possible?
BURNS: Well, I agree absolutely. And I was coming in on a plane last night, noticed that skyline looks smaller. It looks shorter. It doesn't stick up quite so high. And I don't mean just looking downtown at that end of lower Manhattan. The whole skyline seems to have been wounded and shrunk a little bit.
BROWN: What do you think it is that people don't get about New York?
BURNS: I think they don't get that New York is really the center of America. It's really the place that's the arc of the principle American impulses of democracy and capitalism. I think they don't get it because so much change takes place here so continuously. And all of us want a little bit of respite from change. We want to sort of settle down a little bit.
But New York doesn't let you settle down. But I think that when we stand back and look at it, we realize it's really -- this place is the capital of our own becoming. It's the place that has made us what we have been over the decades and generations and centuries.
I think what happened really instantaneously on Tuesday the 11th was Americans really, as one, understood absolutely, that they -- that New York was a place that they held dear to their hearts, even if they'd never wanted go there before.
BROWN: We heard -- in one of the early days, a correspondent of ours, and I understood what he was trying to say, I just didn't like the way he said it, particularly. He was out in Nebraska or -- and he said, out here in the real America. And I thought no, no, this is America, too. This is -- this is a real America here, this town.
BURNS: Oh, no question. I think, you know, we're all New Yorkers now, right across the country. I mean, I've spoken to people in western Michigan, people everywhere in America. They feel kind of a solidarity with what happened here, because what was struck here, what was attacked here, was something that is quintessentially American, and we feel wounded, all of us equally. I don't think you have to be a New Yorker to feel how powerfully this has affected all of us.
BROWN: The -- if you -- I don't know, maybe you have done this. If you went and took a look at the whole project now, again, would it be a different documentary, now, because of what's happened?
BURNS: I think it would be in certain ways. I think one thing I realize now, particularly after the 11th of September, is that it's not really a history. It's kind of a meditation on urban values, and on why we should care about these dense, crowded, noisy, dirty, expensive places we call cities. And New York is the biggest and the dirtiest and the crowded, the most crowded and the most expensive.
But, you know, this is the place where we come together. This is the place where an experiment in capitalism and democracy has been going on since long before the formation of the nation, since the time the Dutch got here. And I think that what I understand now is that my colleagues and I inadvertently had stumbled across, really, I think, one of the greatest of all-American stories.
Like, where did we come from as a people. If you want to look at one of the greatest case studies in what America has been, where we've come from, and I think absolutely even now, where we're going, come to New York. Come to New York, since 11th, and see what happens when disaster and trauma takes place. Boy, do we come together in an extraordinary way.
BROWN: It's -- for a lot of us, it's the place where our grandparents or great grandparents found America. I take my daughter from time to time to Ellis Island and we sit in the Great Hall and I say, this is where your great grandparents found their lives, found freedom, here.
The city in that sense is so rich and that is unchanged 200 years later. It remains exactly the same. People still come through and find their lives.
BURNS: No question. I mean, the 2000 census showed that there were 186 languages spoken in New York. I mean, in the last -- the immigration in the last 30 years alone makes the immigration of the turn of the 20th century look like an Episcopalian picnic. I mean, it's so complex now, and so much more -- so many more kinds of people, from around the world.
I mean that is really -- the future is out there in Queens with all those people, coming from literally every continent. That's the Lower East Side of the 21st century.
BROWN: Well, and that's in fact the path they take, in a way. They come to the Lower East Side and they get on the seven train at some point in their lives, when they've got a little money in their pocket, and they make their way out to one of the boroughs, generally Queens, and start yet again. And again, that's something that has gone on for well over a century, certainly, here.
BURNS: Indeed it has.
BROWN: Do you think the city will be different in the long term for what has happened? Clearly we're all different now.
BURNS: You know, this is literally unprecedented things. Terrible things have happened in New York before, but nothing on this scale. And I think that one thing, however, that we can take from it, is that New York has a long history of the unprecedented. It has been in the vanguard of creating a new kind of culture really for 400 years and that -- being in the vanguard means you're where the possibilities happen, you're where the perils are most likely to hit, too.
And so I think that though nothing like this has ever happened before, we can take some solace form the fact that New Yorkers have been hit by curveballs again and again and again, and they have always prevailed. They've always found a way, first to unify, in the aftermath of a disaster, and then find new solutions to problems that seem particularly vexing.
BROWN: Do you have any interest in doing another hour on it, a sequel to it in some way?
BURNS: Absolutely. I mean, we assumed when we finished the 7th episode, broadcast on Sunday, that we were done. But, it really -- almost as soon as Towers had fallen, I realized we had another episode to do. I mean, it wasn't an accident that New Yorkers was targeted. It was targeted for reasons that have everything to do with what New York is. It's the heart of the heart of a global commercial culture, and if you want to strike a global commercial culture and everything it stands for, what better place than the World Trade Center, the heart of the heart of that culture.
BROWN: Thanks for coming in. Nice to meet you; very nice to talk to you.
BURNS: Thanks. A pleasure to be here.
BROWN: Ric Burns. Thanks.
When we come back, the view of Islam from an American point of view. This is not where you might think it is. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: There are a lot of people suffering these days. The families of the dead suffer. The rescue workers suffer from fatigue and shock. The entire New York City Fire Department is suffering an extraordinary sense of loss.
And just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, there's an entire community of people suffering as well. There is fear and anger and a lot of suspicion.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): To see faces and hear the prayers, you might think you were in the heart of the Middle East.
Instead, you're in the heart of someplace very familiar.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We feel, as Muslims, after an act of this nature, unfortunately everybody is looking at us, as suspects.
BROWN: Suspected because of their names. And how they look. And because their home, Patterson, New Jersey, was, if the FBI is right, home for a while, to at least six and perhaps 10 of the terrorists who hijacked the planes and slammed them into buildings and changed American life in an instant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is shocking, really. It's shocking to know somebody you know was conspiring around us and, you know, and we don't know anything about it here. Because, you know, we believe our community is very peaceful. Very understanding, you know, well, and recognizing in society.
BROWN: Patterson's Muslim neighborhoods, with its shops and restaurants, would be the perfect place for the hijackers to hide in plain sight. A place where the alleged ringleader, Mohamed Atta, could shop comfortably at this bakery, or stop by this travel agency, which is exactly what Atta did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he came to the office and, you know, bought a ticket and he went. We don't know what went on with him later on.
BROWN: But investigators know. They know he went to Spain on that ticket for a rendezvous with other terrorists, a plane ticket provided in Patterson, no questions asked.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He paid cash money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And, how much?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Around $550.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We pay price, in the sense that we have to now deal with law enforcement agencies, in trying to justify that it is not us, it is not the Muslims, it is not our community that is involved in such horrible acts.
BROWN: Sallah Obeidallah and his friend Mohamed Younes are leaders in the Islamic community of Patterson. We decided to spend some time with them the other day, to talk about the investigation, the backlash, and the future.
The FBI came to them first. Before the pictures of the hijackers were made public.
BROWN: In this meeting with the various police agencies, the FBI, did they show you photos?
SALLAH OBEIDALLAH, ISLAMIC CENTER OF PASSAIC COUNTY: Yes. They gave us a number of photos that hey said, if you are aware of any of them. We looked at them. I personally tried to show them to as many people as possibly I can. I know that in the center we showed them to our members. And, nobody, nobody knew those people, none of them.
BROWN: And then went to people's homes.
(on camera): Did the agents behave themselves appropriately?
OBEIDALLAH: There is a certain amount of roughness in the way they come to the home and the way they question people and all of that. And, you have to understand that our community is mostly from Middle East, from countries that -- where the police -- where most of our states, unfortunately, most of the Arab world, is a police state. So that, you know, people are not very, you know, cooperative with police, because they pretty much make up their own laws.
BROWN (voice-over): True or not, it's what people believe, he says, and he and nearly everyone else we talked with believes also that the attacks are having a devastating impact on Islam in America.
(on camera): Americans are getting what, in your mind, clearly is a very distorted view of your religion. Somebody said that it is as if they hijacked Islam. They, the terrorists. What does that mean?
OBEIDALLAH: That the terrorists, by hijacking those airplanes and crashing them to World Trade Centers and into the Pentagon, they also crashed the tolerance image of Islam. They crashed the values that we as Muslims believe in.
Yeah, they took over in the sense that we, as community, now everybody is pointing the finger to Islam as being the inspiration to this kind of terror. And, of course, this is nothing further from the truth.
BROWN (voice-over): Nearly all of the 30,000 Muslims livings in Patterson are Palestinian. And nearly all of them harbor, on some level, resentment against the United States because of its backing of Israel.
(on camera): Do you think there are people in this community who looked at the event of September 11, and said, not we think this was a good thing, but that the Americans or the United States government, United States government is reaping what it sowed in the Middle East.
OBEIDALLAH: Yes, the Palestinians, they have suffered the hands of Israelis in terms of houses destroyed, in terms of areas confiscated, and occupation for over 30 years. And, of course, when they look at the weapons it's American weapons, it's American helicopters it's American.
But nonetheless, there is no Muslim or Palestinian that I talked to, who either supported or sympathized in any way with this kind of an act.
BROWN (voice-over): Even so, these men want the United States to change its Middle Eastern policy. And the attacks, they say, offer an opportunity to do that, no matter how tragic the circumstances.
OBEIDALLAH: If we need to deal with terrorism, we need to almost dry up the causes. And if we are to dry up the causes, we need to look at the grievances people have against the United States, because of the foreign policies. And if we somehow can eliminate those grievances, then we dry up any sympathy for support for any terrorist act, whether here or abroad.
We are not saying that this is the only way to fight terrorism, but we are saying it has to be one of the avenues that we have to follow in making sure that we have a peaceful universe.
BROWN (on camera): To some degree, does that make you uncomfortable? That, in reaction to this hideous act, in a sense, violence works?
OBEIDALLAH: If you have a headache, you can take an aspirin, but if it persists, you have to look beyond the aspirin. What you have to look at is why you have a headache constantly. And terrorism, if it continues, there are true causes that we must try to eliminate if we are to have a peaceful universe.
BROWN (voice-over): As for what's ahead, both men feel Muslims and Arab Americans will be marked for special attention, by authorities. And in a way, they say, that's fine with them.
OBEIDALLAH: I think there will be selective enforcement of those rules. You are come into the airport, with your name, and your background, will not be questioned as somebody who looks like me, who has a different name, who has Middle Eastern or Arabic or Muslim sounding name. They will be questioned a little bit more aggressively. They will be checked more aggressively. And we are saying, during this difficult time we are willing to put up with whatever inconvenience in order to assure the safety of our fellow citizens.
BROWN: There is concern here. Not just because of any short term, perceived discrimination.
(on camera): As an Arab-American, what's your worst fear right now?
MOHAMED YOUNES, AMERICAN MUSLIM UNION: Well, it is really the way the Muslim -- the Americans look at us and they see the Islam. Because I like the American people to see the Islam in the real face, not their old one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A year ago, your toughest choice in buying a mask was George Bush, Al Gore or Spiderman. Today, your choice might be two- hour or 12, chemical or biological. Sound paranoid? Maybe, but we all remember Israelis during the gulf war, going to work with a briefcase in one hand and a gas mask in the other, and we wonder; and all the conversations seem to turn to what we, as individuals, can do. If it were any other subject, you might call it buzz.
Sally Quinn writes about buzz in Washington, and she's been writing a lot about this lately, and she joins us there tonight. Good evening, Sally.
SALLY QUINN, COLUMNIST: Hi.
BROWN: People who, a couple of days ago, when they started reading your columns and all the things you've been buying and doing, and said, boy, your paranoid. I don't know if they're saying that these days or not. What are you hearing?
QUINN: Well, I wrote a piece for the op-ed page of the "Washington Post," basically saying that I was extremely frustrated, particularly after seeing the secretary of HHS, Tommy Thompson, on "60 minutes," talking about how we should protect ourselves, or how we shouldn't bother to protect ourselves, because I didn't think that we were getting any kind of information from the government. Nothing. We were really getting no guidelines at all.
And, so, I talked about how I had gone out and gotten gas masks and gotten antibiotics to protect my family in case there were some kind of biological or chemical attack. And that I wasn't sure that I had done the right thing, but that I would rather be safe than sorry at this point, and then wait until there's some kind of guidelines, if there ever were.
But there are many questions that need to be answered and I suggest that Governor Ridge, when he takes over as the, I guess it's secretary of homeland security, on Monday, start answering these questions and being honest.
Now, I have to say, Aaron, that, although I've been at two book parties this week for people who've written books about this issue of war and this kind of thing, and in a group of people, everybody will say, oh, Sally, gas masks. How silly. You know, this is really so frivolous and, you know, absolutely ridiculous and pills. I mean, really.
And then everybody will drift off and they'll come over and say, where did you get your gas mask? How do we get antibiotics? Everybody is doing that. I mean, people are concerned. And the question is, should we be concerned? And nobody knows. And so people want to be -- they don't want to take any chances on not having the proper protection.
BROWN: Do you think -- I'm sorry, do you think that the government is saying less than it knows or just doesn't know?
QUINN: Here's what I think. And I was not -- I'm not an expert on this subject, but I know a lot more about it now, ever since my piece came out, because I've been inundated with information and phone calls by people who are in the profession and who really know a lot about this.
What I think is, that the government is a mess right now. We have absolutely no standards and no guidelines. Nobody knows what they're doing. The Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Defense all have different organizations and offices dealing with this problem. There is no coordination of any kind.
And I also think that the government is in a terrible bind, because I believe, after having done a lot of reporting in the last couple of days, that there are instances where having a gas mask could protect you for a couple hours in case of some kind of chemical or biological attack. Probably more useful in chemical attack because you can actually see the chemicals and you can smell it.
Biological attack, you would have to have some kind of detection, and that's really hard. But they have absolutely no way to protect the general public about this. And what they don't want to do, and I'm very sympathetic to this, is they don't want to create an atmosphere of panic and hysteria. BROWN: Right.
QUINN: But if they were telling the truth, they would have to say, yes, gas masks do protect you in certain circumstances and, yes, certain antibiotics, like Cipro and doxycycline, two a day for 60 days, will protect you against anthrax and some other biological weapons, if caught in time.
And they said that even about the guy who died in Florida. If they had discovered this earlier, they probably could have given him antibiotics and protect him. But we don't have any. The problem is, the government doesn't have enough.
BROWN: That's what I was going to say. It's not out there. There's no enough vaccine. There's not enough pills and there aren't enough gas masks.
QUINN: Right. So, if they said actually it would help and it would protect you, then what are they going to do, because they don't have it and they can't provide it for people and then people would get angry and upset and panicked and hysterical. And so, I mean, they're really in a terrible jam here, because they can't actually tell the truth. .
Now, congressmen and senators have gas masks. Why do they have them if they're completely useless? Well, they're not useless, completely. Now, I was talking to an expert yesterday who said gas masks are effective, but they're not practical. I mean, you're not going to haul them around with you everywhere you go. And if there's no detection, then you won't know if there's an Anthrax or something like that.
But the fact is, that if you are warned in time, and if there is a chemical attack, you can put one on and you can be safe for two or three hours, at least time enough to get away from wherever the area that's affected is.
BROWN: Sally, thanks for coming in tonight.
QUINN: Thank you.
BROWN: Appreciate it a lot. Sally Quinn from Washington tonight. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: There was that shot in the Ric Burns documentary that we saw, of the World Trade Center being built, back then, 20 plus years ago, I guess, 30 maybe. Let's just go to ground zero again, because it all looks different now.
I don't mean in the literal sense that it's crushed. It's just when you see, as we might in this live picture, that shot of the lattice -- that looks like lattice, it just looks so different to us now. We saw also today how the subway systems have been damaged. Billions of dollars and years to repair. There is so much work to be done here, it will continue on for many weeks and months to come. Our coverage continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: There was that shot in the Ric Burns documentary that we saw of the World Trade Center being built back then, 20-plus years ago, I guess. Thirty, maybe. Let's just go to Ground Zero again, because it all looks different now.
I don't mean in the literal sense that it's crushed. It's just, when you see, as we might in this live picture, that shot of the lattice, that looks like lattice. It just looks so different to us now.
We saw also today how the subway systems have been damaged. Billions of dollars and years to repair. There is so much work to be done here. It will continue on for many weeks and months to come. Our coverage continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Quickly get you up to date on some of the developments today. We've had a lot of disturbing developments in recent days, and here is another.
This story comes from our senior White House correspondent John King, talking to law enforcement sources. Known terrorists, they are telling him, have been spotted in recent days, by and large abroad, doing things that mirror what the suspected hijackers did before Tuesday's attack.
There have been a lot of suspicious phone calls, John was told. Travel, unusual travel patterns, he's hearing. Sources say there is no specific threat, but it is very uneasy. That from our senior White House correspondent, John King.
Also today, Uzbekistan agreed to allow U.S. troops to use one of its air bases for things like food drops and rescue operations. The president of the country says the country is not yet ready to allow U.S. troops to launch an offensive operation against Afghanistan from there. Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan.
Coming up a little bit later in this hour, Christiane Amanpour has put together a special on Islam that will air Sunday night. We'll preview that, coming up. But first, tonight's edition of "GREENFIELD AT LARGE."
("GREENFIELD AT LARGE")
BROWN: Before we go to break, we've got some breaking news, which in this case is a broken record. Here we go.
San Francisco. Just a short while ago, first inning, Barry Bonds. Yeah, against the Dodgers. It does not get better than this. His 71st home run of the season, and the most home runs ever hit in Major League baseball. That breaks the record Mark McGwire set just three years ago. Remember the record they said would take years and years and years and years to be broken.
Barry Bonds has two more games to go and, in fact, he'll have several more at-bats in this game. It happened in the first inning. Number 25 is his son. He'll get a pretty good hug there. Home run number 71, a Major League record. In a month of bad news, a delicious moment.
Good for him. We have more ahead. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Coming up on 11:30 here in the East, here is the latest in America's new war. It comes from our senior White House correspondent John King, who spoke with senior law enforcement sources tonight. And they are telling him they are seeing activity similar now to what they saw right before the September 11 attacks.
People who they believe are in terrorist cells are making suspicious phone calls. There is travel in and out of Afghanistan. All of this is going on abroad, the phone calls, the travel. The sources say there is no specific threat, but it "certainly is adding to the unease." Their words.
Also, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld headed back to Washington, after a tour to build support for the fight against terrorism. It included a stop in Uzbekistan on the Afghan border. Mr. Rumsfeld brings back permission to base American forces in that country, but only for humanitarian missions and rescue operations into Afghanistan.
Well, there's a good chance that before the 11th of September, most of us in the country had only a fuzzy picture of Islam. We've been learning so much ever since then.
There are more than 1 billion Muslims living in virtually every corner of the world. The religion is practiced in different ways in different places. It isn't easy, necessarily, to get a handle on it, but we're trying to tonight.
Here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 2:00, and the faithful heed the call to Friday prayer. This is the oldest mosque in the city of Atlanta. Among the hundreds attending prayers here is Nadirah Sabir.
NADIRAH SABIR: I've always been a Muslim. My understanding of my world, my understanding of myself and my relationship with God is formatted by Islam.
AMANPOUR: Plemon el-Amin is the mosque's religious leader. PLEMON EL-AMIN, ATLANTA MASJID OF AL-ISLAM: Islam is unique, because really it's not a religion, it's a way of life. We pray five times a day, we have fasting for 30 days during the daylight hours of Ramadan. It's a faith that involves our whole waking hours. Even when we go to sleep, we go to sleep with the name of God. When we wake up, we are thinking on God, or we should be.
SABIR: What I'm thinking, when I first go to juma (ph), to prayers, is: I need to relax. I may write in my journal if I get there early enough, so then I can concentrate on the people around me, and on what the imam is saying.
IMAM HATIM: The world will never be the same again, brothers and sisters.
AMANPOUR: Today, Imam Hatim (ph) condemns the terrorist attacks on America.
HATIM: I can't even use my imagination to do anything like this. To get inside the cockpit, to drive the plane inside of a building. Can you imagine what kind of mind that is? This cannot be a human being. It was not Islam. I want to mention that to you. It is no way, no form or fashion identified with Islam. That that happened in New York: not Islam.
AMANPOUR: This is Islam: fair, just, and every color in between. Different nationalities, different cultures, Asian, Arab, African, Americans, European, all Muslims.
SABIR: The face of Islam is so multi-faceted, so multi-cultural, so multi-ethnic. There is no one face.
AMANPOUR: There are more than 1 billion Muslims in the world, 7 million of them in the United States.
SABIR: I'm a journalist. This story is happening in my country, in my hometown and my community.
AMANPOUR: Sabir is a writer for Atlanta's newspaper.
SABIR: The images that we see of Muslims tend to be extremely aggressive, and you have like this Klingon image going.
The only thing we've heard are, women are oppressed and, you know, their men beat them and, you know, they all have like 100 wives and all this other stuff and they're all suicide bombers.
AMANPOUR: There are many stereotypes that tarnish all Muslims. For women, wearing traditional scarves.
SABIR: One of the misconceptions is that women who do dress in hijab (ph) are itching to take it off, are itching to put on the stiletto heels and the miniskirt and tease their hair out to wherever.
One, you can do that in your house as much as you want, with your husband or your friend or your family. Two, everybody really doesn't define their femininity by stiletto heels and miniskirts.
AMANPOUR: To some, modest dress is part of a code of personal behavior. A code that includes no sex before marriage, no alcohol, no drugs, no gambling. These are hard choices in a free society like America.
EL-AMIN: But that's the challenge of faith. There is no morality if there's not choice. If there's no choice, if there's no choice between right and wrong, then you can't say "I'm a moral person."
AMANPOUR: Nearly a month after the terrorists struck New York and Washington, Muslims all over the world say that it's time now to set the record straight.
DR. KHALID SIDDIG, DIRECTOR, AL-FAROOQ MOSQUE: It is an opportunity where Americans, I think, can seize this moment to learn the truth about Islam. We have to change the mindset of America. We have to change the mindset where they understand what Islam is, what Islam teaches.
AMANPOUR: Islam first took root in the arid soil of ancient Arabia. The very word Islam is related to the Arabic word for peace. It means "surrender," the act of submitting one's entire being to God in order to achieve peace.
EL-AMIN: If people could just hear the meanings behind these words, then they would see that this is not very different from being a good Christian; this is not very different from being a good Jew.
AMANPOUR: Trade was flourishing on the Arabian Peninsula in the early seventh century. While the Jews and Christians they bartered with worshiped one God, Arabs at the time honored an array of tribal gods.
Around the year 610, a merchant from Mecca named Muhammad ibn Abdullah had an experience that would change his life, and change the world.
JOHN ESPOSITO, MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING CENTER: He was a man who had a prosperous life as a businessman, but was a man who was questioning. And, the tradition tells us, was a man who was going through a bit of a kind of personal crisis, as many do, in terms of: What's life about? What am I doing? And Muhammad, in one of these moments, heard a voice. And the voice said "recite."
AMANPOUR: The result, according to Islam: a message from God dictated in Arabic that would eventually become their holy scripture, the Koran. Literally, "The Recitation."
ESPOSITO: That Muslims do believe that this is the literal word of God, that every word in this book comes directly, as it were, from God. But because it's the literal word of God does not mean that it is a literalist interpretation all of the time.
AMANPOUR: That word, and the religion that sprung from it, spread across three continents over the centuries that followed. At the time, the Islamic world was an oasis of civilization and learning.
ESPOSITO: During the Dark Ages, they became the builders and the purveyors of civilization and culture. And after that, passed that on to the West, whether it was philosophy, algebra, geometry, medicine, the sciences, the arts, architecture. And this is part of the kind of memory, politically and culturally, of many Muslims.
AMANPOUR: But in the early years, the spread of Islam was also violent and bloody.
KAREN ARMSTRONG, AUTHOR, "ISLAM: A SHORT HISTORY": The prophet himself, he had to fight wars because he himself was under attack by the very powerful city of Mecca, who threatened to exterminate him. But the moment he realized the tide had changed in his favor, he abandoned violence completely and achieved final victory by an ingenious policy of non-violence.
AMANPOUR: And what does the Koran itself say about violence? Like the Bible, it's a book of both compassion and vengeance. For example, one verse says: "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every ambush."
ARMSTRONG: Since the Koran was coming into being during a period of deadly, dangerous, frightening war, occasionally the Koran does have to give directives about how this war is to be conducted. The Koran makes it clear that war is always evil. An awesome evil. And killing is always wrong.
AMANPOUR: The Koran also teaches tolerance of other religions. It includes some of the same teachings as Abraham, Moses and Jesus. A belief in one God, the Creator; in this case, Allah.
ESPOSITO: For example, Jesus is seen as a great prophet. The Virgin Mary is mentioned more in the Koran than in the New Testament.
AMANPOUR: The Koran also says there should be no coercion of religion.
ESPOSITO: Islam, officially, from the beginning, both the Koran and Islamic law, accepted that Jews and Christians, for example, were people of God. That they had prophets and revelations.
AMANPOUR: Some Islamic countries today force women to wear the veil, and treat them like second-class citizens. But that was never intended in the verses of the Koran.
ARMSTRONG: There is nothing in the Koran about all women having to be veiled, or secluded in harems, in separate parts of the house. And that came in two or three generations after the prophet.
The Koran actually has a very positive message for women. The Koran gives women rights of inheritance and divorce that we in the West wouldn't have until the 19th century.
AMANPOUR: The Islamic tradition is upheld by five pillars of faith, the essential religious practices established by the prophet Muhammad.
ESPOSITO: The first pillar of Islam and, in fact, it is the very confession or profession of faith. If you are a Muslim, you say it to profess your faith. "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God."
AMANPOUR: The other pillars of faith: Fasting during the month of Ramadan. A charitable tithe to provide for the needy. And praying five times a day. Communal prayers are led by a person who knows the Koran, chosen by the congregation.
ESPOSITO: In Islam, you have religious leaders, and you have religious scholars. And they're all entitled to their interpretation. And so there is no single official person.
AMANPOUR: The fifth pillar asks all Muslims who are able to make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca at least once in their lives. Every year, about 2 million people from every corner of the globe converge there for the annual pilgrimage known as the Haj.
They dress in a toga-like cloth that strips away class distinctions. The huge crowd circles around an ancient shrine, as a sign of being part of a community with God at its center.
To these five pillars of Islam, some Muslims add their own, jihad. But the primary meaning of that word is not "holy war," but "struggle."
ESPOSITO: Its basic and primary meaning means the struggle to lead a good, moral life as a believer. Just as in Christianity and Judaism there is a notion that to follow God's will is difficult. That's the primary meaning of Islam. And the obligation of a Muslim is, in fact, to strive to realize God's will.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: This look at Islam continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We've heard the word "jihad" used a lot in the last few weeks. It's a word that we've taken to mean a certain kind of war directed at the West. But the word and the idea behind it is also a product of a religion whose name, Islam, means "peace."
Here again is CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR (voice-over): When terrorists struck at the heart of America on September 11, the word "jihad" entered our everyday conversation. Yet it's a term that is poorly understood.
ARMSTRONG: The word "jihad" does not mean "holy war." It means "to struggle." It means "effort." And Muslims are very concerned that it is always going to be a struggle to put God's will into practice in a flawed and tragic world.
AMANPOUR: But militants have defined that struggle their own way, misusing it to justify acts of terror.
ESPOSITO: Yes, if you as an individual, or your community, the Muslim community, or Islam itself, is under attack, under siege, is threatened, then your struggle, now, is not simply the moral or the intellectual struggle to understand the faith and follow it. It becomes a struggle to defend the faith.
And it's not just that it is an option. It is that it is your duty. In that context, then, jihad becomes the legitimate use of violence. It becomes the legitimating of armed struggle.
AMANPOUR: But in the Koran, the only permissible war is one of self-defense.
ARMSTRONG: There is no sense in which a Muslim can ever initiate hostilities. But sometimes it is necessary to fight if you feel that decent values are being threatened.
AMANPOUR: But the militant, some would even say the fanatical reading of jihad, resonates with a radical minority of Muslims, whose ranks include Osama bin Laden. And it's spreading to a new generation at religious schools, like this madratha (ph) in Pakistan. Molana Waji Houdin (ph) is headmaster.
MOLANA WAJI HOUDIN (through translator): The use of force is permitted where there is oppression, like in countries where Muslims begin to lose power. God Almighty has created the iron. With iron we can create guns. So when there is unimaginable oppression and wrongdoing in the world, it is permitted to take up arms.
AMANPOUR: At this school on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad, about 50 students, some as young as 6 years old, immerse themselves in the Koran, reciting it over and over until they have it memorized. It's the only thing they study.
HOUDIN (through translator): Our aim is to spread the message of the Koran all over the world, and to make Islam triumph over all other religions.
AMANPOUR (on camera): Women are not allowed inside this religious school. In fact, this is an all-boys institution. And in so many of these schools throughout Pakistan, the students have virtually no contact with women, not even in their own families. And it's in this strict environment that the students learn their rigid world view.
(voice-over): Although the headmaster calls the attacks of September 11 a sad event, militant views aren't far from the surface. On the walls inside the mosque, a poster that says: "Afghanistan equals American graveyard." Also, support for Osama bin Laden himself.
HOUDIN (through translator): Here in this mosque, as elsewhere, we pray for him around the clock.
AMANPOUR: On these walls, too, anti-Semitic messages, and soft- spoken, but harsh words from the students. Osman Ullah (ph) is 16.
OSMAN ULLAH: Everyone knows it was a Jewish conspiracy, that there were no Jews in the World Trade Center on the day of the attacks.
AMANPOUR: Attitudes like these can be found in some of the thousands of madrathas (ph) in Pakistan and throughout the Islamic world. Many of them have become breeding grounds for a political extremism that is framed in religious terms.
ARMSTRONG: The madrathas (ph) in Pakistan tend to be rather narrow, and it's from this, in fact, that many of the Taliban were trained.
AMANPOUR: Yet the sense that Islam is under siege is quite widespread, even among moderate Muslims who have condemned the recent terrorism. Long before, many Muslims felt a sense of oppression, and they largely blame the United States. Atop their long list of grievances, the United States' close relationship with Israel.
ARMSTRONG: Muslims have no tradition of anti-Semitism, no tradition of hating Jewish people. That changed with the State of Israel, not because of a hatred of Judaism, but because the state of Israel meant that the Palestinians lost their land.
AMANPOUR: Resentment over the Palestinian question has only deepened with the escalation of the Arab-Israel conflict, and the media coverage of the intifada in the Arab press.
ESPOSITO: They can look at al-Jazeer or something else, and every day watch scenes of violence. Violence committed by both sides, but see a disproportionate use of violence in terms of weapons, in terms of the number of people that are killed on the Palestinian side, or injured. And they see American Apache helicopters being used, they see F-16s going to Israel.
AMANPOUR: Viewed through that same prism, many Muslims are enraged by the suffering of Iraqi civilians under U.N. sanctions directed against Saddam Hussein's regime, American soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia trespassing on the Holy Land, and the long history of U.S. support for the rulers of countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who they perceive as un-Islamic.
ESPOSITO: They basically say the following: Our regimes are authoritarian and corrupt, therefore they're part of the problem, not the solution. And they're propped up by the United States and the West, or they're allowed to do what they do by the U.S. and the West.
ABDULLAH AN-N'AIM, EMORY UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: It is the rhetoric of being the beacon of freedom, but the practice of suppressing democratic regimes and supporting authoritarian or despotic regimes. AMANPOUR: That was felt most acutely in Iran in 1979, when popular anger swept aside America's long-time ally the Shah in the world's first Islamic revolution.
ARMSTRONG: In Iran, the shahs used to make their soldiers go around the streets with their bayonets out, taking the women's veils off and ripping them to pieces in front of them. On one occasion, Shah Reza Pahlavi shot down hundreds of unarmed demonstrators in one of the holiest shrines of Iran, who were peacefully protesting against obligatory Western clothes.
AMANPOUR: When Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in February, 1979, he sent a powerful political message to fundamentalists throughout the world.
AN-N'AIM: Khomeini's success in coming to power in '79 has been a tremendous -- sort of almost like an earthquake, politically and ideologically throughout the region, because it showed that a fundamentalist agenda can succeed into seizing power and really putting the rest of the world totally helpless in confronting it.
AMANPOUR: Khomeini confronted the U.S. head-on, labeling America the Great Satan. And in November 1979, 52 Americans were taken hostage inside the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They were held for 444 days.
ARMSTRONG: It seemed the turning of the tide; that Islam had enabled the very powerful, and apparently stable, Western-backed regime to fall. And people were taking their destiny, again, into their own hands.
AMANPOUR: And it wasn't just political. For the growing ranks of Islamic fundamentalists, the Iranian revolution had cultural implications as well. It emboldened those who saw Western culture as too materialistic; a dominant culture that they feared was crushing their Islamic identities.
ARMSTRONG: So that what you're seeing in many of these movements are desperate, desperate attempts to get Islamic history back on track. Muslims seemed to be doing all right for all their history; no why is it against the West they can make no headway? And their attempts, as they continue to fail, their attempts get worse and more extreme.
AMANPOUR: Extreme, like the Taliban's regime in Afghanistan. The Taliban fought their way to power in the mid-1990s, and ever since the ruling mullahs there have imposed a Medieval brand of Islam that includes a ban on television, radio and music. And, effectively, imprisons women in their own homes.
Today the Taliban says that Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks, is in Afghanistan. A man who, to the dismay of millions of Muslims around the world, uses the Koran to justify his call to arms against the United States.
Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Islamabad. (END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: You can see all of Christiane's report on Sunday evening. It's called "THE STRUGGLE FOR ISLAM: CNN PRESENTS," airing at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time, 4:00 in the afternoon on the West Coast. Again, that' Sunday night.
We'll wrap it up for the week in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: As we end our week, we make one more trip down to ground zero. We heard today -- we don't know quite what to make of it -- that the city of New York is putting monitors now around the area around ground zero because of concern that some of the materials are being diverted by organized crime. Excuse me.
You need a better imagination that I have to know why organized crime wants this. It did occur to me that we might see some of this on the Internet auction sites, though I can't quite figure out why organized crime would want it. But that's what the city's worrying about, and that's what they're protecting against.
We'll see you again on Monday night at 10:00, we hope you'll join us. Have a terrific weekend; from all of us, good night.
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