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American Morning

Haunting Words from Brentwood Postal Worker; President Going to at CDC Later Today; Look at Paperless Mail Industry

Aired November 08, 2001 - 10:02   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: First this hour, let's get right to the issue of those haunting words from that Brentwood postal worker.

CNN's Eileen O'Connor now and the 911 tape.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thomas Morris Jr. needed help.

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THOMAS MORRIS JR.: My breathing is labored, my chest feels constricted. I am getting air. But to get up and walk and what have you feels like I might just pass out.

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O'CONNOR: From his home in Maryland, Morris told a 911 operator what he said he already told his operator.

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MORRIS: I suspect that I might have been exposed to anthrax. It was what, last Saturday, a week ago, go last Saturday at work.

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O'CONNOR: That would have been October 13th, just four days after a letter addressed to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle laced with anthrax is postmarked in Trenton New Jersey, on October 9th.

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MORRIS: A woman found an envelope, and I was in the vicinity, that had powder in it.

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O'CONNOR: The letter to Senator Daschle was opened two days after that, on October 15th, but some of the senators staff members claim they remember getting the letter on the 12th, the day before the incident Morris describes, and left it unopened until the 15th. Still, in the following days, while the senator's office was getting tested, Morris asked if he might have been exposed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MORRIS: They never let us know, whether the thing has anthrax or not. They never treated the people who were around this particular individual and the supervisor who handled the envelope.

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O'CONNOR: Meanwhile, Capitol Hill staffers, even those nowhere near the letter was opened, were given the option of taking antibiotics.

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MORRIS: I couldn't even find out if the stuff was or wasn't. I was told that it wasn't, but I have a tendency not to believe these people.

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O'CONNOR: The postal inspector says the letter Morris described did test negative. Morris told his doctor about the powdery letter that had gone through Brentwood, and his concern that he had anthrax.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MORRIS: But he said he didn't think it was that. He thought it was probably a virus or something.

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O'CONNOR: Postal authorities say they didn't give out antibiotics to their workers because the CDC said the spores couldn't pass through the envelope. But that doesn't explain why they wouldn't give individuals like Morris, reporting possible exposure from a leakage, antibiotics to be safe.

We don't need you all to cause us to second guess. We second guess ourselves all the time and say, what could we have done differently, knowing what we knew then?

Morris was taken to Greater Southeast Community Hospital, where he died about 15 hours later. His colleague, Joseph Chrisine (ph), died the next day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course, knowing what we know now, you'd love to be able to have time back. You would love to be able to find a way it save those two individuals. But unfortunately, we didn't know it then.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'CONNOR: It was the day that Thomas Morris died that the postal authorities decided to close the Brentwood facility and then put the people that, workers there, and workers downstream from Brentwood, those postal facilities that received mail, from Brentwood, they put them all on antibiotics -- Bill.

HEMMER: Eileen O'Connor in Washington.

Eileen, thanks.

President Bush has long said the war on terrorism is being fought on two fronts, both here in the U.S. and outside the U.S. borders, and he says it is a war that U.S. is winning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Since the September 11th attacks, we don't know where Osama bin Laden is, but it's been several weeks since the anthrax attacks, we don't know with it comes from. What do you say to Americans that may be frustrated, despite the...

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will say to them, we fight a new kind of war. Never would we dream that someone would use our own airplanes to attack us and/or the mail to attack us.

I will tell them that we have a sound strategy in place that is got Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda thugs on the run, and I will tell them that we will bring them to justice. I can't tell them exactly when, but I will tell them that we will prevail, there's no question in my mind.

In terms of the anthrax, we don't know who did it yet. We do know it's a terrorist. Anybody who would use the mail to try kill an American is a terrorist.

But we do know this, Ron, that we've responded rapidly, that our health officials are performing really fine work, and I truly believe, as I have said many times, I believe they have saved a lot of lives. We know how to treat anthrax, and we now know we need sanitation machines in our post offices, machines to sanitize the mail, and we're putting those in.

We know that we are fighting evil, and the American people are patient. They've heard the call, and tomorrow night, I'm going to address, put out an address that reminds the nation that we are truly a great nation, that we have responded in ways that enemy could never have imagined, and I'm so proud of the patience and steadfast nature of our people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: President Bush yesterday at the White House. With us today, Cynthia Tucker from the "Atlanta Journal Constitution," editorial page editor.

The president is going to be at the CDC later today, and this is a facility that many say is not a very impressive of a place. But there is a reason why he is going there. Tell us from your perspective why you see it that way.

CYNTHIA TUCKER, "ATLANTA JOURNAL": Well, the CDC is suddenly front and center in the war on bioterror, Bill. It is critically important that the president reassure the American people that the CDC is being very well funded and critically important that the president assure the American people that security at the CDC is being shored up. You know, all sorts of very dangerous viruses and bacteria are stored there. A couple of weeks back, local law enforcement authorities detained a man who was staying at a hotel just across from the CDC with several different identities and passports, apparently a Pakistani national. It was not clear what he was doing there.

And so part of the problem with these less than impressive facilities, not only has research been hampered, because the labs are so old, the air conditioning leaks, the labs are no longer state of the art, but there has not been impressive security there either. So the president needs to reassure the American people that millions of dollars will be made available, are being made available, to the CDC, so their scientists can do everything possible to be the first line of defense in the war against bioterrorism here on the homefront.

HEMMER: Later from the CDC he's going to make a speech later tonight, right next to CNN, as a matter of fact, at the World Congress Center here. What is his message tonight? And some have suggested he needs to say some things. Is this a question of needing to make news tonight, or is it just a message that says things are under control and things eventually will work out?

TUCKER: I don't think the president needs to make news tonight, unless there is something new. I don't think that there will be any big breakthrough by the Northern Alliance that he is expected to announce. But he does need to reassure the American people, keep us all on the same page in this war effort.

He has a group on the hard right that he needs to council patients with, the group on the hard right wants a broader military effort. They want us to start immediately bombing Baghdad. That would splinter this already fragile coalition with so many of our Arab allies.

More moderate Americans are already very worried, very concerned that the military effort is too aggressive. They have been watching the Taliban as it plays up civilian casualties, talking about children, babies that the American bombing raids are injuring, and so the president's first job is just to reassure the American people, remind us that this will be a long, difficult process, but eventually we'll win.

The second thing he has to do, however, is reassure us, about again, the war on bioterror right here on the homefront, where people, as we just heard from the postal worker who died of anthrax, fears about opening the mail, fears coming from FBI warnings, about nonspecific terrorist threats, so the president needs to reassure the people right here at home, that the government is doing everything possible to keep us safe. HEMMER: Yes, and also, we are talking about the issue of patience. Paul O'Neil said it yesterday, be patient, give us time, give us a chance here. It appears that the American support is clearly behind any military effort overseas, but there are questions that you raise about here in the U.S.

It is my opinion that in the estimation for what I gauge right owe now, that support is not going to wane any time soon.

TUCKER: Well, you know, Bill, I think that strictly depends on how the military effort goes abroad. I think that if we start to see mounting American casualties, that is not something our generation of Americans is used to. And I think the Persian Gulf War, while it went very well for Americans and its allies, also gave the American people very unrealistic expectations of what war is all about.

The fact of the matter is, this is going to be very, very difficult, fought on unfriendly terrain, the Taliban can hide in caves, hide among civilians. I think that there will be a lot of American casualties. I also think there may be more unfortunate Afghan civilian casualties. And if we begin to see a lot of televised footage of that, American support could wane. So the president has to say, not only tonight, but I think many times in the months ahead, be patient, World War II wasn't won quickly or easily.

HEMMER: Cynthia Tucker, thanks for stopping by. Appreciate it.

Live coverage of the president's address later this evening on CNN, 8:00 Eastern time, 5:00 on the West Coast. We will have it for you here from the city of Atlanta.

In the meantime, though, we are going to move back to Washington and pick up a story that was first reported in "The Washington Post."

CNN's David Ensor joining us about a significant restructuring that is being imposed right now on the nation's intelligence community.

David Ensor, live in Washington, bring us up to date on this, and break it down for us.

David, in a nutshell, what is being said?

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What's being proposed is that the intelligence community, three big pieces of it, are being put directly under the director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, that he have budget control over them, he get to decide how they spend their money. This would be a major change, in the sense that the National Security Agency, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office have traditionally been under the Pentagon budget and had much more influence over what they did day-to- day from the Pentagon than from the CIA. The argument being made now by retired General Brent Scowcroft, who was George Bush Sr.'s national security adviser, that if the intelligence community is held responsible for how good the intelligence is, then the director of it should have full control over how the money is spent and what assets are bought.

These are big, big agencies. The National Security Agency does eavesdropping and signals intelligence gathering. The National Reconnaissance Office fields the spy satellites, the surveillance satellites and National Imagery and Mapping Agency is the agency that does all of the analysis of what those spy satellites come up with.

HEMMER: David, part of this has been talked about prior to the events of September 11th, but some of the key points being made here is to reduce rivalries between agencies, maybe can you talk more about the fact that certain agencies have not necessarily cooperated in the best way it help forge forward. Is that part of what we're seeing through this?

ENSOR: That is one of the arguments being made in favor of doing this. As you say, this has been suggested in the past, and the idea has always been knocked down. It has powerful opponents, obviously at the Pentagon, and at the Armed Services Committees on Capitol Hill, but the argument is that this would make for less of a competitive, bureaucratic, turf fighting atmosphere in the intelligence community, and maybe it would.

It is going to have -- there's going to be a serious debate into this town whether to go ahead this way, though, because as I say, there are arguments on both side.

General Scowcroft, however, though, is a highly respected person in this town, and of course he does have the president's ear in a way that few others do. So this time it may get serious attention, and it just could happen.

HEMMER: David Ensor, thanks. In Washington, David Ensor, thank you.

And the mail-borne threat of anthrax may force Capitol Hill lawmakers to address a possible change. "USA Today" reporting that leaders of the House are considering a new system that feeds incoming letters into a scanner. The letters are then converted to e-mails, or other electronic forms, that mail could then be read on computers or reprinted to allow lawmakers not to touch the original correspondents. A mailing equipment company pitched the idea to senators yesterday there in Washington. And the business of converting letters to electronic text, not new, but it certain is booming with the most recent anthrax scares.

Caroline Yu of our affiliate in San Francisco, KGO, with a look at how the paperless mail industry is writing a new chapter of success.

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CAROLINE YU, KGO REPORTER: As a frequent business traveler, Michael Moore is rarely home to sift through all his mail.

MICHAEL MOORE, PAPERLESS MAIL CLIENT: Have you a sense that the mail is following you around or you come home and there is some surprise because some piece of mail you are supposed to deal with two weeks ago, you just see it.

YU: So several months ago, he signed up for online mail service with paperless PO Box, the San Francisco based company that takes Moore's mail, opens it, scans it, and e-mails the contents. Moore says the service keep him on top of his bills and letters, but more recently, he found it also provides piece of mind.

MOORE: Real viruses, you are not going to get it from e-mail.

YU: And while protecting customers was never the intended purpose of Paperless PO Box, founder David Nale says its now why many are signing up for the service.

Since anthrax discovered in the mail system, Nale says there has been a surge of interest in his company worldwide.

DAVID NALE, PAPERLESSPOBOX.COM: I think especially from the corporate customers, we are seeing an interest in this for all varying employees. They really want it protect all of their employees from any possibility of mail terrorism.

YU: And that fear of mail terrorism is real. The amount of mail processed by the U.S. Postal Service is down 6 percent. But those who work for the Postal Service say, there really isn't a legitimate reason to be afraid right now.

HEMMER: Caroline Yu again, KGO, out of San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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