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American Morning

Hillary Clinton Saying Government's Formula for Handing Out Aid Not Fair; Tom Ridge Says Nation Now 'Safer Than it Was on September 11th'

Aired January 14, 2002 - 07:40   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to AM, at just about 17 minutes before the hour. New York's junior Senator, Hillary Clinton, is adding her voice to the chorus of those who say the government's formula for handing out aid to the family of 9-11 is not fair. Yesterday the senator met with relatives of some of the victims who say that some of them will be getting nothing from the current compensation plan.

On Friday, I toured ground zero with New York Governor George Pataki, exactly four months to the day of the attacks. Here's some of what both of us saw.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Now you've had the chance to talk with many of the men and women who have to come here every day. Is there one particular story that has stayed with you?

GOV. GEORGE PATAKI, NEW YORK: Yesterday, I was with two of the workers. One is an iron worker, who has been here every day since September 11th. He just feels that need to be here to help with the process. And the other was a firefighter who's been here every day except one day. And these are very difficult conditions, and to think of that sacrifice, really, is what it is out of love for the people who died here, it's inspirational. And I think helps us to understand how despite the magnitude of this attack, we've gotten through it so well. These are the guys who are making it better everyday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you?

PATAKI: How are you? God bless you. Thank you for all you're doing. We're proud of you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Thank you very much.

PATAKI: How are you? How are you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Pataki.

PATAKI: How are you doing? Do you know Paula Zahn?

ZAHN: Nice to see you all. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you?

ZAHN: We solute you. Describe to us what it's like to have to come here every day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's got to be done, you know. And somebody has to do it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a constantly -- constantly changing feeling from day to day.

ZAHN: From anger to pain to...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every range of emotion you can imagine. Every one of them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes it's a chore to come down here, because, you know, you've been here so long. But today we found two fellow firemen, and it kind of gives you a nice burst that it gives you a purpose to be here, which is nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you see the look on the firemen's face when they recover somebody, it's fantastic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So it makes it all worth while to work at stuff like this. That's why we're out here.

ZAHN: So, Governor, we just met some of the heroes of this operation. You know, in addition to having to worry about convincing people that it's OK to live here, you have to convince your business community that they should be coming back to do business here.

PATAKI: We're not going to have business as usual for a long time, but we are seeing progress everyday. And, you know, behind us are buildings that are unoccupied and badly damaged, but virtually everyone of these will be back on line by the spring. We will see companies moving back down; we will see workers coming back in. We're going to have the subway lines completely restored to normal by the end of this year. People are coming back. But we know this is a monumental task.

ZAHN: Governor, to help us better understand the challenge of getting this area cleaned up, describe to us what's being done now and what is left to be done.

PATAKI: Well, you can still see some of the remnants of the foundations. The largest pile in the far north is (ph) the remnants of the North Tower. And we still have to bring that debris down. Underneath, we not only are street level, but it goes down seven stories below the street level. You can see the concrete around the side. That is what is called the slurry (ph) wall. That is to keep the Hudson River out of here. One of our first concerns on September 11th was, would this wall remain in tact. And thank God, it's proven to be very, very strong.

ZAHN: Any reflections now on what is yet to come?

PATAKI: Well, you can't help when you see here to feel the sadness and still have anger for the evil criminals who did this. But it just fills me with a sense of pride for what the people of New York and the people of America are capable of doing under crisis and under strain. And we're going to keep doing it and we're going to be better and better for it.

ZAHN: Governor, we thank you very much for your time here today. And we really appreciate your letting us tag along. Thank you.

PATAKI: Thank you, Paula.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge says the nation is now, "safer than it was on September 11th." Among the steps being taken in the name of security, the detention of hundreds of immigrants without formal charges. Now it wasn't long ago that Attorney General Ashcroft was accused of ignoring civil liberties while pursuing the war on terror. Testifying last month before Congress, he defended the targeting of some 5,000 foreign nationals for personal interviews.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We have asked a very limited number of individuals, visitors to our country holding passports from countries with active al Qaeda operations, to speak voluntarily with law enforcement. We are forcing them to do nothing. We are merely asking them to do the right thing: to willingly disclose information they may have of terrorist threats to the lives and safety of all people in the United States.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: So, has any useful information come out of these interviews? Let's bring in our man on the home front, "Newsweek" Columnist Steven Brill. Good to see you.

STEVEN BRILL, NEWSWEEK COLUMNIST: Hi Paula.

ZAHN: So what can we point to that's been of any degree of usefulness to the government here in these interviews?

BRILL: Well, they've done about 3,600 out of the 5,100 they said they were going to do. They were all voluntary, and so far they haven't gotten much of anything, which sounds bad.

ZAHN: What have they gotten period?

BRILL: Well, they say -- the Justice Department says that they've gotten a couple of leads. In fact, what I've found out is that the one lead I think they've gotten solidly has to do with a visa scam out of the embassy in Cypress, or something like that. So there's nothing yet to do with the terrorists.

ZAHN: This is somewhat duplicating visas? Classifying documents?

BRILL: Sure, but -- yeah, exactly. But the fact is, that as with the -- the announcement that they made that they were going to have these -- you know, these special courts, the military courts, this is a case where the Justice Department made the wrong announcement at the beginning. They started out looking real tough and real -- as if they were going to violate everybody's rights. And what happened was they retreated and they said, "Listen, these interviews are voluntary." They sent FBI agents and local police out into these communities. They made contacts with people; the questions they asked were relatively benign.

ZAHN: You couldn't ask about religion, right?

BRILL: They started out, you know, right after the attacks, you know, going to people's homes, knocking on the doors, asking them how often they prayed at the mosque and whom they voted for and stuff like that. I heard some real horror stories. But once they started these interviews -- and they were voluntary -- they asked relatively benign questions and basically established contacts in these communities. They got a little bit of information. The next time they have to go into one of those communities, they'll have people they can call. They've established contacts. This basically became much ado about nothing. But it was a completely justifiable law enforcement operation.

If you think that there are cell groups out there in these communities, there's nothing wrong with going to people of a certain age, who are the people likely to be in the cell groups...

ZAHN: Sure.

BRILL: ... and asking them voluntarily, "May we ask you some questions? Do you know of anyone who might have acted suspicious?" Do you know of this, do you know of that? That's what law enforcement is supposed to do; that's what we reporters do when we go out there. We ask people questions and we ask them voluntarily.

ZAHN: The public opinion polls would seem to suggest that the American public is very much behind these voluntary interviews. Check these numbers out: in an ABC "Washington Post" poll, 79 percent of the people in the United States supported the interviews. Only 19 percent opposed. So in the end, how incendiary is John Ashcroft in his tactics?

BRILL: Well, I wouldn't want to condition the attorney general's use or abuse of rights on a public opinion poll.

ZAHN: But it certainly does have a consequence (ph), doesn't have?

BRILL: It's a little bit reassuring. Sure, but the fact is, you know, if you took a poll about the first amendment, you know, you might have a lot of people saying they don't like that either. But I do think that in this case, the attorney general sort of started out awkwardly, but the policy that came out of the Justice Department -- which they're still not very good at articulating, I might add -- turned out to be completely justifiable and actually was a pretty good thing.

ZAHN: Why are they bad at articulating it?

BRILL: I think they're defensive; I think they're just -- I don't know, they're just not good at this part of it. They still -- I mean, I had to go out myself and find out, you know, what the questions were they asked, how many people they interviewed, whether they were really voluntary. They're just not very good at putting that kind of a position forward. Maybe they just want to seem to be, you know, harder -- harder than they are.

ZAHN: Well, thanks for explaining it all to us this morning. Steve Brill, on the home front for us on AMERICAN MORNING. Thanks.

BRILL: Sure.

ZAHN: See you next week.

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