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American Morning

U.S. Pounds al Qaeda Training Camp; Bio-warfare Documents Available

Aired January 14, 2002 - 09:08   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: They are supposed to be the worst of the worst. 30 more detainees have been selected and shipped out of Kandahar. They are on their way to join the already 20 al Qaeda and Taliban unlawful combatants being held at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

CNN's Bill Hemmer joins us now from Kandahar with more on that, and some other related issues -- good morning, Bill. I know evening has fallen there, what do you have for us this morning?

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Got it. Hey Paula. Hello again from Kandahar. We watched the second shipment leave late last night here from Kandahar. As you mentioned, 30 in the latest shipment. That's 20 more than we saw leave last Thursday night in which 20 left. But what we saw last night, again, was even further stepped up security, given the fire-fight that broke out out here five days ago.

Each detainee escorted by a heavily Marine or an Army MP. There is a Cobra helicopter flying above. Some Humvees roam the perimeter in the same area where those shots originated last Thursday.

All 30 loaded one by one into the C-17. They sat back to back with a large seat separating -- a high seat back separating the two. There are other armed guards sitting across from each detainee as well, on board that cargo plane.

A 20 hour flight time to Cuba. A stop at an undisclosed location somewhere along the way, the military won't say. Eventually there will be, now 50 the head-count, in Guantanamo Bay at some time very soon.

Back here in Kandahar, though, Paula, the number right now 361 and holding, pending any more new arrivals later tonight -- Paula.

ZAHN: What can you tell us about the continued bombing in the northern part of country?

HEMMER: Yeah, Eastern Afghanistan. Again, Kamal Hyder and our CNN crew is in that area right along the Afghan-Pakistani border, and they say today is the most intense bombing in the past three days, and it should be pointed out really this area came under focus about eight days ago, off and on throughout the week. But again, over the past three days and especially today, our crew on the ground reporting the possibility of bunker-buster bombs. They say they can some feel some tremors six miles away.

All this in an area of a terrorist training camp that is described as extremely large. They talked about 30 to 40 acres below ground, maybe four miles or more above ground. And again, the Pentagon has said for some time that al Qaeda fighters might be trying to resurface and gather again in this area. The effort clearly is to flush those fighters out, get them into the open.

We also know that at least half a dozen helicopters involved, indicating the possibility of ground troops in the area there. Certainly, the intensity and the effort continues in Eastern Afghanistan, Paula. The military and the Pentagon clearly something -- seeing something, rather, on the ground as we speak now -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, Bill Hemmer. Thanks so much for that update. We appreciate it.

The war on terrorism and the deliberate spread of anthrax has made halting bioterrorism a top priority in the effort to tighten homeland security, but the "New York Times" reports there are still hundreds of documents on how to make biological weapons available on the Internet.

Joining us now from Salinas, California, where it is very early indeed, is Dr. Raymond Zilinkas (ph) -- Zilinskas, I'm sorry.

DR. RAYMOND ZILINSKAS, SCIENTIST, MONTERREY INSTITUTE: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: Good morning. A senior scientist at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies. Welcome, sir.

Let's get your quick reaction to what homeland security director suggested yesterday in talk of scaling back the amount of access readers might have on the Internet to this kind of information. Here is what Tom Ridge had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY DIRECTOR: As you report and as people read, we are a very open society, and we are very much an information society, and there are a lot of us that think that some of the information we share with the public probably should be restricted in some fashion. Obviously, have to be very, very careful about that, but I think the president's science director, Dr. Marburger, and working with the Office of Homeland Security as well as others has not only expressed a concern, but looking to see what kind of information should be so easily available in the public domain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Well Doctor, what do you think the appropriate answer to that is? What should we have access to on the Internet?

ZILINSKAS: Well, you have to remember that we used to have a biological warfare program until 1969, and that was a very extensive, big effort, and it generated hundreds of documents. I must say, they are not really available on Internet. You can order them through Internet.

They are documents like this that were published in the 1950's and 1960's, and once were classified as either secret or even top secret. Like this one from 1952, it's called "The Military Utility of Agent X," Agent X being botulinum toxin, and it tells you pretty much how you can make that, and how you are going to use it, and it is now unclassified.

ZAHN: But Dr. Marburger from the White House Office of Science and Technology says that much of this information is outdated. I'm going to put up on the screen his most recent quote. He says, "it is clear that they are based on picture of biology that is almost 50 years old. It is not clear to me how useful they are."

Is he right?

ZILINSKAS: Only partially. There were people working for years and years and years to develop formulations for biological warfare agents, and this is still not known to the public, and it still should be remained a top secret.

Now, this might not -- this might be old news to the people working the biological warfare program in the Soviet Union and Iraq, but it is certainly not old news to terrorists who are now working in the United States.

ZAHN: But the fact is, wasn't reclassification of some of this stuff barred under the Clinton administration?

ZILINSKAS: Well, it even started before. Like this one about anthrax bombs from 1952 was declassified in 1957. But it did speed up during the Clinton administration because he was very intent on working the forward (ph) kind of requests.

ZAHN: So Dr. Zilinskas, in closing, the average Internet user if they went on-line and they ordered these blueprints, what could a neophyte be capable of pulling off with this information in their hands?

ZILINSKAS: Well, most of this stuff is very technical, so you would have to have some certain knowledge. But, again, you are not going to read it on the Internet.

You are going to have to order it from somewhere, and once it gets in your hands, you have to have the equipment, you have to have the strain, the virulent strain of, for example, of anthrax before you can really do something. But it does give you a shortcut on how to develop, for example, the derived formulations of anthrax that we have seen in these anthrax-laden letters.

ZAHN: Well, we appreciate your putting it into context for us this morning. Dr. Raymond Zilinskas, again, appreciate your getting up at that lovely hour of the morning to join us this time on the East coast.

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