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American Morning

Authorities: Anyone Could Have Written List Found in Afghanistan

Aired January 31, 2002 - 07:25   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: Right now I turn to my teammates Anderson Cooper and Jack Cafferty, to buzz a little bit about what else is in the morning headlines.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Following up on the interview you had there, all three of these countries, Iraq, North Korea and Iran, in effect scoffing at what the president said in his State of the Union address about this axis of evil and the weapons of mass destruction. Your guest, Mr. Zarif, has suggested it was meant only for a domestic audience.

I don't know. It's in "USA Today." It's in the "New York Times." They didn't say, that was, you know, that wasn't an accident that he singled out those three countries and the audience for whom it was meant might well be in Tehran, in Baghdad and in...

COOPER: I'm also interested to hear, I mean, you know, the public response is pretty predictable. Obviously, they are going to be upset about it. I'm interested to know sort of also the private response within the Iranian government. You know, there has been in the last several years some sectors within the Iranian government trying to become more moderate and I'm interested to know what sort of impact a statement like this is going to have on that? Who is it going to bolster? Is it going to chasten some hardliners in the Iranian government or is it going to embolden them? Is it going to give them a little bit more power?

ZAHN: What is interesting is, in the last 24 hours or so, Iran has denied all of these major allegations being waged against them. One, they deny they have anything to do with that shipment of arms that was headed for Israel that the United States government accuses Iran of, you know, being involved with.

CAFFERTY: They say it came from Iran.

ZAHN: Came out of Iran. They deny that's the case. And they deny that they have any intention to make weapons of mass destruction, which, of course, U.S. intelligence officials say is simply not true.

COOPER: I can...

CAFFERTY: The other...

COOPER: Go ahead.

CAFFERTY: No, the other story that struck fear in the hearts of people in the Northwest, they found a picture of the Space Needle out in Seattle in a cave in Afghanistan. Our military guys came across this, along with, apparently, you know, drawings of things like nuclear power plants, water systems. But the Space Needle apparently, you remember in 1999 they grabbed a guy coming across the Canadian border with a car full of explosives and they figured out in the investigation of that incident that perhaps the Space Needle in Seattle was a target. And, of course, the media has gone crazy out there in reacting to this latest find of a picture of a needle in a cave in Afghanistan.

ZAHN: But it's interesting, because some of the intelligence, former intelligence officers that have looked at the list that they, that was compiled in this cave, they say like basically a kid from junior high school could have put this list together. The King Dome was among those things they found on the site.

COOPER: Yes.

ZAHN: Well, that's long gone.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

ZAHN: So it appears as though, I mean from this person's point of view, that it's a typical tourist list that that they tried to get down.

COOPER: The story obviously getting a lot of play in the "Seattle Post Intelligencer." You know, that, though, doesn't really give me much comfort, the fact that, you know, OK, so it was a photo that anyone could get or it's a laundry list that a kid could draw up. I mean terrorism, it's a primitive method. It's a method of the weak. And yes, anyone can draw up a list, but also, as has been shown, just about anybody can, you know, become a terrorist.

ZAHN: Yes, I don't know many seventh or eighth graders that would add to that list the vulnerabilities of dams and bridges across the country.

CAFFERTY: Yes, who cares whether, as Anderson says, who cares whether it's pedestrian or not.

COOPER: Right.

CAFFERTY: If it's a potential target, it's a target.

All right, we'll do this again in the next hour.

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