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American Morning
The Big Question: Why Is There a Shadow Government?
Aired March 01, 2002 - 07:05 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: The big question we're exploring at this hour, why is there a shadow government? Vice President Dick Cheney isn't the only member of the executive branch who has periodically gone into hiding following the terrorist attacks of September 11. News today that a shadow government has been created and about 100 officials are rotated through bunker duty as part of a contingency plan in the event the nation's capital suffers a catastrophic attack by terrorists.
CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr now joins us from Washington with even more details -- good morning, Barbara. Was anybody aware of this before yesterday?
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there was some knowledge that all of this was going on. Of course, throughout the cold war the government was always prepared for this concept of continuity of government, keeping officials ready for a standby government in the event of an attack. Since September 11, it is now acknowledged somewhat more publicly that President Bush has kept about 100 very senior civilian officials ready for this standby duty, essentially, for this standby government in the event of a catastrophic attack.
One of the things driving this was the ongoing concern about the potential possibly for the detonation of a crude nuclear device in Washington, D.C., though officials continue to stress they have no specific information that that is likely or would happen. That is sort of their nightmare scenario.
This standby government includes officials from all the major departments and they are ready to, they move to two secure locations on the East Coast. They do this on a standby basis. They rotate every few weeks. These two locations are within helicopter distance of the nation's capital.
Again, the whole effort was activated within moments of the September 11 attack, just as the White House was being evacuated and the federal government was being sent home. There were some very visible signs of this standby government being called into play here at the Pentagon. Senior defense officials and military officials within moments of the September 11 attacks moved immediately into helicopters that were waiting that lifted off and took them to a place called Site R, which is one of these two secure locations on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. And, of course, the most visible part of this has been Vice President Dick Cheney moving back and forth to these invisible secure locations.
But the real difference about what's going on now is the federal government is getting ready to make this a long-term effort. It's not, it's going to be ready to go. It's going to be on standby all the time. And they're doing a number of things to improve the ability of the government to function in a crisis. They're improving communications, doing a number of things. The key functions they are concerned about, of course, not just the military, but the financial functions of the government, the transportation functions and food production. So they want to keep officials with all the right legal authorities to conduct those government functions on standby in secure locations in the event of the worst -- Paula.
ZAHN: So, Barbara, the government has asked us, obviously, not to give anybody any indication where these sites are. But hasn't this speculation been going on for many, many months now?
STARR: It has. Some of these sites are fairly well known in their local communities. It is certainly known that there are secure government bunkers and secure facilities. And it's probably worth remembering that the U.S. military regularly maintains secure bunkers, secure command centers for the president to use in a crisis in many places across the United States. They are very well known. They're highly protected. They're highly secure. And, you know, diversifying to various sites across the country is one of the most secure ways of ensuring the continuity, we have continuity of government. The idea is to make sure the government can function without being just in Washington, D.C.
ZAHN: All right, Barbara Starr, thank you so much for that update.
Now, does word of a shadow government come as any surprise to you?
Joining us now is Michael Elliot, editor-at-large of "Time" magazine. Good morning.
MICHAEL ELLIOT, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Paula.
ZAHN: How long have you known about this?
ELLIOT: Well, how about a couple of hours? Since I first heard these reports on my way in. It shouldn't come as a surprise to us, should it? The events of September the 11th were a direct attack, not just, of course, on New York, where we now are, but on the kind of very center of the government in Washington, with the kind of crash on the Pentagon and some suggestion that there were threats to the Capitol and the White House as well.
So I guess it shouldn't surprise us that the administration has activated what, as Barbara Starr just said, was a pretty well understood system in the cold war of kind of, you know, heading for the mountains where there are these huge caverns or whatever it is where people...
ZAHN: Why don't we look at one of those sites?
ELLIOT: ... where people go and hide.
ZAHN: I didn't mean to cut you off there...
ELLIOT: Sure.
ZAHN: But as you're talking about this, why don't we look at one of these sites?
ELLIOT: Absolutely.
ZAHN: And one -- and we're not saying this is the place, but White Sulfur Springs...
ELLIOT: Right.
ZAHN: ... in West Virginia...
ELLIOT: In West Virginia, right.
ZAHN: ... was a place that was created during the cold war for our national leaders to descend to.
ELLIOT: Right.
ZAHN: Now, the most interesting thing that I'm hearing from these reports this morning is that Andrew Card, one of the advisers to the president, is saying these places are woefully outdated.
ELLIOT: Yes.
ZAHN: Not enough phone lines, antiquated computers. But this could be similar to what one of these sites might look like.
ELLIOT: I think they relied on carrier pigeons. I mean I think that was the way they did it in the 1950s. No, I mean it's fascinating. I think tourists can go around the place at White Sulfur Springs.
ZAHN: Yes, I've actually taken a tour of this place.
ELLIOT: And, you know, you can kind of have a look at all the places where people kind of used to kind of fly out from, chopper out from Washington about an hour away, I suppose, by helicopter, kind of go into these mountains in the Appalachians and conference rooms and secure locations and what have you. But obviously...
ZAHN: But isn't it disheartening to know that these places, we are told by these government officials in several reports this morning, are antiquated?
ELLIOT: Well, you know, the cold war ended, I suppose I would say in 1989. You know, that's half a generation ago. And I suppose people did not really think that one had to keep these places absolutely up to speed, you know, with the latest communications software and the latest computers and what have you. So, you know, it's donkeys and passenger pigeons.
And then September the 11th happened and I guess we've all realized that we're back in a scary world again where the institutions of the U.S. government are under threat and we'd better, we'd better bring these up to date. It doesn't entirely surprise me that in the 1990s when we were fat and happy and we thought that the threat to the administration had diminished, the Soviet Union had disappeared that we just didn't spend our time kind of burnishing the failsafe mechanisms, you know, like kind of big holes in mountains in West Virginia or wherever it is, that we needed in times of real crisis.
Well, guess what? September the 11th brought us back to times of real crisis.
ZAHN: How is it that the American public should be expected to react to this, at a time when we've had just warning after warning of future terrorist attacks?
ELLIOT: Well, I think that's a very good question and I think there are two ways to look at this. I mean you could either say that one of the things that has distinguished the Bush family, father and son, over many years is this word prudent. Do you remember how many times Bush one used to say I'm a prudent man, you know?
ZAHN: We saw that on "Saturday Night Live."
ELLIOT: Absolutely.
ZAHN: Prudent.
ELLIOT: I'm a prudent man.
ZAHN: He was now prudent.
ELLIOT: Here is his son, you know, doing, you might argue, something that's prudent, you know, must be prudent. Let's get 100 kind of, you know, GS14, 15 senior executives in the civil service and put them out in wherever it is. So it's prudent.
On the other hand, I think this is the latest in a series of events which actually frighten people a little bit. You know, it's kind of when Ashcroft and Mueller from the FBI and the Justice Department come on and say, you know, we've got to be at the highest state of alert possible.
ZAHN: We need all your sets of eyes.
ELLIOT: We need all, you know, it's going to be next Thursday, you know, and then here comes something like this, which just kind of makes people feel one more time a little bit nervous, a little bit twitchy, a little less likely to travel, a little less likely to get back to normal. So, you know, it depends whether you kind of want to say this is the administration being sensibly prudent in a very good kind of Bush family way or whether you want to say it's just another way in which they kind of can't get the message right and they're frightening us.
ZAHN: So we'll let the folks out there decide.
Michael Elliot, good to see you.
ELLIOT: All right, Paula.
ZAHN: Thank you for joining us on A.M. Have a good weekend.
ELLIOT: Thank you.
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