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CNN Live Today
New Evidence Suggests Terrorists Attempted Chemical Attack
Aired April 17, 2002 - 14:20 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The Immigration and Naturalization Service is announcing some changes, more than a month after the agency came under fire for sending out hijacker visa approvals. The INS is reconstructing its chain of command the streamline reporting. The agency is also adding a special office to handle unaccompanied children to end up in the INS custody.
The INS was harshly criticized last month when visa-approval letters were sent to two of the September 11th hijackers, six months after the attacks.
Well, it's become evident the September 11th hijackers were likely trying to gain access to crop dusters to launch a biological or chemical attack. Now Army researchers are conducting tests to determine what kind of threat crop dusters really pose, and if we can see that it's coming before it hits. Here's CNN national correspondent Susan Candiotti.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A crop duster about to drop a payload off the Florida keys, an experiment that might not have happened before September 11th. When investigators learned hijacker Mohamed Atta had been inspecting crop dusters in Florida, it was a wake-up call.
DR. RONALD ATLAS, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MICROBIOLOGY: A crop duster with the right nozzle could be a devastating delivery device.
CANDIOTTI: For months the army's been using crop dusters to dump mock weaponized chemicals over land and army sites to test military radar systems.
BOB LYONS, BATTLEFIELD COORDINATOR: We found that military radar systems could differentiate between chemical and biological munitions, and regular high-explosive munitions in the environment.
CANDIOTTI: Now civilian radar is being tested.
(on camera): So these are the egg whites that you'll be dropping?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Egg whites stand in for anthrax, one of the simulated agents being used.
COL. CHRISTOPHER PARKER, U.S. ARMY: We're hoping that radars can discern that release from a crop duster and be able to tell us that potentially a biological or chemical incident has occurred.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): Right now, experts say, there's not much that can be done to warn civilians of a pending biological-chemical air assault. But in the future, radar like this could be used as a valuable tool to detect toxins in the air, otherwise invisible to the naked eye.
(voice-over): Radar that tracks drug runners and Doppler, used by weather forecasters, are part of the $400,000 experiment. In a chase plane, the airdrops are monitored by sensors and computers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got a great release that time. It worked perfectly.
CANDIOTTI: At a command post on the ground, coordinators call the shots.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That will be a 100-gram release. Copy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 100-gram release at 900 feet.
CANDIOTTI: The egg whites create a white plume that radar is trying to capture. So far, it appears to be working.
(on camera): And one day, once properly configured, radars nationwide might be able to pick up a cloud of potentially threatening biochemical weapons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the goal.
CANDIOTTI: That's the goal.
(voice-over): A beefed-up detection system, if adopted, may be a few years away -- a long time to wait to calm a sea of new fears.
Susan Candiotti, CNN, Key West, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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