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Apartment Buildings, Water Supplies at Risk to Terrorism

Aired May 20, 2002 - 10:02   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Up first this hour on CNN, the terror threat that is as close as your water faucet or your doorstep. New words of caution raise some startling concerns over the vulnerability of drinking water and the apartment buildings that house millions of Americans.

Kathleen Koch joins us now from the White House. She has got more on this latest terror threat -- good morning.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.

Well, the warnings at this point are all vague and uncorroborated, but obviously, in these days after 9/11, the pressure is on to put out to the public as much potentially preventative information as possible.

Now first, let's take a look at what happened with the apartment warnings. Over the weekend, the FBI put out warnings to apartment managers all over the country, to its own field offices, saying that al Qaeda operatives might try to rent apartments, and rig them with explosives, so it warned apartment building managers to be on the lookout for any suspicious activity.

And then, in Orlando, Florida, the tourism mecca, the home of Disney World, the water treatment system received a threat. So now, the water treatment plants in that area and the surrounding county are all locked down tight and under guard. That warning there, also passed on by the FBI.

Now, this comes as senior administration and government officials over the weekend said that intelligence agencies in the U.S. had noticed an increased level of chatter and activity that might indicate that another al Qaeda terrorism attack is in the works. However, administration officials, specifically the national security adviser, says that the U.S. is now better prepared.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I don't want to get into commenting on any specific sources of information that we are getting. We do have more sources of information, obviously, than we had before 9/11. We do have detainees. We do have people that we are interrogating. And, of course, we have a mobilization of the worldwide intelligence system in a way that we did not have prior. The hard fact is that we are still vulnerable. The American people still need to be vigilant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: Vice President Dick Cheney this weekend said that even if the Bush administration had had in front of it all of the disparate bits of information, intelligence information that was out there in the days and months prior to 9/11, he doesn't believe they could have done anything to prevent the terrorist attacks -- Leon.

HARRIS: All right. Thank you very much, Kathleen. Kathleen Koch.

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