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CNN Live Today

Vice President Warns of Terror Threats

Aired May 20, 2002 - 11:01   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, plenty of people are nervous today after a terror warning over the weekend from Vice President Dick Cheney.

CNN's Kathleen Koch is standing by at the White House.

She checks in with us on that one -- hello, Kathleen.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Leon.

Well, the warning from the vice president, but we have had a weekend jam-packed with warnings from all around the country. And let's start with those.

First of all, came warnings from the FBI about apartment buildings, saying basically they had some sort of again vague and uncorroborated information that al Qaeda operatives might be trying to rent apartment and them rig them with explosives. So this warning went out to FBI field offices around the country, to apartment managers telling everyone to be on alert for suspicious activity. Then the second warning came about the water system in the city of Orlando, Florida and the surrounding county that that might be a target. Now that warning also coming from the FBI. So officials there now have the water plants in the city and the surrounding counties locked down and under guard.

Now this comes as, as you said, after Dick Cheney himself, the vice president, put out a warning that more terrorist attacks could be in the works, because intelligence agencies in the U.S. had been in recent months noticing an increased level of chatter and activity that they say is very similar to what was picked up in the months before the September 11th attacks. That is why the administration says they don't believe that right now it's a good idea to have a public inquiry, a public probe into what happened on 9/11. Because it believes that important vital intelligence sources and methods could be compromised.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We have intelligence operatives in many places around the world now who are trying to help us with shared intelligence with liaison services around the world. A lot of people are putting their lives at risk on behalf of the United States and the world in the fight on terrorism. In the context of this ongoing war, it is extremely important to protect the sources and the methods and the information so that we can try and disrupt further attacks. So that we can do what we really must do: take the fight to the terrorist and defeat them on their home turf.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: Now when it comes to any sort of probe into the events of 9/11, the Bush administration says it does indeed support one. But instead, one conducted by the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Those probes are already ongoing. The White House believes that those can be non-partisan probes. And because the chairman of one committee is a Democrat, another committee a Republican, they believe they can be fair. But most importantly, they believe the members of those committees are used to handling classified information and can better protect them -- back to you.

HARRIS: All right, very good. Kathleen Koch at the White House, thank you very much. We'll see you soon.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And authorities are pouring over a newly released video of Osama bin Laden today. True to form, it offers little, at first glance, about the terror mastermind's whereabouts, or whether he is even alive. Let's bring in CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr -- good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

What's most interesting perhaps about the bin Laden tape is it's not getting much of a reaction here at the Pentagon. Officials say there's simply no way of telling when it was made and they really can't discern much from it at the moment. But what is getting a lot of reaction at the Pentagon is the concern about the possibility of another terrorist attack by the al Qaeda. In fact, military officials here say it's something they have worried about ever since September 11th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICTORIA CLARKE, PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: We also think it is likely that there will be another attack. They have made clear their intent; they have made clear their desire to harm and kill Americans. It clearly is an organization with some real capabilities to have pulled off what they pulled off on 9/11. And all the planning that went into that, you have to believe there must have been something else in the pipeline.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Now military installations around the world of course have been on very high state of alert since September 11th. But with all of this so-called chatter in the system, they are being warned to keep an extra eye out. And there has been one change on the intelligence front since then. The Pentagon now participates in a twice a day secure video teleconference with the rest of the intelligence community to share the latest threat information on an almost hourly basis.

In Afghanistan, we should mention, operations are continuing. And we are told that preparations are now underway to return to the body of that West Virginia special forces soldier who was killed over the weekend -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Barbara, this may be far out, but I just want to ask you about it. Is there anything to the timing of this? I mean we're all talking about another possible terrorist attack and up pops an Osama bin Laden videotape.

STARR: Well, that's a very interesting question. Officials have speculated -- they don't know, of course, but they have speculated for some time that it's very interesting these bin Laden videotapes seem to turn up with an odd frequency. No one is ever sure why they turned up or when they turn up. They simply don't know.

But increasingly, they're just sort of taking them in stride. The working assumption in the U.S. government remains that they have to assume bin Laden is alive and that the al Qaeda is preparing another attack. There's no specificity to that, but that, for their purposes, is the working assumption.

COSTELLO: Very strange. Barbara Starr reporting live for us from the Pentagon -- thank you.

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