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Could the U.S. Handle a Dirty Bomb Attack?

Aired June 11, 2002 - 13:38   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: President Bush is en route to Kansas City this hour for a tour of a water treatment plant and another speech on homeland security. He's expected to offer the so-called dirty bomb arrest as evidence that government agencies are now working more like a team.

He'll also say a new homeland security department encompassing dozens of far-flung functions is a vital next step.

Even before the arrest of Abdullah Al Muhajir, Washington officials worried about a dirty bomb attack. They did a drill for emergency crews, laying out a scenario in which a dirty bomb explodes in front of the Air and Space Museum. The man who ran the exercise says local officials and first responders were, quote, "Unprepared to address this type of unconventional attack."

So how can and how should law enforcement personnel be trained to deal with the latest terror threat? Mike Brooks is here to talk about that. He joins us now. He's our CNN law enforcement analyst.

Mike, good to see you again.

MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good to see you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's pretty frightening. "Unprepared" seems to be the key word we've heard a lot about lately. Why is that, Mike?

BROOKS: I wouldn't say they're totally unprepared. As right on the screen there said, it's more of a weapon of mass disruption than it is a weapon of mass destruction.

But here in Washington, I think they're better prepared than most cities across the country or across the world to handle something like that, should it happen.

We're talking about a dirty bomb. There probably would be more people that would be killed and injured by the explosion itself of the bomb, than would be from the radiological material that was attached to the bomb.

So here in Washington, the FBI has a National Capital Response Squad. It's a hybrid squad; they handle bombs, they handle weapons of mass destruction. And it would handle something similar to this. And I think they're very well prepared. And the D.C. fire, police and EMS are also extremely well prepared to handle something like this, should it occur.

You know -- yes, nuclear material, the radiological material, I should say, could be something from medical equipment, you know, cobalt-60, cesium-137, that are used in X-ray equipment, those kind of things. But it's not going to be a mushroom cloud, like a lot of people think when they think about a nuclear cloud.

This is a disruptive -- this is more of just a weapon of mass disruption.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's talk about -- what about my city, what about my city? Not just Washington. Overall, is this country prepared to handle such a threat? And we've talked about this new homeland security office. You feel it may be just another level of bureaucracy.

How can we get the confidence right now that this is the answer to our problems? I have friends in the military saying to me, you know, "What's happening at CNN? Can you tell me what my new role is going to be?"

There seems to be a lot of confusion.

BROOKS: There does seem to be a lot of confusion. As we discussed the other day, this could be just another big bureaucracy. I hope it's not.

You know, units like the National Capital Response Squad, they need to stay intact. They need to have National Capital Response Squad-type squads all across the country: New York; L.A.; Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas -- all across the country, strategically placed.

So right now there are a number of joint terrorism task forces that are working on problems just like this right now. They're investigating people like Jose Padilla who, I think, bottom-line is, you know, a thug. That's -- I don't think he's any sophisticated terrorist. He probably -- I think he's a thug who was trying to glom onto something. He glommed onto Islam as his cause, and they recruited him because he was weak-minded. I think that's what Jose Padilla is all about. That's my opinion.

But I think that they need to have more joint terrorism task forces all across the country. And I think you'll probably see this, after -- and if and when the Homeland Security Department comes, that you'll probably see a joint terrorism task force in all 56 field divisions of the FBI.

But I think we are a lot better prepared across the board, from coast-to-coast, than we were before September 11. And we go back, you know, whenever something happened -- Oklahoma City, they did more preparation after that. I think we learned from each horrific event that the United States goes through. And we've learned a lot since September 11, too, on both training our personnel and providing them with the equipment they need to do their job.

PHILLIPS: Is all of that going to change when you talk about equipment and training personnel. When we say "personnel," are we talking about all types of agencies coming together for the first time, and not so much working in separate entities? And how is that going to happen? How is that going to be structured? And, I mean, you and I have both read the proposal, and it's hard to understand who the lead agency will be and how it's going to coordinate.

BROOKS: It is hard to understand. And the FBI, who is the main agency for dealing with crisis management of a terrorist incident, they're not mentioned in this. There are a couple little pieces of the FBI that have been pulled out and put in to this new Homeland Security Department. And one of them, where there was supposed to be one-stop shopping when they were formed, was a national domestic preparedness office.

But because, I think, they didn't have strong leadership in that particular office at the time, it's been decimated to seven people. And you've got a couple other departments, the National Infrastructure Protection Center at FBI headquarters that is a very competent unit, is going to be included as part of this to take care of the different interdependencies of, you know, of infrastructure of our country -- you know, the pipelines, communications, fiber optic systems. That's what they're going to concentrate on -- cyber-crime, those kind of things.

I think if they get these different groups and units together, squads together, I think if they can, and pull all together, I think it would be an effective department.

But, you know, as we saw the other day with talking about scuba divers, with the Coast Guard coming out this past weekend. You know, are they now starting to start with their turf battles? You know, was that the first of many turf battles we've seen, where the Coast Guard says there's a threat, the FBI says it's old information. It should be interesting to see what happens down the road.

PHILLIPS: All right Mike, real quickly before we let you go. Plain and simple: If Padilla would have pulled this off, that dirty bomb -- his whole plot would have been pulled off -- is the U.S. prepared?

BROOKS: I think they are, to a certain extent. There would have been a lot of terror. It would have had a big strike against finance because people would have evacuated the cities.

I think we are prepared; we could be better prepared.

PHILLIPS: Mike Brooks, our CNN law enforcement analyst. Thanks Mike.

BROOKS: Thank you Kyra.

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