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CNN Live At Daybreak

Coast Guard Trains to Protect Nation's Coastline

Aired July 25, 2002 - 06:02   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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: There is also a new batch of terror fighting groups, the Coast Guard's new Maritime Safety and Security Team is training in North Carolina. They are preparing to respond to any threats or attacks at ports nationwide.

With more, CNN's Brian Cabell joins us from Wilmington -- Brian.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Anderson.

If the residents of Wilmington, North Carolina didn't know any better this morning, they might have thought they were under attack. What it actually was an exercise for a specially-trained team of Coast Guardsmen, in training now to protect the nation's ports and the coastline.

The attacks started this morning just about an hour ago at 5:00 a.m. And mounting the attack were the instructors of this team, instructors on the water attacking this ship that they were designed to protect. It occurred, as I say, just about 45 minutes ago or so. And it looked and sounded like an attack. For anybody wandering around the bridges at that time of morning, they might have thought they were under attack.

Again, this is the second of two teams that is in training to protect the nation's coasts -- coastline, some 95,000 miles of coastline, 361 ports. After September 7, it was determined that this nation's ports were vulnerable to possible terrorist attacks, so the Coast Guard is setting up these teams. Two so far formed, two more will be formed later on this year, and eventually, they hope to have at least a dozen of these.

The attack was also from the landside as well. So altogether, about a half an hour of attack, again, a simulated attack, a drill, that tested these men and women to determine whether they were ready to go out into duty.

They will be heading to Virginia. The first team is already up in Seattle. The next teams will go into Los Angeles and into Houston.

Again, the idea here is that this nation's ports, this nation's coastline, very vulnerable to possible a terrorist attack, and this was a test for them this morning, the final test of their preliminary training -- Anderson.

COOPER: This is really a new direction for the Coast Guard. I mean, traditionally they have been focused against drug interdiction.

CABELL: Yes, it has, and also saving lives, but they knew after September 7 that a terrorist very easily could come into a port like this and do whatever he or she wanted. So these people are designed directly to look for that sort of thing and to try to protect -- this is a Navy supply ship. This presumably in this scenario was loading arms, loading munitions. And so, they have three or four boats circling around here, trying to protect a ship like this.

They might go to a nuclear power plant, or they might go to some other ship at sea. They might go to the Olympics, for example, any possible terrorist target. This 100-person team will be sent to those specific sites to protect those boats or those sites.

COOPER: All right, Brian Cabell, thanks very much for joining us this morning from Wilmington with that story about the direction for the Coast Guard.

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