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CNN Live Today

Maritime Safety Team Conducts Drills

Aired July 25, 2002 - 12:26   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: Congress yesterday approved anti- terrorism spending that includes $528 million for the Coast Guard. But even before the appropriation, the agency was practicing its response to terrorism.

Brian Cabell is in Wilmington, North Carolina, with the Maritime Safety and Security Team, and joins us now live from their drills.

Pretty amazing stuff, just like SWAT teams -- Brian.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it was this morning. An amazing sight really for about a half hour.

We're now on board the USS Cape Juby, which was the target of those attacks this morning, but a mock attack. The attackers were Coast Guard instructors who acted as terrorists. The defenders of this particular ship were members of a team that's been newly formed and designed to protect America's ports.

The attacks started this morning about 5:00 a.m. and lasted about a half hour long in the dark, predawn. This was a final test for this team. There are now two teams that have been trained. The first one has gone to Seattle, the second one, this one, today will be going to Norfolk. And there will be two more teams formed later on this year. They will be headed over to Los Angeles, and then another one to the Houston area.

Of course, they came out of the September 11 attacks. Military people became aware at that point that more was needed to be done, that the ports here were vulnerable to possible attack by terrorists.

They are like -- in effect, like SWAT teams. They are 100- members strong with about six boats. They go to these primary ports, but they will be mobile, and they will be able to be sent anywhere in the United States within 12 hours.

This particular team, which finished up training here this morning, Kyra, they are headed to Norfolk tomorrow, and we have been told already they have two assignments in September. They will be wandering up and down the East Coast. This one will take the East Coast, the one in Seattle will take the West Coast.

And as I say, they are expecting many more, perhaps as many as a dozen before they are finished, as long as the budget allows -- Kyra. PHILLIPS: Understandable. Brian, let's talk about what this means for you and me. I mean, the purpose of these SWAT teams, to protect the ports, but that means cruise ships, right, and merchant ships, any type of -- tell us a little bit more about what it means for us.

CABELL: Well, they will try to be careful with the ordinary civilian ships and boats that go by. They will try to be polite with them, but it will be pretty obvious, we are told, when these crews, when these particular units are deployed in a particular area. They will be monitoring a particular area around a ship, for example, or around a nuclear reactor, that sort of thing.

So they will be -- they will be involved in surveillance. They will be trying to prevent any breaches in security, but they will try to be polite with you and me and anybody else who happens to wander by on a boat.

PHILLIPS: I'll tell you, if anything is going wrong, I won't mind them fast-roping onto the ship. All right, Brian Cabell, thank you so much.

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