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CNN Talkback Live

Interview With Bernard Kerik

Aired September 06, 2002 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ARTHEL NEVILLE, HOST: Hello, everybody, and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Arthel Neville.
We are going to start our Friday "Free-For-All" a little later this hour.

But first, I have someone I want you to meet. He's a man whose extraordinary life as a crime fighter became an indelible part of the September 11 tragedy in New York. It's the story of a high school dropout and son of a prostitute who emerged a tower of strength when the Twin Towers collapsed. I'm talking about Bernard Kerik, former New York City police commissioner. His autobiography, by the way, is titled "The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice. "

And I would like to welcome you to the show.

BERNARD KERIK, FORMER NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: Thank you. Thank you.

NEVILLE: So good to see you.

KERIK: Thank you.

NEVILLE: I want to start, though, about -- I want to get to your thoughts on September 11. And I want to know how you plan to reflect on that day and honor the victims and heroes.

KERIK: I'll be attending a number of different ceremonies in the city, outside the city, meeting possibly some of the families.

That morning, I will be at ground zero to be involved in the actual memorial ceremony and just be able to sort of reflect on my own about that day and about the men and women that I lost and that was lost in the attack.

NEVILLE: What are some of the pictures and memories that will never leave your mind?

KERIK: I think, first and foremost, was when I arrived at the towers. I was there probably within about eight or nine minutes after the first plane hit. And I was there before the second plane hit.

The visuals and the images of the people jumping from the buildings -- you know, I had gone there to meet the mayor and to get him into the emergency command center. But that was virtually impossible because the command center was across the street from tower one. And then I think, when Flight 175 hit tower two, the tower erupted and exploded over top of me and my staff.

And those images, walking into the auditorium of police headquarters and having to meet with the families of the 23 cops that were missing, those are the things that I remember most.

NEVILLE: And I know that you are a strong person, but I have to ask you, when you saw the towers collapsing on top of the station, coming down where you were, did you ever think, "Wow, am I going to make it out of here?"

KERIK: Well, the mayor and I were -- we were inside 75 Barkley Street when Tower Two collapsed. We didn't know what it was. We felt the vibration. It felt like a freight train was coming through the building. And then somebody told us to get down.

The windows started to shatter. And there was this burst of energy and dust and debris and smoke. And, at that point, I didn't know the towers had collapsed. I thought it was a third incoming aircraft. And then we eventually escaped from the building and learned, once we got outside, that the buildings had come down.

NEVILLE: At that moment, what was your world like?

KERIK: You know, your mind is sort of in a sense of denial.

That is, I have lived in New York since 1986 and I lived in New Jersey before that. I have seen those towers as long as I can remember. And to think that they could possibly come down, I think my mind was in sort of a sense of denial.

NEVILLE: If you could take us back a minute too because you told us that you were there what eight or nine minutes after the first plane hit. When you got word, though, where were you and what were you thinking? This is something that no one could comprehend.

KERIK: When the first plane hit at 8:45, I was in my office. I had just finished exercising. I was going to take a shower. My staff came in and began to bang on the door and said that a plane had hit tower one.

And, quite honestly, I thought it was a twin-engine plane. I thought it was one of the planes that fly up and down the Hudson. I told my guys to calm down. And they said: "No, you better look at it. You better see this."

And I went into my conference room. And I guess police headquarters is about nine blocks away from the towers. And then I saw what you saw, what the entire world saw.

And I really questioned at that point whether it was a plane. I turned around to my staff and I said, "Who said it was a plane?"

They said, "The helicopter pilots at aviation."

NEVILLE: But, again, here you are, the leader, the fearless leader, but you are a person, too. You had to pull it together and be the leader. But give me some of those inner thoughts that you had.

KERIK: I think the most pressing or the most confusion came within the first three to five seconds after the second plane hit, when I looked up and saw the explosion of tower two. And then we had to run from that, because it was coming down on top of us.

For a quick second, I didn't know what was going on. And then I heard that it was another aircraft. And, at that point, while the entire world watched, I really didn't have time to take a moment and get my grip and all that stuff. And people ask: "Were you afraid. Was the mayor afraid?"

We had to worry about the possibility of secondary attacks on the ground. We had to worry about incoming aircraft. We didn't know how many more aircraft there were. We had to worry about the evacuation, the response in the city, the mass transit system. There was just too much to do to sit back and think about fear and what we were doing.

NEVILLE: I want to let some -- the beauty of this show is that the regular people get to talk to people like you.

And right now, we have a call coming in from Kentucky.

And, Tom, you are live. Go ahead.

CALLER: Yes, ma'am.

I would just like to say that it says a lot about the backbone of this country, where someone had to go do that. And I know it had to be devastating. And I just -- I can't say enough. And I respect the man so much.

KERIK: Thank you. Thank you.

NEVILLE: And thanks for calling in.

Commissioner, there, of course, has been criticism to the response, the lack of communication that day. What do you say to that?

KERIK: Well, I think people have to take a step back and look at it.

It's -- well, number one, it's always easier to analyze and judge something after the fact.

Number two, this was a police department. This wasn't a military. This wasn't an army. This wasn't a navy. This was a police department, a paramilitary organization, responding to a wartime event. There were 16 to 18 acres of destruction and devastation. There were 3,000 people killed at this event.

Was there communications issues? Absolutely. The cell phones went out. There were some radio problems. But this was an event that was sort of the unimaginable. If you look at the damage and the devastation and the death, this was bigger than the attack on Pearl Harbor. And I think people have to take that into perspective when they think about that day.

NEVILLE: There was actually chaos, in every sense of the word.

KERIK: It was chaotic in its own sense. But you have to -- people also have to realize, for many years, since 1994, when the mayor took over, we had practiced and prepared and planned for the possibility of an attack like this.

And had this attack -- as ironic as this sounds -- had it happened in any other city in this country, I think the damages and the casualties would have been far more.

NEVILLE: I want to take a question from an audience member there.

Ralph, I think, is your name.

RALPH: Hi.

When did it first dawn on you or the mayor or anyone on your staff that this was a terrorist attack or could be a terrorist attack and not just a plane accident?

KERIK: Two or three seconds after the second tower was hit.

The mayor arrived at the scene with me within three minutes after the second plane hit tower two. But when the second plane hit Tower Two, it flew in from the south, blew out the north end of the building over top of us. I didn't know it was a plane until the aviation pilots started yelling that it was a commercial airliner. And it was at that second that I knew it was an attack.

NEVILLE: This gentleman here from New York, Ira, in our audience, wearing a Yankees shirt, a true New Yorker, wants to get in on this conversation.

IRA: Do you believe the terrorists will attack subway systems in New York?

KERIK: I can't say whether they will attack the subway systems, but they will be back.

I don't know if it's going to be New York. We can't say where it's going to be. I think it's extremely important that we commit to the war on terrorism that the president has committed.

I think it's extremely important that we create the intelligence databases and the clearinghouse for intelligence that the president wants to do to make sure that the next time this happens, where they attempt to do this, we know what happens before -- we know it's going to happen beforehand. And that's going to be the key of fighting terrorism.

Where it's going to happen, when and how, we don't know yet. But I can promise you, there will be another attack on this country.

NEVILLE: And do you feel comfortable knowing that we can be or will be as prepared as we possibly can be?

KERIK: Right.

I think we are in much better shape today than we were a year ago. I think that will continue. I think we have to stay committed to the war on terrorism, both on the homeland front and abroad. I think the war in Afghanistan and on other countries that support terrorism has got to continue.

I think, on the homeland, we have to make sure that we create this intelligence network. We have to make sure that the federal agencies are talking to our local police officers. We have 660,000 cops and police officers that patrol our streets. They have got to know what the feds are looking for. And they have got to communicate. If they don't, we are going to miss the next attack.

NEVILLE: Well, of course, Bernard Kerik and Rudy Giuliani, you know that team. Well, guess what? They are up to something again. We are going to find out exactly what these two men have planned for us next.

Don't go anywhere. TALKBACK LIVE continues after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: Today on TALKBACK LIVE's "Free-For-All Friday": are some of the images from September 11 too painful to see? Should networks limit how much the tragedy they air next week?

Also, Augusta National still says no to women. Now a women's group might pressure the companies of high-profile members. Push comes to shove today on TALKBACK LIVE's "Free-For-All" Friday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEVILLE: And welcome back, everybody.

We are talking with former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. He is in town, by the way, here in Atlanta for the Battle of Atlanta, a Joe Corley-sponsored karate competition. We'll talk about that in a minute.

But what I want to do is clarify what you are doing now. You are working -- a firm called Giuliani Partners.

KERIK: We're still working with the mayor, Giuliani Partners, which is a business management consulting firm that was created by the mayor once he left office.

And, primarily, it's -- there are other members of the firm: his former chief of staff, the former fire commissioner, the commissioner of emergency management for the city of New York. You basically took the executive staff of New York City and transposed them into another building. And now we consult on different issues around the country, around the world. And my expertise in the field is security, naturally.

NEVILLE: And regarding that, we have some questions from the audience. I want to start with Steve.

What's your question, Steve?

STEVE: Yes, sir.

I just wanted to get your opinion on Bush's plan for homeland security and consolidation of all the agencies that have been identified in that plan.

KERIK: I think I have to give the president an enormous amount of credit. I think he's done more in the last 10 months to combat terrorism than we had done in the prior administration.

I think the merging of these agencies is absolutely necessary. We've got to create a mechanism where the agencies talk to each other and report to one command. We have got to make sure that those agencies, then, have a communication effort with the CIA and the FBI. If we do that, we'll be able to create the intelligence databases, to put them together into a clearinghouse, the dissemination of that information.

And that's what is going to prevent things like this from happening in the future. If we don't do that, they will be back and we'll miss it before they get here.

NEVILLE: What do you make of stories that we see when various airports across the country are shut down, evacuated for hours, because of suspicious packages?

KERIK: Well, I think it's the new world we live in. And I think we have to get accustomed to it. I think we have to understand it and we have to realize it's going to happen.

We have to police our streets differently. We have to be aware of our surroundings. You know, these people are going to come back. And when they do, they may not attack the country like the World Trade Center, like the Pentagon.

But if you took five areas in this country, and at 5:00 this afternoon, you sent in five suicide bombers to five airline counters or to five tourist sites and you killed 50 people, much less than what was killed on September 11, but you would devastate this country. You would cripple the economy, because you would frighten the entire country.

That's what terrorism is. It's sheer fear. And that's what they are attempting to do, because they despise this nation.

NEVILLE: Let me get another question in from another audience member -- Elaine.

ELAINE: Hi.

I wanted to know, do you think they are going to rebuild the tower back? And if they do, would it be as high as it was?

KERIK: Well, I think they are looking to rebuild the towers and create another economic development center like the towers.

But I have to say, from a personal perspective -- and maybe it's -- I have a different insight -- I am adamantly opposed to building on the footprints where the towers were. At 2:30 in the morning on the 12th, I went back to the site that night. And I met the mayor there. And I can recall looking out over the site and seeing the metal and the debris and the dust.

And I realized that there was nothing there. There was just metal and dust and dirt. Two buildings, 110 stories, had been disintegrated. They vaporized. They just disappeared. And the people that were in those buildings did the same. We never recovered all of the people in those buildings. They are still there. They're in the dust. They're in the ground. They're in the air.

And I, for one, I believe that is now a cemetery. I believe it's hallowed ground. And I don't think we would build on the battlefield of Gettysburg. And I don't think we should build there either.

NEVILLE: Wow, that's definitely a very -- yes.

(APPLAUSE)

NEVILLE: Very sensitive perspective. And I do appreciate that perspective.

What I'm going to do now, actually, just for the sake of time, I am going to take a turn here and talk about a totally different subject, which is going to be Tae Kwon Do. You have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

KERIK: Right.

NEVILLE: Correct?

And, yes, there is the Atlanta tournament here happening this weekend.

KERIK: Right.

Joe Corley's Battle of Atlanta is probably the largest martial art tournament in the world. And most of the people you see in this room in the front rows here are some of the masters over the last 20 or 30, 35 years. I don't want to give anybody's age away. But they are the pioneers, so to speak, that brought martial arts into this country.

NEVILLE: But how important is Tae Kwon Do in your life?

KERIK: I grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. I was born in Newark. And I know a lot of people may have seen the movie "Lean On Me," and Joe Clark, East Side High. Well, I went to East Side before Joe Clark ever cleaned it up.

And it was a pretty bad neighborhood. And I needed some help. And my help really came from the martial arts. I started when I was about 13. I got my black belt when I was 16. And that was sort of the foot in the behind that got me started to put me where I am today.

NEVILLE: Well, listen, you are at a great place today. And I really appreciate your stopping by. . .

KERIK: Thank you.

NEVILLE: ... here at TALKBACK LIVE to share your stories with us. Thank you very much.

KERIK: Thank you. Thank you very much.

NEVILLE: OK.

(APPLAUSE)

NEVILLE: Bernard Kerik.

And, as you know, it's "Free-For-All Friday," so our panel is standing by to get ready to rock 'n' roll right here on TALKBACK LIVE. First up: How much is too much when it comes to the coverage of September 11?

Don't go anywhere. TALKBACK LIVE continues after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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