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American Morning

French Police Detained Woman Trying to Board Paris to Cincinnati Flight

Aired January 07, 2004 - 08:08   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: French police detained a woman trying to board a Paris to Cincinnati flight yesterday because she had wires in her jacket. Even though she was cleared, U.S. security officials took extra precautions with that flight.
Gary Tuchman is in Hebron, Kentucky, where the Cincinnati bound planes land -- Gary, good morning.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, good morning to you.

3:50 yesterday afternoon, a Delta 767, parked behind me, ending an eight hour odyssey of sorts. Passengers aboard Delta Flight 43 disembarked on the tarmac and were rescreened after a woman tried to get on the plane in Paris, where the flight originated, a woman from Saudi Arabia with a Jordanian passport who is an electrical engineer who had wires poking from her coat.

Well, it turns out the wires were used to heat the coat, an electric blanket of sorts. The woman was deemed not suspicious and put on another plane to the United States. But authorities kept their eye on this plane as it crossed the Atlantic. At least 11 men were taken off the plane afterwards when it landed here at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport for questioning. They were later released and we talked to some of the passengers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But, you know, they didn't tell us anything till we came into the area where they were questioning her. They knew who they were getting. They were obvious, like I said, because three of the people I saw came on the airplane from Lebanon with me. I didn't know them, but I (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they were also pulled off?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, and there were some, a couple of guys, I think, from Egypt or something, Saudi Arabia or somewhere. You know, it was all Middle Eastern. I mean it was obvious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TUCHMAN: Interestingly, most of the passengers aboard the plane had no idea what happened whatsoever until after they landed here at the Cincinnati airport. As a matter of fact, we told some of the passengers what had happened -- Soledad, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Gary, can you address the conflicting accounts of whether or not there was a military escort for this plane?

TUCHMAN: Indeed. Authorities initially ordered military planes to escort the Delta 767, but then later canceled the order. So the planes never took off.

O'BRIEN: All right, Gary Tuchman for us this morning.

Gary, thanks for that update.

Well, obviously, as you can tell from Gary's report, air security is in a hyper sensitive state. But al Qaeda is said to have a fascination with airplanes.

Kelly McCann is a CNN contributor, also a counter-terrorism expert.

He joins us this morning from Washington, D.C.

It's nice to see you, Kelly.

Thanks for being with us.

J. KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Hi, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let's get right to it.

Delayed flights, jet escorts, do you think this is an over reaction or do you think this is exactly how officials and the American public should be reacting?

MCCANN: Well, two important points, or three, actually. One is people have to understand that none of these things are undertaken to annoy people. They're done because there's significant indicators saying or indicating that they should be undertaken.

The second thing is, is that we know that there is a fascination with airplanes and that it's a recurring theme with al Qaeda and there's, we've seen them talk in several different ways of how they would do it with explosives around people's necks and socks, in electronic devices like digital cameras, etc. And that's why you're seeing a lot of these hand searches and things like that.

And, lastly, the third point is is that it's a ridiculous notion that this is for politics. I mean just that sheer expenditure of money would -- there would be whistle blowing on something like this if it was ever determined that this is a political ploy to show a sensitivity to security by the Republicans and not by the Democrats. So...

O'BRIEN: So you mean the issue being used as sort of a political football...

MCCANN: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: ... as opposed to an actual security issue. Outside of planes, though, there's also obviously concern -- and we've been reading reports specifically today in the "Washington Post" -- about fears of a dirty bomb or radiation in major cities over the new year holiday. I mean it was a really interesting story about these experts walking around with radiation detection devices hiding in golf bags, hidden in briefcases and luggage as they rolled through different areas, disguising what their actual motivation was.

First, does that report surprise you at all?

MCCANN: No. NES teams are nothing new, nuclear emergency search teams. They've been around for decades. I mean there's nothing new about them. Now, the proliferation of the numbers of them and when they deploy, that is subject to this dynamic threat that we see whenever an increase in threat.

Also remember that there are biosensors that are deployed now, as well as the Marine Corps chemical and biological response force, the CBRF. That's used quite a bit, as well. So this is in relation to the information that's out there of the methods of attack that could be employed by al Qaeda, nothing more.

O'BRIEN: One official quoted in that article today in the "Washington Post" said the public is under reacting. So I guess that brings us back to our first question, is it an over reaction or should we be reacting even more when you hear information about these nuclear search teams?

MCCANN: Well, there's a couple of things. One is you should worry about things that you can control. I mean no individual citizen, other than reporting strange behavior, can do anything about any of these significant WMDs. That's, you just can't. So you should worry about things that -- like your personal finances, rather than other things.

The second thing to be aware of is that people who read the daily intelligence read boards obviously are more concerned because they see more of the direct information.

And lastly, it's kind of regional. We see a great emphasis on it in the Northeast, between Washington and New York, but incredibly less emphasis on it in places like San Francisco and Montana and Florida, places where the incidents haven't touched them yet. And so that goes, too, to the motivation of al Qaeda -- will they get more money by attacking New York and D.C. again so that they can say even with all this emphasis, we can still strike? Or would it be smarter for them to strike in middle America and make this seem like a ubiquitous threat, that it's everywhere?

No one knows, and that's what they're trying to determine -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Yes, no one knows. Those are some scary questions there.

Kelly McCann. Thanks a lot, Kelly.

MCCANN: A pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Cincinnati Flight>


Aired January 7, 2004 - 08:08   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: French police detained a woman trying to board a Paris to Cincinnati flight yesterday because she had wires in her jacket. Even though she was cleared, U.S. security officials took extra precautions with that flight.
Gary Tuchman is in Hebron, Kentucky, where the Cincinnati bound planes land -- Gary, good morning.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, good morning to you.

3:50 yesterday afternoon, a Delta 767, parked behind me, ending an eight hour odyssey of sorts. Passengers aboard Delta Flight 43 disembarked on the tarmac and were rescreened after a woman tried to get on the plane in Paris, where the flight originated, a woman from Saudi Arabia with a Jordanian passport who is an electrical engineer who had wires poking from her coat.

Well, it turns out the wires were used to heat the coat, an electric blanket of sorts. The woman was deemed not suspicious and put on another plane to the United States. But authorities kept their eye on this plane as it crossed the Atlantic. At least 11 men were taken off the plane afterwards when it landed here at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport for questioning. They were later released and we talked to some of the passengers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But, you know, they didn't tell us anything till we came into the area where they were questioning her. They knew who they were getting. They were obvious, like I said, because three of the people I saw came on the airplane from Lebanon with me. I didn't know them, but I (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they were also pulled off?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, and there were some, a couple of guys, I think, from Egypt or something, Saudi Arabia or somewhere. You know, it was all Middle Eastern. I mean it was obvious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TUCHMAN: Interestingly, most of the passengers aboard the plane had no idea what happened whatsoever until after they landed here at the Cincinnati airport. As a matter of fact, we told some of the passengers what had happened -- Soledad, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Gary, can you address the conflicting accounts of whether or not there was a military escort for this plane?

TUCHMAN: Indeed. Authorities initially ordered military planes to escort the Delta 767, but then later canceled the order. So the planes never took off.

O'BRIEN: All right, Gary Tuchman for us this morning.

Gary, thanks for that update.

Well, obviously, as you can tell from Gary's report, air security is in a hyper sensitive state. But al Qaeda is said to have a fascination with airplanes.

Kelly McCann is a CNN contributor, also a counter-terrorism expert.

He joins us this morning from Washington, D.C.

It's nice to see you, Kelly.

Thanks for being with us.

J. KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Hi, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let's get right to it.

Delayed flights, jet escorts, do you think this is an over reaction or do you think this is exactly how officials and the American public should be reacting?

MCCANN: Well, two important points, or three, actually. One is people have to understand that none of these things are undertaken to annoy people. They're done because there's significant indicators saying or indicating that they should be undertaken.

The second thing is, is that we know that there is a fascination with airplanes and that it's a recurring theme with al Qaeda and there's, we've seen them talk in several different ways of how they would do it with explosives around people's necks and socks, in electronic devices like digital cameras, etc. And that's why you're seeing a lot of these hand searches and things like that.

And, lastly, the third point is is that it's a ridiculous notion that this is for politics. I mean just that sheer expenditure of money would -- there would be whistle blowing on something like this if it was ever determined that this is a political ploy to show a sensitivity to security by the Republicans and not by the Democrats. So...

O'BRIEN: So you mean the issue being used as sort of a political football...

MCCANN: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: ... as opposed to an actual security issue. Outside of planes, though, there's also obviously concern -- and we've been reading reports specifically today in the "Washington Post" -- about fears of a dirty bomb or radiation in major cities over the new year holiday. I mean it was a really interesting story about these experts walking around with radiation detection devices hiding in golf bags, hidden in briefcases and luggage as they rolled through different areas, disguising what their actual motivation was.

First, does that report surprise you at all?

MCCANN: No. NES teams are nothing new, nuclear emergency search teams. They've been around for decades. I mean there's nothing new about them. Now, the proliferation of the numbers of them and when they deploy, that is subject to this dynamic threat that we see whenever an increase in threat.

Also remember that there are biosensors that are deployed now, as well as the Marine Corps chemical and biological response force, the CBRF. That's used quite a bit, as well. So this is in relation to the information that's out there of the methods of attack that could be employed by al Qaeda, nothing more.

O'BRIEN: One official quoted in that article today in the "Washington Post" said the public is under reacting. So I guess that brings us back to our first question, is it an over reaction or should we be reacting even more when you hear information about these nuclear search teams?

MCCANN: Well, there's a couple of things. One is you should worry about things that you can control. I mean no individual citizen, other than reporting strange behavior, can do anything about any of these significant WMDs. That's, you just can't. So you should worry about things that -- like your personal finances, rather than other things.

The second thing to be aware of is that people who read the daily intelligence read boards obviously are more concerned because they see more of the direct information.

And lastly, it's kind of regional. We see a great emphasis on it in the Northeast, between Washington and New York, but incredibly less emphasis on it in places like San Francisco and Montana and Florida, places where the incidents haven't touched them yet. And so that goes, too, to the motivation of al Qaeda -- will they get more money by attacking New York and D.C. again so that they can say even with all this emphasis, we can still strike? Or would it be smarter for them to strike in middle America and make this seem like a ubiquitous threat, that it's everywhere?

No one knows, and that's what they're trying to determine -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Yes, no one knows. Those are some scary questions there.

Kelly McCann. Thanks a lot, Kelly.

MCCANN: A pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Cincinnati Flight>