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American Morning
The January Barometer in the Stock Market; Special Interests Spend Millions to Influence Reform; A New Reality for Air Travelers; Nigerian Militant Group Speaks Out
Aired January 04, 2010 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Starting today, every international passenger flying to America will face the increased possibility of a full body pat down or more. And if you happen to be flying from more than -- from one of the more than dozen country that's the TSA has labeled "high risk," you will definitely be subject to enhanced screening measures.
Homeland Security Correspondent Jeanne Meserve is live in Washington this morning. So explain how these new security regulations are going to work, Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kiran, for some people it's going to be less onerous. As of now all passengers on flights heading into the United States will be subject to random screening, but those flying in from certain countries will be required to go through enhanced screenings, such as full body pat- downs, carryon bag searches, full-body scanning, and explosive detection swabs, this according to a new security directive issued by the Transportation Security Administration and now in effect.
The countries include those that are officially listed by the State Department as sponsoring terrorism. Those are Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. A list of another ten countries of interest was developed by the State Department, Department of Homeland Security and intelligence agencies. It includes Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen.
The directive also gives pilots on inbound flights the discretion to prevent passengers from keeping pillows and blankets on their laps and to limit movement in the cabin. The directive does not have an expiration date and is intended, as the TSA puts it, "sustainable and long-term."
However, Kiran, it may be modified in light of any new intelligence that comes in.
CHETRY: And meanwhile, administration officials are continuing to talk about the attempted Christmas Day attack. What is the latest in terms of what their information has yielded?
MESERVE: The president's top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan fanned out across all the talk shows yesterday and said although there were lapses and errors in sharing intelligence about the attack, there was no smoking gun. And he rejected comparisons to the failures of communication before 9/11.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BRENNAN, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER ON COUNTERTERRORISM: It's not like 9/11. There was no indication that any of these agencies or departments were intentionally holding back information. And I can point to numerous successors -- no turf battles. There were lapses and human errors, the system didn't work the way it should have.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sloppiness?
BRENNAN: I think there were human errors and lapses, and so what I'm going to do is I'll make sure they tell the president exactly what I think went wrong. But there wasn't an effort to try to conceal information.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MESERVE: President Obama will meet with his top homeland security and intelligence advisers at the White House tomorrow to discuss the shortcomings that allowed Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab to board an aircraft and very nearly bring it down. Kiran?
CHETRY: Jeanne Meserve for us this morning. Thanks so much.
And also joining us at the bottom of the hour to break down the new security measures and how they will impact you if you're flying, CNN's national security adviser Fran Townsend as well as Steven Flynn, homeland security expert.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Things are returning to normal this morning at Newark International Airport, but take a look at this. It was the scene last night, absolute chaos according to one passenger, as terminal C was locked down for six hours after a security breach.
The security scare was triggered by a man walking into a secure area through the exit without going through the screeners. Passengers had to be moved from the secure side of the terminal to the open side and go through the process all over again.
Our Alina Cho took these pictures showing all of the passengers waiting inside the terminal. She had just come off of an inbound flight. You can see the hallways. They're simply jam-packed with people. Here's how two folks described the chaos.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had all just gone through the security check point, and we saw the security chasing after somebody, everybody was yelling, the TSA people were yelling "ten-nine, ten-nine." They told everybody to freeze. We couldn't move. They said they didn't want us to reach into our bags, we just basically stood there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They took everybody off the planes, everybody outside of security. They've got to go back through security, every single person in the airport has to go back through and do a security check so we can get on our planes and get out of here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Unbelievable. Authorities looked at surveillance tapes trying to identify the man who ran through the exit, but they could not find him.
CHETRY: And you've got to ask, is there a better way, that one person who may have either on purpose or accidentally walked the wrong way through that exit check point can just make life hell for thousands of people and really almost completely paralyze one of our major airports in this country?
ROBERTS: It's pretty bizarre that he got through in the first place.
CHETRY: This has happened before, though. We've covered this...
ROBERTS: Where's the vigilance?
CHETRY: And also isn't there any other, I guess, trigger mechanism? It happened in terminal c, there's no way to keep the other terminals open, the entire airport was frozen.
ROBERTS: It was pretty incredible what happened.
CHETRY: Well, we're going to keep following that.
As well, facing threats from the Al Qaeda group linked to the Christmas Day bomb plot. Both the U.S. and Britain have now closed their embassies in Yemen, U.S. officials are pointing to signs that Al Qaeda is planning an attack inside of the Yemeni capital, possibly targeting the American embassy.
And the Obama administration is said to be closely working with Yemen's government to beef up security. It's still, though, not known how long the embassies will remain closed.
ROBERTS: And the top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq is focusing on Yemen and its increasing role on the war on terror. He was there over the weekend talking with the country's president. Our Barbara Starr is live at the Pentagon for us this morning. What was that weekend meeting all about, Barbara?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, the bottom line, the meeting was about planning the next step, sharing intelligence and information with the Yemenis about Al Qaeda in Yemen, where they are, where they're hiding out, and how to go after them.
A senior U.S. official says General Petraeus took messages and items of information from President Obama to President Saleh in Yemen, to sit down and talk to him about all of this. Just before he landed in Yemen, General Petraeus actually talked for the first time since the crisis began about how he views that country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. CENTCOM COMMANDER: It's a country that has a lot of challenges, the Houthis, some southern secessionists in the south, the reduction in oil production, although gas is going up, thankfully, but a youth bulge, many of the challenges of countries that are in the process of development -- rugged terrain, tribal areas and so forth.
So very important indeed that Yemen has taken the actions it has, and indeed, not just the United States but countries in the region, its neighbors and so forth, have provided, they in particular have provided significant assistance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STARR: And the question now, John, is more U.S. assistance to Yemen in going after Al Qaeda, more help in targeting, sharing intelligence, and even the possibility of U.S.-led strikes against Al Qaeda in Yemen. John?
ROBERTS: Barbara Starr for us at the Pentagon. Barbara, thanks.
It's coming up now on seven minutes now after the hour.
(WEATHER BREAK)
CHETRY: Meanwhile, the new year and new threats to the Obama administration, certainly a lot to deal with as the focus shifts from health care to protecting the homeland. Our Jim Acosta live, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's ten minutes past the hour, and here's a look at what's new this morning.
The world's highest freestanding structure opens today in Dubai. There is a look. It's taller than two empire state buildings, 2,600 feet, 200 stories, and enough windows to cover 17 football fields. The cost to build it? $1.5 billion.
And the opening comes at a tough time for Dubai. Last year the city shocked investors when it asked for more money to pay down its debt.
ROBERTS: A defense lawyer for five Americans held in Pakistan denies they were planning a terror attack. The attorney says the men arrested in December are not connected to Al Qaeda and were traveling to Afghanistan to help follow Muslims being victimized by western forces.
The court granted police two weeks to prepare charges against the men who were from the D.C. area.
CHETRY: New York senator Charles Schumer releasing a five-point security plan after calling Christmas Day's attempted terror attack a wake-up call. Senator Schumer says the U.S. airlines need to threaten to stop flying to airports that have lax security and also to increase penalties against countries who don't meet U.S. screening standards.
He also wants the government to order an expedited review of visas that belong to those added to major terrorist bases.
ROBERTS: And President Obama returns to Washington after his Hawaiian vacation, terrorism is at the top of his agenda. The new year brings with it a new front in the fight against Al Qaeda. Our Jim Acosta is looking into the repercussions.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: And all those involved in the attempted act on Christmas must know you, too, will be held to account.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Obama is starting 2010 confronting a cold reality -- Al Qaeda has established a new stronghold in Yemen where the White House now believes terrorists plotted with Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab to blow up flight 253 Christmas Day.
Nearly a decade after the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, the U.S. and Britain suddenly closed their embassies Sunday.
BRENNAN: Al Qaeda has several hundred members in Yemen and they've grown in strength.
ACOSTA: The emerging threat comes as the president and his security team plan to meet tomorrow on how to plug holes in aviation security.
BRENNAN: Clearly the system didn't work. We had a problem in terms of why AbdulMutallab got on that plane. There is no smoking gun piece of intelligence out there.
ACOSTA: But the chairman of the 9/11 Commission argues a red flag was missed, that warning from the suspect's father to U.S. officials in Nigeria.
THOMAS H. KEAN, 9/11 COMMISSION CHAIRMAN: That alone, given who that father was, his prestige in the community, his connections with the United States embassy, that alone should have been enough.
ACOSTA: Republicans have blasted the administration's handling of the failed attack, with Dick Cheney accusing the president of pretending the nation is not at war. White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan all but called Cheney a liar.
BRENNAN: Either the vice president is willfully mischaracterizing this president's position both in terms of the language he uses and the actions he's taken, or he's ignorant of the facts.
ACOSTA: But there are troubles new questions for the administration, such as the president's plan to close Guantanamo, a plan that includes sending some detainees back to Yemen, a place that's become a haven for former Gitmo prisoners.
SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN, (I) CONNECTICUT: The odds are that they will end up in the fight against us planning attacks on the United States of America. So I think it would be truly irresponsible for us, America, to send prisoners of war that we hold now at Guantanamo back to Yemen.
ACOSTA: Despite the barrage of criticism, the White House insists it wants to finish the job in the war against Al Qaeda, nine years after September 11th.
BRENNAN: We're going to get bin Laden, we're going to get Zawahiri, we're going to get the others.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: But John Brennan says the White House is not talking about sending troops to Yemen. Instead the focus appears to be on Al Qaeda worldwide. Consider what the director of the counterterrorism center is warning, John -- Al Qaeda, he says, is refining its methods to test the nation's defenses.
ROBERTS: So what about Guantanamo Bay? What's the plan for that?
ACOSTA: Well, you know, the president when he came into office, said that he plans to close that facility in one year. That's about three weeks from now.
And despite what Joe Lieberman said, John Brennan said yesterday that the plan is still on to send some of those detainees back to Yemen. But he said he underlined this caution by saying we're going to do this in the right way at the right time. So that is an indication that this deadline probably will not be met.
But they are going to go forward with sending those prisoners back to Yemen, John.
ROBERTS: All right, Jim Acosta for us this morning from Washington. Jim, thanks.
CHETRY: Still ahead, more about the making of a terrorist. We're going to be speaking with Fran Townsend and Steven Flynn, both homeland security experts. They join us live at the bottom of the hour. What do we need to change in our system to better tackle threats? It's 15 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Eighteen minutes past the hour. Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Eighteen minutes past the hour means it's time for a check of "Minding Your Business" and that's our Christine Romans here today. And she has an almanac with her, so let's brace ourselves.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: OK. CHETRY: Not the farmers' almanac.
ROMANS: No, no, the stock traders' almanac. Stock market junkies, I'm one of them. We try to predict every year what's going to happen in the stock market, much like you like to predict the weather at the beginning of the year.
CHETRY: Right.
ROMANS: You know, you can make some educated guesses. You can look at history and patterns. And there's something that's called the January factor, the January barometer. The January barometer is the first five days of the month, tend to be a good predictor for the rest of the month and the rest of the year. Because people are putting money to work, they're finding new sectors at the beginning of the year. And there's this other interesting thing that, as goes January, so goes the whole year.
When you look over history over the course -- you know, the course of time, when the Dow has gone up in January, the stock market has risen 10 percent for the rest of the year. When the Dow has fallen, it's risen much, much less, only a little bit of a percentage.
Now, Kiran asked me in the break, how did it work last year? What didn't work last year?
Because last year was a very unusual year, you had the Dow and the S&P and Nasdaq all down in January but the stock market actually went up. Last year was a very, very good year for stocks ending a very terrible decade for stocks.
In fact, if you were in your 30s and you've been investing for exactly ten years, your stock return is negative. Very rare. The S&P 500 down ten years over a ten year period for the first time in about 90 years. When you look at the last decade, S&P down 24 percent, Dow down eight percent, Nasdaq down 24 percent.
Look at the '90s, you guys. Wow. The S&P was up 300 percent in the '90s. The Dow up 400 percent, the NASDAQ up 794 percent, and the '80s were also very good. So you know what? That kind of tells us when you take a very broad, long look, it tells us the last horrible decade might have been a bubble popping in stocks. Might have been trying to return back to more normal levels.
From 1950, I think, to 2004, the average annual return for the S&P was like 12 percent or something. So you know --
CHETRY: Right.
ROMANS: It's been just -- so, look, if you're close to retirement, you're really hurting now. If you just started investing over the past ten years, you're negative. That's just the way it is.
CHETRY: Hopefully things will get better.
ROMANS: I know. Last year was a very good year, so it helped some people especially. I know people who doubled down in March last year, and those people have really, really made some wise choices and some good bets.
CHETRY: All right. You have a numeral for us?
ROMANS: I most certainly do. And here's my numeral. My numeral is $3.80.
What investment of one dollar in 1999 now yields $3.80? It ain't stocks. We know this. John calls me the angel of darkness so I wanted to bring him something that shows --
ROBERTS: If you invested a buck in this, it would be worth $3.80.
CHETRY: Gold?
ROBERTS: No. Not gold.
ROMANS: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Gold. I think a bond investment, $1 is worth maybe $2 today. A dollar invested in stocks ten years ago when you even figure in dividends and all of that is worth 90 cents today.
ROBERTS: And there goes our 401(k)s.
ROMANS: The long haul, boys and girls. The long haul.
CHETRY: Next year or decade.
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: Christine, thank you.
ROBERTS: Nice that you're wearing black today. Very appropriate.
The big money behind the health care lobby, some surprising organizations are fighting for the attention of lawmakers. Our Carol Costello has been looking into it. She's got an "A.M. Original" coming up next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: It's coming up on 24 minutes after the hour. Our top stories about six minutes away now. But first, an "A.M. Original," something that you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING.
Health care is big business in Washington and has made for some very strange bedfellows. Groups that you would never expect teaming up both for and against the bill. Our Carol Costello is keeping tabs on who is lobbying for your health. She's live in Washington this morning.
Hi, Carol. CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Guess how many organizations registered to lobby on the health care reform bill? I know it's early, but try to take a guess.
I will say there are hundreds of organizations who lobbied for or against health care reform, organizations you wouldn't expect, like the gun owners association and the beverage association. Why would they spend millions of dollars lobbying for what goes into health care reform? You're about to find out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The future of every American's medical care rests with these 14 senators.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO (voice-over): It's the kind of commercial you've no doubt seen a million times, courtesy of groups you'd expect to spend millions to schmooze Congress on health care reform. Here's one from the insurance industry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NARRATOR: Congress is proposing over $100 billion in cuts to Medicare advantage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: But big insurance isn't the only organization with its eye on the health care pie. So do organizations you wouldn't expect who sometimes lobby at the mere hint of a threat. Like the Gun Owners of America. They lobbied to make sure the bill doesn't use gun related health data to prevent people from owning firearms.
The American Association of Museums lobbied to make sure health care costs wouldn't jeopardize the charitable gifts that wealthy Americans donate to museums and other charities. In all, nearly 1,000 organizations actively lobbied Congress on health care reform, according to opensecrets.org, all willing to pay to keep their eye on the health care pie.
(on camera): How much money is focused on just this one bill?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's about $400 million.
COSTELLO (voice-over): The Center for Responsive Politics says all that money in the first three quarters of 2009 came from all kinds of folks. Example, the soft drink industry.
(on camera): You spent $7 million?
SUSAN NEELY, AMERICAN BEVERAGE ASSOCIATION: We spent money to put the voice of the people on the air. Most of that goes for paid media.
COSTELLO (voice-over): Why would the American Beverage Association, a powerful group that lobbies for companies like Coke and Pepsi, spend all that money on health care reform? One word. Fear.
(on camera): Was this sort of like defensive lobbying?
MICHAEL JACOBSON, CENTER FOR SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: Yes, absolutely defensive lobbying.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, TELEVISION AD AGAINST TAXES)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Washington, please hear us. We just can't take any more taxes right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO (voice-over): The beverage industry was so concerned lawmakers would tax sugary soda to pay for health care, in 2009 it spent ten times as much as the year before. This in response to a Senate committee report that merely floated the idea, an idea that has been pushed for years by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
(on camera): There was never any real champion among lawmakers for this tax, was there?
JACOBSON: No, there never has been, and there really isn't a champion now.
COSTELLO (voice-over): Still, the beverage industry registered more than a dozen organizations and lobbying firms to convince lawmakers to kill the very idea of a sugary soda tax.
(on camera): You guys poured all of this money and effort into defeating something that some think never was going to happen anyway.
NEELY: We were counseled by very smart people in Congress that this, in some corners might be a viable idea just again because the pressure for funding was so enormous, rightly so, and you couldn't take anything for granted.
COSTELLO (voice-over): And then there's this. Fifteen beverage industry lobbyists also made campaign contributions over time to 14 members on the Senate Finance Committee, the very committee that had the power to kill the idea. Absolutely legal, and some charge absolutely effective. The soda tax idea died before it ever became a serious consideration.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The beverage industry saw a threat on the horizon. They realized that they had a short window of opportunity to remove it, and they threw everything they had at it.
COSTELLO: The American Beverage Association, just one more example of the hundreds of lobbying organizations who have their eye on the health care pie. (END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Oh, there were a lot more companies on that list too. The Home School Legal Defense Association, the Brick Industry Association, the Fishing Partnership Health Plan, even our parent company, Time Warner was on that list -- John.
ROBERTS: Amazing how many groups were lobbying against this. Now, Carol, there was a big uproar after the Senate health care bill passed because it included a proposal to tax of all things, tanning salons. Is the tanning industry now saying, why didn't we lobby on this?
COSTELLO: We actually called the organization that represents the tanning industry. They say they so wish they had registered to lobby, because this idea to tax tanning salons came out of the blue. They were blindsided by it. They should have taken a cue from the beverage association.
ROBERTS: I wasn't even aware that there was a tanning salon association, but --
COSTELLO: There is. There's an association for everything.
CHETRY: There's a separate association for the small goggles they make you put on your eyes. I'm kidding.
ROBERTS: And there's a separate association for the people who provide the special cream that gets rid of that little white rabbit tail you get from the tanning bed.
COSTELLO: Oh, goodness.
ROBERTS: Carol --
COSTELLO: Speaking from experience, John, have you been to tanning salons?
ROBERTS: No, I've just heard about them, Carol. Interesting stuff this morning, Carol. Thanks so much.
Next in Carol's series, lobbying for your health, the powerful union lobbies for reform. Inside their war room, health care is a candidate and they're trying to win the election. Carol sits down with the union boss and makes him sweat just a little. Looking forward to that.
Coming up in the half hour now and that means it's time for this morning's top stories. The White House and one Republican senator deadlocked over who should be in charge of the TSA. President Obama's top counterterrorism man says former FBI agent Erroll (ph) Southers is highly qualified to do the job, but South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is raising questions about Southers' position on worker unionization.
CHETRY: Things are finally returning to normal this morning at Newark international airport but a security breach caused a six-hour lockdown last night after a man walked through a checkpoint exit into a secure area of terminal three. Thousands of passengers had to be rescreened. Many were sitting on their planes on the runways for hours. The man, by the way, was never found.
ROBERTS: Tougher airport security checks are in place this morning. Travelers flying into the United States from 14 high-risk countries will now be subject to body scans and pat downs. Passengers on other incoming international flights will also be subject to more frequent random searches.
CHETRY: But what does all that mean and will it really make us safer in the air? Joining us now to dig a little deeper into the new security measures facing air travelers, we have Homeland Security expert Stephen Flynn, who is the president for the Center for National Policy, with me here in New York. Good to see you this morning, Steven.
STEPHEN FLYNN, PRESIDENT OF CENTER FOR NATIONAL POLICY: Good to be with you.
CHETRY: And also joining us from D.C., we have CNN national security contributor Fran Townsend. Great to see you as well, Fran. Thanks for being here.
All right. Let's start with - we explained a little bit more, anybody flying into the U.S. facing these random screenings, all passengers coming from 14 terror prone nations are going to be patted down and will also have their carry-on bags searched. How much does that tighten the net, Stephen? Does it go far enough?
FLYNN: Well, we have a real challenge here. Airline security was viewed as the crown jewel of our post 9/11 Homeland Security efforts and obviously this latest incident exposed some serious gaps. There are limits though to just how far we can do to pat down and screen every bit of our way to security. One of the two key elements that were very essential for preventing this attack was first the report from the father about the terrorist.
CHETRY: Right.
FLYNN: That's a very important tool that we need to be able to use. The other piece was of course the actions of the passengers themselves on the plane to obstruct the attack. We need to remember that in the overall layers of security that we embrace that our greatest asset often is everyday people. And to the extent to which some of the prescriptions that are coming out are really centered around technology and just heavily (INAUDIBLE) around the inspection process here, we're losing sight of the bigger picture.
CHETRY: You know, and Fran, a lot of people might be wondering why we weren't using some of these enhanced screening procedures on people coming from countries that are on lists of state sponsor of terror, or countries of interest, why weren't we doing that before anyway?
FRAN TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Kiran, as you can imagine, immediately after September the 11th, a lot of these sort of procedures were in place. And over time through diplomatic channels, through political channels, there were complaints from those countries. And these sort of targeted procedures against particular regions or countries do have political ramifications, and so over time, I think we scaled things back.
You know, I agree with Steve, we can't rely solely on technology. On the other, I don't think we can comfort ourselves by saying well in the end there's always good passengers who will jump on a guy on a plane with a bomb. What we need is both, what you is investments long term in technology. You need random measures, the public isn't aware of, that get moved around based on the dynamic threat of a situation and you need to remind passengers that we have to take personal responsibility if we see the threat. You need all three.
CHETRY: Right. Right. But here just getting to the nitty gritty about some of these, they say they're going to be doing pat downs, right? And that screeners are going to perhaps be able to touch areas of your body, including, you know, these enhanced pat downs which is not pleasant to think about, but include breast and groin searches under limited circumstances, they say.
But there are others who say that they wouldn't have found the explosives on this man who had them sewn into his underwear. So what good is that beside a lot of inconvenience and embarrassment for people who were doing nothing wrong, just trying to get on a plane?
FLYNN: Well, it has gaps, obviously. We have a real issue here that these things can be gained successfully by - Fran is quite right, we want to sort of keep people guessing, and keep things moving. One of the challenges that if we have rote, ritualistic procedures is that people can figure out and bad guys can figure them out and figure out how to compromise them.
So one of the challenge that we're trying to do is maintain a dynamic. You use measures and you try here and you move there and keep them guessing. That can help up to a point. But again, it's more than just those tools that will make us secure. And we're not going to be 100 percent secure all the time.
One of the things we need to do is take a deep breath as a country. Realize these are risks we have to manage and that we have to avoid overreacting every time this happens. The Israelis, the British people are very famous for their resilience. Americans are also resilient people but sometimes we get into this dynamic of needing to feel like we can somehow protect ourselves 100 percent of the time. We can't always do that.
CHETRY: And Fran, I want to talk about the other side of this as well, the intelligence. John Brennan, the White House senior adviser on counter terrorism, said that there was no smoking gun, referring to this botched attempt, this failed Christmas attack, that there was no smoking gun or intelligence out there that said this was a terrorist or that he was going to carry out an attack against an aircraft. That they had bits and pieces of information. You've been on the inside looking at intelligence, if you have the father going to the embassy and talking to the CIA that's not considered a smoking gun?
TOWNSEND: Well, Kiran, I think that's a regrettable phrase. It's sort of like Janet Napolitano saying the system worked. One John Brennan hasn't completed yet his detailed review. Two, I agree with you, the father coming in and pointing to his own son as being radicalized is a problem, not to mention the intelligence communications with Al Awlaki. They're intercepted in August and now understood to be a reference to the plot in December.
I mean, after all, after the Ft. Hood shooting, where Al Awlaki, the radical Yemeni cleric, also communicated with the Ft. Hood shooter, you'd think that we would have by November gone back and understood the August communication of the same cleric, referencing this Christmas day plot. And so there are an awful lot of pieces here that, all taken together, some might argue are the smoking gun.
CHETRY: Right.
TOWNSEND: And so I think we need to see what happens with John's more detailed review.
CHETRY: Well, he also went on to say, Stephen, that what we need to do as an intelligence community and as a government is to be able to bring the bits of information together. Now with all the changes that we made in the wake of 9/11, aren't we supposed to be doing that? Or aren't we already doing that? Or is it simply unrealistic to think we can stop every attempted terror attack?
FLYNN: Well, the success of preventing attacks is dependent on intelligence, but our intelligence apparatus is broken in many ways. And as we saw here most recently, one element of this is just not taking the information from nonofficial sources, in this case the father, as creditably as they need to be taken. There's a tendency in the intelligence community to only look at what officials say and given that credibility.
Now this is something that should have had alarms that went off, and people should have acted accordingly. But when you get a lot of bureaucracy involved, managing the bureaucracy becomes almost the overwhelming task. Managing all this information does. And sometimes people lose site of the forest for the trees. That clearly happened in this instance.
The bottom line is investment and smart people giving them the ability to exercise judgment and rewarding them that judgment. That's a key part of how we go forward, not just throwing all the technology at this and lots of screens and so forth, but we've got to get the people involved with all these.
CHETRY: All right. Well, this was certainly a wake-up call. We'll see what changes happen because of it.
Stephen Flynn, Fran Townsend, great to have both of you. Thanks for being with us this morning.
TOWNSEND: Thanks, Kiran.
FLYNN: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is under arrest for trying to blow up a plane on Christmas morning, but in his home country of Nigeria, among some people he is a hero. The twisted logic of terrorism just ahead in the most news in the morning. It's 37 minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. We are getting a more detailed picture of exactly what happened before the attempted Christmas terror attack. The timeline begins in London, from 2005 to 2008, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is enrolled at University College in London.
While there, he has multiple contacts with extremists in the U.K.. Communication is intercepted by British intelligence but deemed not a threat to national security. June 2008, still in London, he applies for a tourist visa to the United States. That visa is granted and in August he travels to Houston, Texas, for a two-week seminar on Islamic studies.
In early 2009, a stop in Dubai where he enrolls at the University of (INAUDIBLE). May 2009 he applies for a visa to visit England but is denied because he lists a fake school on his application. The U.K. puts him on its watch list. August 2009, Abdulmutallab is in Yemen. He allegedly receives training from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
In November, his father, a former bank executive, visits the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and tells CIA officials his son is under the influence of religious extremists. He follows up with several telephone calls. After the first visit, the embassy sends a visa viper cable to the State Department. The information also ends up at CIA headquarters and the National Counterterrorism Center, which decides not to put Abdulmutallab on the no fly list or revoke his visa.
Instead he's put on a general watch list containing hundreds of thousands of names. December 16 in Ghana, Abdulmutallab buys his ticket to the United States with nearly $3,000 in cash. And by the 24th, he boards a KLM flight to Amsterdam carrying just a shoulder bag. Christmas day, he connects in Amsterdam to Northwest flight 253 to Detroit. Just before noon on the final approach, he allegedly tries to detonate PETN explosives hidden in his underwear. Kiran.
CHETRY: You know, a Nigerian militant group is now speaking out after that botched attempt to blow up the passenger jet Christmas day saying that Abdulmutallab's actions were justified. Christian Purefoy has this morning's security watch from Nigeria.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An outpost of radical Islam in northern Nigeria. These young men are among thousands of followers of Shake Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, one of Nigeria's most militant clerics who lives just an hour from the family home of terror bomb suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. In a rare interview with CNN, he expressed his grievances against America.
IBRAHEEM EL-ZAKZAKY, ISLAMIC MOVEMENT OF NIGERIA: They attack our president - we feel also attacked.
PUREFOY (on camera): What do you blame for causing Nigeria's problems?
EL-ZAKZAKY: Failures of the United States of America, which has interests in our oils.
PUREFOY (voice-over): Nigeria is the world's fifth largest oil exporter to America. But even so, 70 percent of its people live on less than $1 a day. With promises of social support, El-Zakzaky's call for an Islamic revolution in Nigeria is appealing to many young Nigerians.
It's not known how many Islamic sects there are. But with similar ideals to El-Zakzaky, they are often at odds with the Nigerian authorities. Police accuse El-Zakzaky of storing weapons at this camp, but have never were found any here.
(on camera): Last year, there was a huge government crackdown against Islamic camps like this across the north of the country. The worst was when one sect (INAUDIBLE) rose up against what they called the introduction of western education and nearly 1,000 people died.
(voice-over): The sect's use schools as well as street protests to spread their radical influence.
(on camera): If someone gave him a bomb and asked him to detonate it over the United States, would he do that?
INUWA YUNUS, NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD STUDENT (through translator): If they told you they provoke me, they kill my brothers, they maim my people. Well, it's allowed for you to retaliate, to fight back. That is if you can. But me personally, I don't have the mind to do such a thing. Nor do I have the mind to kill myself.
PUREFOY: No sect has publicly expressed any desire to attack the west. However, such radical ideas provide an ideal breeding ground for more extreme foreign influences.
SULEIMAN AHMED, KADUNA CIVIL RIGHTS CONGRESS: We have sects, groups and individuals here who have very strong views against the west and in solidarity with issues and events happening in the Middle East and other places. But they may not have the opportunity and the resources of taking their own views to the next level.
PUREFOY: With this nation's first homegrown suicide bomb suspect now awaiting prosecution in the United States, local grievances in Northern Nigeria cannot be dismissed as mere talk anymore.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PUREFOY: It had to be said, Kiran, that Abdulmutallab probably would never have mingled with these people. He lived in a very wealthy house behind big gates and barb wired walls.
However, that is the back drop just outside his gates that he would have grown up with, until he was about 12, when he left for further education. But he did continue to come back to Nigeria ever after - Kiran.
CHETRY: An amazing firsthand look from Christian Purefoy in Nigeria this morning. Thank you.
ROBERTS: Rob Marciano is going to have this morning's travel forecast right after the break.
CHETRY: That's right. And then coming up in 10 minutes, time for an "AM House Call." This morning we're looking at a fascinating new study on autism and a possible link between how much wealth a family has and whether or not it increases the risk for having a child with autism.
It's a large-scale study that we're going to give you details on. We're back in just a moment.
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CHETRY: There you go.
Good morning, Minneapolis. Right now it is fair, minus 7. So can you imagine - can you imagine what the wind chill would be like (ph), temperature?
ROBERTS: It's a beach day (ph) in Minneapolis.
CHETRY: Well, I mean, a little bit later it will be because it will be sunny and it will be 9. Whenever you're not in the negative digits, it's time to head to the beach.
ROBERTS: Perfect! Exactly. Just got (ph) a little hole in the ice and just jump in.
Rob Marciano is monitoring the cold weather across the country for us this morning. He's at the Weather Center in Atlanta. Hey, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey guys. Fair (ph). If I lived in Minneapolis and it was minus 7, I - I would think this is totally unfair. And they're not the only one...
CHETRY: That's very true, Rob.
MARCIANO: My goodness, 37 below yesterday, guys, in International Falls, Minnesota, and that's - we call that the icebox of the country. It's near the Canadian border. It typically gets cold. But 37 below, not including the wind chill, that broke a record.
Twenty, 21 degrees right now in New York City. Winds, yes, you the wind chills there down in the teens, in single numbers, but it wouldn't be quite as windy today as it was yesterday. Because - and because of that we'll see less in the way of travel delays. But there'll be a few because of the lighter winds. New York metros, Boston, DC metros and Philly because of the wind, and low clouds and some snow expected across parts of Philadelphia.
All right, lake effect snow is certainly going to popping some of that white stuff across the eastern shores and Great Lakes again today.
Here are some of the totals yesterday, 26.5 inches in Williamson; Oswego, New York seeing 19.8; and Buffalo, 14.3. Buffalo, we showed you pictures of yesterday's game from - in Indianapolis against the Bills. Well, the tailgaters - you got to talk about them being, you know, hearty folks out there, 14 inches of snow not a problem. Just huddle around the - the fire there in the garbage can and have your hot beverage, for sure.
Well, if football's not your game in the snow, how about a little golf? The 47th Annual Eskimo Open happening over the weekend in Cog Hill Golf and Country Club just outside of Chicago, which is a - an amazing course. But I would think tomorrow - yesterday's conditions, John and Kiran, would - would certainly be a little bit more difficult. You could play nine or 18 holes depending on just how tough you are.
Another shot of even colder air expected, not only across Chicago but across these, the two thirds of the country, coming later this week. We'll talk more about that in the next hour. Back to you guys.
ROBERTS: So what was the temperature at International Falls? Minus...
MARCIANO: Thirty-seven below, in - measured in the shade, not including the wind.
CHETRY: Measured in the shade.
ROBERTS: So it's - so a high of nine today, then, in Minneapolis is...
MARCIANO: Yes, warm enough.
ROBERTS: .... relatively balmy?
MARCIANO: Yes. Warm enough.
CHETRY: I mean, what can you wear that you could actually go out in that, I mean, for - for anything more than a minute? I mean...
ROBERTS: You could wear an igloo. Thanks, Rob.
MARCIANO: All right, guys.
ROBERTS: This morning's top stories just minutes away, including new screening measures now in effect for all passengers flying into the United States. They're especially tight if you're coming from one of 14 nations considered at high risk of terrorism by the TSA. How the new rules will impact you at the top of the hour.
CHETRY: And al Qaeda establishing a new stronghold in Yemen. America, Britain and France shutting down embassies there. Ahead, the challenges of the changing landscape of terror in 2010.
ROBERTS: And a big embarrassment for the NBA, two players facing questioning from the US Attorney's Office today accused of gun play inside the locker room.
Those stories and more at the top of the hour.
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CHETRY: Well, it is now 55 minutes after the hour. It means it's time for an "AM House Call" and today we're talking about new research suggesting that there may be autism clusters around the country, certain areas where people are more likely to have children with autism.
But the story is more complicated than you might think. We bring in our Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. So Elizabeth, what can you tell us about these autism clusters?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kiran, what I can tell you about these autism clusters is that they tend to be in places where parents are highly educated.
That's right, autism rates are higher when the child has highly educated parents, when the child's parents are white and when the parents are older. And this is sort of a great glimpse into one of the possibilities of what causes autism, because it's been this incredible mystery for so long.
Now, of course the question is, gee, well why? Why would highly educated parents be more likely to have a child with autism? Lots of theories out there, Kiran. One of them is simply that highly educated parents are more aware of the signs of autism and so take their children into the doctor and of course more likely to have insurance so they can afford that doctor - Kiran.
CHETRY: You know, and we - we also hear about how critical it is for a child to be diagnosed early. What are some of the signs that parents need to monitor for and to flag for their pediatrician?
COHEN: Right. Well, first of all, you need to make sure your pediatrician is screening your child at 18 months and 24 months. That's what the American Academy of Pediatrics says. Also, there are certain signs that you want to look for. For example, if at 12 months your child isn't babbling, that is a sign that perhaps they have autism and you need to take them in to the doctor. Second of all, at 16 months, if they're not saying any single words like mama or dada or words like that, that's another sign. And also, if you have no two-word phrases at 24 months, that's also a sign that perhaps they're having a problem.
Parents can really take a look. If your child is not making eye contact with people, if they don't like to play with stuffed animals or dolls or make eye contact with those toys, that's also possibly a problem.
CHETRY: You know, and the other thing is a lot of people are asking, well, is it certain environmental exposures that are taking place in some of these areas? And it appears that the study says that that's probably not a correlation.
COHEN: Right. Right, Kiran. That's a great question because - you know when there are pollutants in those areas and no, that's not the issue. And it's interesting, these are areas like Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Burbank - I mean, really affluent areas where you see these higher rates of autism, and no, there - there's no known environmental reason. They really think it's just that these are parents who are highly educated, well-to-do, can get their kids to the doctor and recognize the signs of autism early.
CHETRY: All right. Well, if people want to read more about it, it's in the online edition of the Autism Research Journal today.
Elizabeth Cohen, thanks for breaking it down for us.
COHEN: Thanks, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Coming up to two minutes to the top of the hour. Now your top stories coming your way in just 90 seconds here on the Most News in the Morning.
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