Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Update on the Middle East Crisis; Target USA: A Look at Possible Terror Targets

Aired August 14, 2006 - 08:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Those stories and much more on this AMERICAN MORNING. Good morning, welcome back everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm Miles O'Brien, thanks for being with us. The Middle East cease-fire holding, but apparently just by a thread. At least two clashes in southern Lebanon between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters to tell you about. But apparently no ripple effect beyond there. Meanwhile, some of the key military leaders are now huddling. CNN's Paula Hancocks monitoring events from Jerusalem for us. Paula, hello.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello Miles. Well the Israeli military has just told CNN that high Israeli officials did in fact just meet with UNIFIL officials. This is the beefed up version of which will be keeping the peace in southern Lebanon alongside those Lebanese troops. Now we understand that they met just on the border which is a town which pretty much pans both sides of the border, Rash Haniqra(ph). But the Israeli military declined to give any details of that meeting. But the first crucial meeting between those two groups to show that they obviously will have to talk a lot more in the future to coordinate how one moves in and the Israeli troops then withdraw from southern Lebanon.

As you say, there have been a couple of clashes this Monday. One happening just a couple of hours after that cease-fire came into effect. Both according to the Israeli military when a Hezbollah fighter who was armed or a group of fighters came towards a group of soldiers. They said it was self-defense. Now, we are hearing from the Israeli Defense Minister as well talking just a few minutes ago, Amir Parrots(ph), saying that the cease-fire does hold despite these isolated skirmishes. And he also says that he's calling for an investigation into this Lebanon war preempting really opposition calls which are expected later in the day for that inquiry. Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN: Well it will be interesting to watch how this plays out politically. In the meantime, just to be clear, no Katyusha or any other kind of rockets have landed in northern Israel since the cease-fire began?

HANCOCKS: At this point, no, none at all.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right, Paula Hancocks in Jerusalem. Thank you very much. Soledad?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: U.S. officials have dropped the threat level for flights from Britain it now stands at orange or high. British officials have announced a similar move. They are warning passengers though to remain on alert following last week's news of a foiled terror plot. Despite the decrease in security level, it will likely still be a chaotic day for travelers in London, as many as 20 percent of the flights at Heathrow are expected to be canceled. CNN's John Vause is there this morning. Hey John, good morning, what is it like there?

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Soledad. Another chaotic and confusing day for many passengers, especially here at Heathrow but some good news for other travel in other airports around Britain. Because the terror alert has been lowered those passengers are now allowed to take one small piece of hand luggage, it's only small though, no bigger than this bag here. They're also allowed to bring on board once again laptops and other electronics like iPods and cell phones, that kind of thing. But here at Heathrow it is another day of clear plastic bags and flight delays, as well as flight cancellations. Even though some of the planes continue to take off to try and clear that backlog of passengers. Also banned and will be banned for quite sometime we're told, all liquids, lotions and gels unless it's for medication or baby's milk. And also any kind of toiletries or cosmetics is not allowed on the planes at all. And they say this could be standard operating procedure for quite some time to come. Soledad?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: John Vause for us this morning, he's at Heathrow. Thanks John. Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN: Word of that plot has certainly made us a little more jittery. Nearly five years now since 9/11. The question is, how safe are we here in the U.S.? All day long CNN taking a critical look at the locations, the places, the opportunities for terror and possible terror attacks. We're calling it "Target USA." We have live reports from key spots all around the country this morning for you. CNN's Brianna Keilar at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, busiest in the country. And AMERICAN MORNING's Alina Cho at Grand Central terminal here in New York. CNN's Sean Callebs is in the port of -- excuse me Port Fourchon in Louisiana near some oil rigs there. Let's begin with Brianna and get a sense of how nervous travelers are this morning or Brianna are they kind of taking it in stride?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They really are taking it in stride, Miles. A lot of people saying that the safety measures are in place just for that, they're safety and so they really don't have a problem with them. They feel better about these safety measures. Security lines here at O'Hare have been ebbing and flowing throughout the morning, things moving pretty well at this point. And something that we've heard reports at other airports this weekend we heard at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport that there were mounds of bags just piling up. Bags that appeared to have missed their flights. And let's take a look down here at the baggage claim at O'Hare, that's something we're not seeing here. Not a lot of bags piling up. We did see some bags that had missed flights this weekend, a few dozen bags. But a United baggage worker told us that's just standard for a Monday morning. What they are seeing though are some bags that are still missing flights from Britain. That's sort of something that has changed. Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. And generally speaking though, when you talk to people, they're just packing a little differently? Are they leaving their toothpaste behind and just carrying the carry ons? There's a lot of things to consider as you travel.

KEILAR: That's right, but people are adjusting, they're being very resilient and they're just taking these changes in stride. They definitely are adjusting their behavior though. Most of the people that we talked to, domestic travelers, say they're coming about 45 to 60 minutes early. They say they're checking their bags, they're taking less carry-on luggage. And also green tag bags, those are those bags that if you're going on sort of a small commuter jet, maybe 50 people, where you actually walk out onto the tarmac and maybe you hand your bag over there on the tarmac, you pick it up when you deplane. Baggage workers telling us that there's a huge decrease in that because people are just checking them at the ticketing counter, they don't want to deal with going through security.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yeah, I was at Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson Airport yesterday and I breezed through security but I did notice much longer lines at the curbside check in. All right, Brianna Keilar at O'Hare. Thank you very much.

Let's talk about some things closer to terror (inaudible), mass transit. After all, more of us use that every day than we do use the airlines and we know mass transit is a target for terror. CNN's Alina Cho joining us from Grand Central Terminal. There are four million tri-state residents who use that system on a daily basis and it's -- by it's nature it's wide open Alina.

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It most certainly is Miles, good morning to you. If you have ever been to Grand Central Station here in the heart of New York City you know it is a very busy place. If you take a look behind me you can see we're right in the middle of rush hour. More than a half million people pass through here every day and consider this, there are no formal screening procedures in place. That is one of the main reasons why security experts say mass transit is an attractive target for terrorists. So how do you fix the system? Well transportation security experts say for one, buses and subways should be equipped with blast-proof seating made of Kevlar. The subways in particular should have new ventilation systems that can suck out contaminated air and inject clean air. But nothing can replace, our experts say, nothing can replace vigilance. Everyone should be watching for something that looks out of the ordinary. And you need to fight creativity with creativity he says. You need to start thinking like the bad guys Miles and in that way we can try to stay one step ahead of the game.

MILES O'BRIEN: The truth is though, that the money spent on security for mass transit is just small sliver of a fraction of what is spent on the airlines. Do you get the sense that we have left open a real wide vulnerability there that needs to be addressed?

CHO: Well listen, our transportation expert says what he does not want to do in talking about these security loopholes, if you will, is create a panic. Of course millions of people ride the trains, the buses, the ferries, the subways every day. And he wants people to continue doing that. What you need to realize is that New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg says sometimes we have people, sometimes we have cameras, sometimes we have both, the truth is, we are changing our strategies constantly so that we are never predictable. Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN: And if you ride the subways in New York, you see police officers. Have you seen many more today? I know you just got up early, but have you had a sense if there is heightened security today?

CHO: Not heightened security but what we see usually out here, Miles, we have definitely seen several police officers, some with bomb sniffing dogs. But again, one of the main problems in mass transit our expert says is that there are no formal screening procedures in place here.

MILES O'BRIEN: Alina Cho at Grand Central. Thank you very much.

Left shift gears here slightly. When we talk about potential targets we are an oil economy, after all. Everything we know would cease to exist if we ran out of oil. So oil is clearly a potential target for terrorists and one of the vulnerable places, Achilles heel if you will, is down on the Louisiana coast. Port Fourchon is the place, CNN's Sean Callebs is there to tell us just how vulnerable we are on that front. Sean, good morning.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you Miles. When we think about ports a lot of people in the U.S. will think of Los Angeles, the New York area, Miami perhaps. But people here will tell you that Port Fourchon is critically important to the nation's energy supply. Now right here you see a tanker that is offloading some diesel that will keep the hundreds of boats that operate in and around this area going. And these are some of the pipes that are going to be used in some of the deep water rigs that actually pump the oil from offshore to this port, Port Fourchon. Now, what they tell us here about one-fifth of all the crude oil, that's all the crude oil used in the U.S. comes through here. So it does make it a very attractive target. About 50 percent of all the oil from the domestic offshore rigs is pumped here and then moves on to various storage facilities.

But they also have something called the LOOP, it is the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port. And tankers from all over the world go 18 miles off the coast, they set up there and then they pump the oil into this facility, then it's pumped on to other storage facilities. So they say an attack would simply be devastating to the U.S. energy supply and what they have operating here, they have a handful of harbor police. They only have 14 people on staff, three operating on a shift at a time and only one patrol boat to check all those offshore rigs that are out there within two or three miles, the state- controlled water. So there is a lot at stake here. They're worried about what a terrorist attack could do here. They have some security cameras all over, looking at every nook and cranny on this side. But a lot of concerns here, Miles, with what could happen, the unknown.

MILES O'BRIEN: Are they 100 percent back to normal post Katrina there?

CALLEBS: Yes, this area is, that's a very good question. Because after post-Katrina there's actually a booster station for the LOOP, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, and they have three areas of security alert. They were at the second highest level after Katrina because oil became so important and that LOOP pumping station was actually ringed with Army National Guard troops. Right now they are at their very lowest security level. The very highest that say we don't even want to tell you about it. It would really shut down things. Basically every vehicle coming in and out of here, 1,200 trucks a day would have to be thoroughly checked, would really slow down operations.

MILES O'BRIEN: Sean Callebs on the Louisiana coast, thank you very much. Soledad?

(WEATHER REPORT)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, Target: USA. Just about everybody is focused on the nation's skies? What about the nation's water? We're going to tell you about a largely unnoticed effort to protect cruise ships.

MILES O'BRIEN: Also shopping malls, these are so-called soft targets. We'll look at why they could be inviting targets for terror.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And in later this morning, did you know that NBA star Dikembe Mutombo was studying to be a doctor originally? The plan was that he'd return to his native Congo and save lives. Then that whole basketball thing kind of took off. The rest they say is history. But he never forgot his original plan. We're going to tell you what he's doing with $15 million of his own money to save people in Congo. It's an amazing story and it's just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: As the British terror plot was unfolding was the Bush administration trying to cut six million dollars in funding for new technology to detect explosives? A published report says congressional leaders rejected the idea. Congressman Peter DeFazio is an Oregon democrat he serves on the Homeland Security Committee. He's in Eugene this morning. Nice to see you sir, thanks for talking with us.

REP. PETER DEFAZIO, (D) OREGON: Good morning Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: When you take a look at the actual money that's been spent over the past several years, $800 million for funding for Homeland Security in 2003, one billion in 2004, $1.3 billion 2005. And the numbers kind of seem like they are going to continue to go up and up and up. What is your complaint about the Department of Homeland Security budget and spending?

DEFAZIO: Well, it's a disorganized bureaucracy. They have in terms of aviation they arbitrarily cut the number of screeners. You can do screening one or two ways, state of the art technology fully deployed and well-trained people to run it, adequate numbers. Or a lot of people and not very good technology and the Bush administration is trying to do it with too few people and outmoded technology. So we're way behind the curve here. They can come up with some impressive numbers but we have airports waiting in line for baggage screening let alone passenger screening or carry on bag screening.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Here is what the Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff would say when it comes to developing and moving along those screening technologies. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We have tried not to simply shovel it out the door at every new technology or every new idea and so we have not spent all the money.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: In other words, you know, at some point it's a process and we can't just throw money at the problem, we have to make sure that we're putting money in the right places and that takes time.

DEFAZIO: Well, let's face it, they hate the idea of a federal agency doing this. In fact they're trying to re-privatize airport screening back to the good old days of minimum wage employees and the lowest cost security. We don't have the machines we need. There are walk through portals that can detect bombs on persons either puffers or electronic scanning. I heard in a hearing on October 11, 2001, about devices that could screen liquids. I asked them to take liquids off the week after 9/11 because we knew about the Ramzi Youseff plot and there had been other incidents just using flammables in the Middle East. So, they are way, way behind the curve on dealing with current threats buying off the shelf technology, going slow, piloting things that have been in common commercial use for five years. They're just dragging their feet because they want to re-privatize the whole system.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: At the end of the day we've been talking about this $6 million which looks as if the administration was trying to move from one area to detect aviation explosives research to another area, federal protection service and it didn't happen at the end of the day. And it's also -- 6 million might sound like a lot but it's really actually a teeny tiny piece of the budget, it's less than one percent of the budget. At the end of the day, can't you say boy, if you look at it this way, $800 million is being spent focusing solely on aviation explosive technology research and development. That's a good thing, right?

DEFAZIO: We collect $1.5 billion a year from the passengers to pay for it. They are spending 800 million this year. But again, we have a number of airports who are going ahead on their own to put in explosive detections hoping some day they might get reimbursed by the federal government. They haven't signed a new letter of intent with an airport in the United States for four years. They're saying there's no money. They can't afford. This is baggage screening. Everybody thinks all the bags are screened by high tech equipment. They aren't. And the passengers aren't screened hardly at all in terms of explosives. If we had more people we could use the primitive equipment we have. We could use the trace detection. Every time you walk through a gate you'll see a trace detection machine sitting there unless someone is profiled they don't use it because they don't have enough people. They need more people and they need to go out and buy new technology. They're not doing it.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Isn't the theory, well, you know more people, more technology, you can keep sort of throwing that at the problem, maybe it would be better to put some of that money into improving human intelligence, improving the certain kinds of detection that we're really not doing today, may not be more people. How would you argue that?

DEFAZIO: Well absolutely. Remember, the Homeland Security bureaucracy did nothing to reform the FBI, the CIA and the other agencies which failed so miserably on 9/11 to coordinate their intelligence. As the 9/11 commission said, we have the threads, we had identified a number of the people, we lost track of them in Malaysia and Thailand and forgot to tell the border control and the FBI they are coming into the U.S. They lived openly in the U.S. with their given names as known terrorists. Those miserable failures were not taken care of by Homeland Security. It's a gigantic bureaucracy that's pretty dysfunctional.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Congressman Peter DeFazio is in Eugene, Oregon, this morning. It's nice to see you sir. Thanks for talking with us.

DEFAZIO: Thanks Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Ahead in our 9:00 hour, east coast time of course, we're going to talk with the TSA Assistant Secretary Kip Hawley. Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN: I think the congressman just gave us a few things to talk about with Mr. Hawley.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Were you taking notes during that interview?

MILES O'BRIEN: I was taking quite a few notes, you'll guess at that.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: He's kind of a pitbull on that issue, isn't he.

MILES O'BRIEN: Point and counterpoint coming up in a little bit. It's been almost five years now since 9/11. Can you believe that? Five years. Critics say U.S. intelligence still has a long way to go? Coming up we're going to talk to two experts about some of the flaws at the CIA and in the intelligence gathering apparatus.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm John Zarrella in Miami. Port security is not just about checking containerized cargo. It's about cruise ships like the one behind me and a lot of that security we'll never see. I'll have that story coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: Target: USA now. What about the threat to some soft targets like cruise liners? Each year tens of thousands of vacationers leave the port of Miami on cruise ships hoping to have a wonderful time. What they don't see are the divers below, for example, making sure their journey will be safe. Just part of the way they are kept safe from the threat of terror. CNN's John Zarrella joining us from Miami with more Target: USA coverage. Good morning, John.

ZARRELLA: Good morning, Miles. That's right. You know 11 million pieces of containerized cargo come into ports every year, but that's not all law enforcement has to worry about. They have to worry about the giant cruise ships and the passengers they carry. Nine million people cruise every year in the United States, Miami is the busiest cruise port in the United States. Behind me you can see the cruise ship Majesty of the Seas. Off to my right are two Carnival Cruise ships all of those boats will be leaving later this afternoon. Now they are under constant surveillance but some of that surveillance takes place below the water line.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA (voice-over): They wear wet suits, not spacesuits. Unassuming guys with the right stuff who defend America from below.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got Lupo Jimenez on number four, Paul Toy number five at the crease.

ZARRELLA: These Miami-Dade County police divers are helping to protect the port of Miami. The largest container port in Florida and home to 18 cruise ships carrying four million passengers a year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since 9/11 it has become very critical. You got the terrorists out there and they want to try and disrupt something. A cruise ship is a good target.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now what we do is, I'll go in the water, Paul goes in the water, Paul goes down to the bottom.

ZARRELLA: Paul Toy has been diving since he was a teenager. He's been a police diver since the 80's. Today, Toy and nine others search beneath the 881 foot cruise ship Majesty of the Seas. It is called a hull search. The team is not acting on any tips or information. It's just an unannounced peek beneath the water line. That's the way they want it. No schedule for terrorists to track.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can be here two or three days in a row and not come for a week and then come back for two weeks in a row.

ZARRELLA: The divers lineup along the entire length of the ship, eyeballing every inch. Because visibility is about five feet flashlights look like life savers in the green tinted water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We learn what is supposed to be on the ship and when there is something that appears that is not supposed to be there we can recognize it.

ZARRELLA: While the divers scour the hull, other police officers are in the engine room and on the bridge, making sure a propeller or one of these giant thrusters is not accidentally turned on. That would shred the divers in an instant. Much of what they do goes unnoticed but not unappreciated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people see you. The people on the ship and they love you, because it gives them a good feel like our ship's okay, you know these guys are down there checking it out.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA: Now you can see off in the distance there at the Majesty of the Seas there's a zodiac raft in the water. Just part of some of the security sometimes from the cruise ships themselves. Other times the Coast Guard is out here and, Miles, they were telling us, the police divers, that certainly under conditions of any heightened state of concern over terrorism they are more likely to be out here. So there's certainly a chance they could be out here today or in the foreseeable future. Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN: We don't have much time, John. But how well screened are passengers on these cruise liners?

ZARRELLA: They are very well screened now, well in advance you have to put in information in the computers, put in your social security numbers, background checks are done before you can actually board the ships and then certainly when you're getting on the ship all of your belongings are screened and checked. Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN: John Zarrella in Miami. Thank you very much.

More Target: USA coming up. We're going to look at the threat to the so-called soft targets. Shopping malls are one that comes to mind. How safe are we when we shop?

Plus the CIA could use a few good Urdu speakers. How the U.S. spy agency, which was built to wage a cold war, is trying to change course to try and fight terror. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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