Return to Transcripts main page
Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
French Officials: 77 Dead After Truck Plows Into Crowd. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired July 14, 2016 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:04] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN AC360 ANCHOR: It is early morning in France and we're continuing to get new details on the horror on the act of mass murder that unfolded there hours ago. It happened in the southern French City of Nice on a national holiday, Bastille Day, it's essentially Independence Day.
Large crowds of people had just finished watching the fireworks then we're told gunshots say early reports followed by more than a mile of carnage as the truck that you are seeing here being chased reportedly by police drove down the beach side promenade, killing as many people as the driver could, as many more tried to flee.
The aftermath, too horrible to show in some videos. These are still images from the video of the carnage. We've taken the color out and frozen the pictures because it's simply too graphic to show otherwise. Throughout the hour and the night, we'll bringing you all of the latest.
Want to begin with CNN'S Becky Anderson reporting from Paris and CNN Chief National Security Analyst, Jim Sciutto.
Becky, let's talk about exactly what we know at this hour with the caveat, as we always do that early reports are often contradictory and information fragmentary.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah. You're absolutely right. What we do know is this event occurred around 10:00 local time. It is now 3:00 in the morning and sadly, over the past five hours, the number of dead slowly rising. We now have 77 confirmed dead, more than 100 injured, and some very, very disturbing witness accounts of a truck driving down that beach side promenade, the promenade is on glaze.
Those of our viewers who spent any time in the southern resort town of Nice, driving some two kilometers along the beach promenade at something like 20, 25 kilometers an hour. And what we understand is this truck simply plowed over those in the crowd. There were tens of thousands in the crowd gathered to celebrate Bastille Day. It is July the 14th, the equivalent of Independence Day in the U.S., and tens of thousands there to see the fireworks. This truck plowed over them.
We are told by witnesses that they saw an assailant shooting from that truck, told by one witness that they saw the assailant get out of his truck, open fire at least two times and get back in the truck before authorities shot and killed him. And I've just been listening to one report and it's in on local TV here and that of a guy who says that he saw this truck plow over a woman on the street. And he thought that this guy had simply knocked her over and was trying to reverse to get out of the situation. And he and his friends, he says, were trying to pull this injured woman out from underneath this truck and then he realized something untoward was going on.
French TV and media also reporting that they have rescued something like 100 people from the sea off the beach in Nice who simply fled from the carnage. This is almost too unbelievable to believe. But the context of this, of course, has been a tumultuous 18 months starting in January of 2015 with the Charlie Hebdo killings and then the attacks of some eight months ago, the attacks when 130 people lost their lives.
So, absolute abject shock and horror. The prime minister and the president arriving back in Paris tonight for a crisis meeting at the Interior Ministry. That is what we know as of yet.
COOPER: Jim Sciutto, you've been talking to a number of eyewitnesses and others. What are you hearing?
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Evidence that this was certainly an intention attack. I spoke to an American there who was 15 feet away as the truck plowed through the crowd. He said the truck accelerated as it hit people. The fact is now French authorities now investigating this as a terror attack. That's the leading theory among U.S. investigators.
It is early. They don't know the motivation, at a minimum, an act of mass murder. And what it is unprecedented here Anderson is using a vehicle as a weapon of mass murder. No car bomb, no explosion, simply driving through a crowd and able to leave such terror and death in its wake. That's unprecedented and that's going to be a real concern for counter terror officials in Europe and certainly here in the U.S. as well.
COOPER: Jim Sciutto, Becky Anderson, I appreciate the update. We are continuing to cover this, really this ever-changing situation. We're learning more and more pieces of information kind of minute by minute. The death toll now stands at 77 that according to French officials, but as many as 100 people though, have been injured.
[21:05:15] And but again, that death toll very likely expected to rise given the number of injuries and the types of injuries that we have seen on some videos, most of those videos that we are not showing you.
They're simply too gruesome or graphic to actually show. But this situation which occurred as Becky Anderson was reporting around 10:00 local time, continued, the driver of the vehicle moving for some two kilometers, although the exact distance is not known. It's not clear. Here's what we don't know. There is earlier reports that this began with gunfire and then the vehicle began plowing through people.
It's not clear frankly whether that was actually the case, gunfire coming from the vehicle itself or whether that was police officials or law enforcement officials, military officials, trying to stop the vehicle from going through a barricade. That's one thing we don't exactly know. Clearly this vehicle was able to move for some two kilometers.
Becky Anderson has a report based on one eyewitness that the person who was driving at one point may have gotten out of the vehicle, shot and then gotten back in the vehicle. But after about two kilometers, the vehicle was finally stopped. There are bullets, bullet holes riddled through the windshield of this vehicle.
Exactly what was in the back of the vehicle is unclear. There are some reports really from one French official who said that there was other weaponry found in the back, but again, we have not been able to independently confirm that. And again, a lot of these reports, we need to be very cautious about.
I'm here with Phil Mudd, formerly with the FBI and with the CIA. Phil, just in terms of the investigation, you were talking earlier about how this is really kind of two tracks. Not only looking at the incident that did occur ...
PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERROSIM ANALYST: Yeah.
COOPER: ... but what may occur or what other network may be out there. Actually, before we go to you, Phil, we have joining me by phone is the Democratic Presidential -- Presumptive Presidential Nominee, Secretary Hillary Clinton. Secretary Clinton, thanks very much for being with us.
First of all, what do you make of the fact this is the third major terror attack in France in the last year and a half with multiple casualties, first, Charlie Hebdo then the attacks in Paris in November, now this?
HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Well, first, Anderson, let me just say that I am sick at heart about what's happened to the French people. This was a horrific attack, while as you know so well, friends and family were celebrating French history and culture. And it reminds us very vividly and tragically that we have to stand with our allies and not abandon them and we need to strengthen our alliances, including with NATO, not undermine them.
Clearly, that what is happening is terrorist groups are seeing that they have opportunities inside France for both home-grown terrorism and importing terrorists. And I have proposed a series of measures to combat these kinds of attacks, including launching an intelligence surge and the French and our European friends through the EU, through NATO, individual nations, have to be willing to work with us to try to get better intelligence that will help them and also help us prevent attacks.
COOPER: Assuming this was a group like ISIS or somebody who is sympathetic to ISIS, whether they have had any direct contact with the organization. I mean, from everything we have learned about what's happening in Iraq, there have been a number of, you know, victories on the battlefield recently by Iraqi forces and coalition partners against ISIS. They are losing territory and yet, that does not seem to have any impact on the number of attacks we're seeing in other countries. If anything, it seems like those attacks are escalated.
CLINTON: Well, I think, Anderson, you put your finger on part of the puzzle that we have to figure out how to undo. It is true that there has been progress on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq, territory is being taken back. The air strikes have been consistent, relentless. But I think it's also clear that as a result of these advances against ISIS and their main headquarters in Raqqa, their urgent desire to inflict terrorist attacks elsewhere has led them to accelerate, reaching out not only directly, but indirectly through the radicalization online.
[21:10:08] I've been saying for months, we have got to do a better job combating them and their hateful ideology online and we need to enlist to have a help of more nations and institutions to do that.
COOPER: Donald Trump was on Bill O'Reilly, called in to Bill O'Reilly's program about an hour ago was asked by Mr. O'Reilly "Would you go to Congress and asked for a declaration of war." Donald Trump said "I would, I would. This is war." Do you think that's the right response? Is this war?
CLINTON: Well, I think it's clear we are at war with these terrorist groups and what they represent. It's a different kind of war and we need to be smart about how we wage it and win it. So I think we have to look at all possible approaches to doing just that.
COOPER: When you say we're at war, I mean, are we -- who are we at war with? Are we at war against, I mean at radical Jihadists? Radical Islam? Who are we at war against?
CLINTON: We are at war against radical Jihadists who use Islam to recruit and radicalize others in order to pursue their evil agenda. It's not so important what we call these people as to what we do about them. And I think back to, you know, our success in getting Bin Laden. It was important that we built the case. We got the information and that the president ordered the raid.
Well here, we have an ideology. It's not a nation state and when people draw comparisons with world war, I don't even call this World War III. It's a very different kind of war and we could be easily misled and I would, you know, point people to read more about what the hopes and ambitions of ISIS happen to be. They would love to draw the United States into a ground war in Syria.
They actually think the end times could be hastened if we had some great confrontation in that region. So we've got to be smart about this, not, you know, not get pushed or pulled into taking action that doesn't the positive effects, it needs to have.
So I would be very focused on intelligence surge. I would be very focused on working with our partners and allies and intensify our efforts against the ideologues who peddle radical Jihadism online.
COOPER: Finally tonight, the other thing -- one of the other things Donald Trump mentioned in one of the call into Fox was basically being very critical of you for wanting. He says to increase the number of Syrian refugees coming to this country by 550 percent. How do you respond to that? I mean, is it, you know, is -- can there be proper vetting? Is that a real security concern, a justifiable security concern that people in America should have? Will these people are ...
CLINTON: Well Trump has said this repeatedly and has been called out for his blatant lies about it. I've said when it comes to refugees, we should only let people into this country after we have thoroughly screened them, no matter how long that takes and no matter, you know, what the pressure might be to act more quickly. I would not short- circuit the vetting process. If we're talking about women, children, orphans who are fleeing horrific violence, that's a different category than young men or people who have some record that can be ferreted out. That should cause us concern.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, I appreciate your time tonight.
CLINTON: Great to talk to you as always, Anderson. Thank you.
COOPER: Back with our panel. Phil -- Phil Mudd, what do you make of that? Obviously, look, we don't know who's behind this particular attack.
MUDD: Yeah.
COOPER: Many of the attacks that we've seen in the United States have been people who grew up in the United States, who are American ...
MUDD: That's right.
COOPER: ... who are second generation American or third generation. Is -- when Donald Trump talks about concerns over Syrian refugees ...
MUDD: Yeah.
COOPER: ... and Secretary Clinton says, you know, they have got to be vetted. You know, I was on the beach in Lesbos. I don't know how long ago, a number of years ago, where, you know, I watched probably about 300 people come onshore. There were people ripping off their passports leaving them on the shore.
MUDD: Yeah.
[21:15:03] COOPER: Unless you are in contact with intelligence officials in Syria where they're coming from, which they're not ...
MUDD: That's right.
COOPER: ... or police officials, you can't really thoroughly vet somebody, can you?
MUDD: You can't get close to vetting somebody. There are some simple steps you can take for example, biometrics. Do you pick up somebody at the border in Turkey whose fingerprints were found on a bomb, pretty straightforward, Anderson, but there's a broader question that America has to face as you're suggesting.
If someone crosses the border with a 12-year-old, and says I was opposing with my wife, with my family, the Syrian regime. I don't have identity documents. My family was murdered. I can't prove who I am. There's this debate in this country about how rapidly you can vet someone to ensure in a wave of thousands or potentially tens of thousands of refugees that there aren't dirty refugees among them.
Let me give you the simple answer. If you want to take a humanitarian gesture and allow refugees here, there is risk. And to suggest whether you're Republican or Democrat that you can minimize risk by vetting, sidesteps the question. The answer is you can, Anderson. You just can.
COOPER: But Peter Bergen, I mean, you've looked very closely in your last book at, you know, Jihadists inside the United States. And again, it's often second generation people. I mean ...
PETER BERGEN, AUTHOR, UNITED STATES OF JIHAD: Yeah, I mean, there's a great deal of sort of nonsense that is being talked about this issue. And as I mean, we have taken t United States has only taken 3,000 refugees from Syria. And if I was a terrorist s...
COOPER: Compared to about a way about a million going to Germany.
BERGEN: Right. And If I was a terrorist, pretty much the last thing I'd do would be posing as a Syrian refugee, if I was trying to get into the states. First of all, you would have to be one of the millions of people that went to Jordan to a refugee camp then you have to be selected only 22,000 by the United Nations to be put forward to the United States as a potential person who could come to the United States and you would be reduced to a much smaller pool of 3,000 people that we have taken so far. Then you'd have to go through two years of background checks. Then you'd have to have all your biometrics given up.
I mean, there are easier ways to attack an American target I can tell you, which would be to simply go to some place in Europe and attacking of Starbucks or American Express office or pick your American target.
So, and also by the way, as a matter of just fact, there have been no attacks by refugees in this country at all since 9/11. And in fact, every lethal terrorist attack in the United States has been carried out by an American citizen or American legal permanent resident.
Many of whom as you say, Anderson, were born in the United States and are as American as anybody else. So, I mean, we need to bring some facts to the table here. This is really not an important issue from a national security perspective because it just it's not happening in the way that it's being portrayed.
COOPER: But given what's happening now in Nice, I mean, in Europe, Peter, how much of this is an issue of huge numbers of, you know, people coming from war torn areas coming from the Muslim world and either a long time ago and not assimilating, not being assimilated, not being embraced, on how much of it is more of a recent phenomenon? BERGEN: Well I think it is, you know, it is a major problem in Europe. And I mean, you know, ISIS is going to be destroyed, contained or choose your verb in the next year or so. They're going to be really on, you know, in a very, very bad place. They may lose Mosul, but the big drivers of this are regional civil war between the Sunni and the Shia, the collapse of Arab governments around the Middle East.
You know, the vast waves of immigration that result of these two phenomenons and then the rise of European fascism, to be frank. I mean, in every single country including France where the nationalist front of essentially for outer national is (inaudible) probably is doing pretty well. And I think the combination of large scale immigration and the rise of European fascism is a very toxic mix. And unfortunately, it will continue to produce events like, what we have seen tonight again and again and again and there's no easy fixes for this.
COOPER: A quick reminder, as you've been seeing at the bottom of the screen, we just learned that France's President Francois Hollande will be addressing his nation momentarily. We'll bring it to you when that happens. Right now, another witness to the attack, Jimmy Ghazal and his family were on the promenade when the chaos erupted. We spoke a short time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Jimmy, explain where you were and what you saw.
JIMMY GHAZAL, WITNESS ATTACK: When we're gathered at the promenade (inaudible), you know, of the beach, we're watching the fireworks. I was with my family, my wife, my two kids, my 9-year-old then 6-year- old, and my brother and we're seated at the beach, you know, watching the fireworks. And then when the whole thing got finished, we're just walking on the promenade, you know, listening to the music, live bands were playing and just people were just having fun.
[21:20:01] And then all of a sudden, you know, just we're hearing general screams, loud noises and what seemed like gun shots, you know, fire being shot. A gun fire. And, you know, people were started screaming and then running in different directions. And I saw a big white truck, you know, going through the pedestrian area, because the area was blocked so that cars wouldn't go through, you know, the streets were that all ...
COOPER: Where, where was the truck in relation to where you were? Was it coming toward you or is that passing you by?
GHAZAL: You know, I was on the sidewalk and the truck was, you know, just passing by me on the streets.
COOPER: Did you see at all how it got through because that the street was blocked of. I assume there was some the sort of barricade of on the street.
GHAZAL: Actually that there were some, there were barricades, you know, just trying to prevent cars from entering this pedestrian area. And then the first noises we heard was like, what seemed like the truck going through the barricades because there were expect loud noises but without gunshots, and then, you know, gun shots were happening and then we saw the truck passing by, and then also gun shots and then people were trying to hide. And the ...
COOPER: So there were gun shots and I assume that's police shooting at the truck itself to try stop the truck. Is that your understanding?
GHAZAL: When will -- well we were not sure.
COOPER: OK.
GHAZAL: You know, we're just hearing gun shots and we're trying to lay low and just, you know, a couple of minutes earlier like I don't know, and minute earlier, my wife and kids, my wife took the kids because they were feeling sleepy and she took them towards where the incident started, you know, to try and get them into bed, and because we were separated and the whole thing happened, and, you know, you tend to think of, you know, you want to get to your kids but there's fire have been, you know that gun shots are being, that happening so thank God she ran in the narrow streets with the kids. And a ...
COOPER: And they're, they're OK?
GHAZAL: Yes. Thank God.
COOPER: I'm so happy to hear that. When that, how long did the truck keep going for? Could you tell?
GHAZAL: Well, it seems like a good minute because it was driving at that, not at a high speed, you know, it was driving at the low speed. It seemed like the low speed just going slowly, moving.
COOPER: Do you know what sort of barricade there was to try to prevent vehicles from coming down the street? Was it, you know, a physical barrier were there just some sort of officials there, police officials?
GHAZAL: Yes there were that the police cars, you know, then made the exit of police cars, there was like, you could spot them, you know, and there was, you know those metal barriers. And I'm not sure if there were any other but there were physical barriers.
COOPER: Had you, had you seen that evening a lot of security? Because obviously this is you know, it's Bastille Day, it's an important celebration who obviously there are ongoing threats.
GHAZAL: When there has been security in the area, you know, given that, you know, we were here during the finals, the work at the Euro Cup finals but for the, for that, for the fireworks and they thought celebrations, it's just an open space, you know, to all open the promenade.
COOPER: And then how long did you actually see the truck for, because there are some eyewitness reports who said the driver seemed to actually speed up at certain times as he was hitting people.
GHAZAL: You know, the truck seemed to be running slowly, not so fast. And we as, you know, I don't know, probably my thinking that they were just being slow so that they were shooting at people though. I'm not sure.
COOPER: Jimmy, I'm so glad your family is OK. And I appreciate talking to you. We're trying to kind to piece this together as best we can. So at Jimmy, thank you so much.
GHAZAL: Thank you. Thanks a lot.
COOPER: Well, we're going to take a short break. France's president expected to speak momentarily. We'll bring that to you live in the attack that is now claimed at least 80 lives.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:28:06] COOPER: We are waiting to hear from the French president addressing his citizens in the wake of the carnage in Nice. We will bring you those comments live as soon as they happen.
President Obama has condemned the attacks. So has Donald Trump, calling for a declaration of war, Hillary Clinton just moments ago agreeing that the country is already at war with radical Jihadists, saying she is sick at heart over what happened tonight calling for, in her words, an intelligence surge alongside U.S. allies.
In the meantime, the State Department is warning Americans in Nice to monitor local media, to avoid the area and to exercise caution.
We're back with the panel, Paul Cruickshank, I mean in terms of intelligence sharing, in terms of the capabilities of French law enforcement and intelligence, how have they changed since "Charlie Hebdo", since the Bataclan?
PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well that they have for a wake up calls that for the French and they've trying to improve intelligence sharing domestically between the domestic intelligence service and the external intelligence service also sharing with the various police services within France. They have also trying to step up cooperation on a European level with the number of European countries, especially Belgium.
That has not all gone smoothly but there have been some complaints by some European countries that not all that intelligence is coming their way. But this attack, just another reminder of how important it is for this intelligence to be shared on an international level.
One of the problems, though, is that some countries that are reluctant to share war intelligence with others because they want to protect sources and methods, and, you know, for instance, the United States may not always share that raw intelligence with a country like France, making it difficult for French Intelligence Services to evaluate some of the information coming in. COOPER: Art Roderick, once you have, I mean, assuming there's no identification documents on the person who drove this vehicle, how quickly can you, can, you know, intelligence, the police there, ascertain who the person actually is? If there's, I -- and what do you need in order to do that?
[21:30:12] ART RODERICK, FMR. ASST. DIRECTOR OF THE U.S. MARSHALL'S SERVICE: Well, maybe, maybe not. We don't know. We know during one of the last attacks, somebody had left their passports, you know, in a room, so they're going to go back and look at where the vehicle was rented but I think the big connection we have to make here, Anderson, is the FBI right now is scrambling to try to unravel exactly what happened here, because here in the U.S. we've got two national special security events coming up.
And after each one of these events that occur here, like in Dallas or here in Nice, law enforcement takes a look at that and then tries to counteract that with security.
So we have that the Republican National Convention coming up this Monday and a week later we have the Democratic National Convention so you've got Cleveland and Philly P.D. along secret service and the FBI and all the myriad federal and state and local agencies looking at this incident, figuring out, OK, how can we stop this from occurring at these two national special security events.
COOPER: And Phil Mudd, when Donald Trump talks about going to Congress for declaration of war.
MUDD: Yeah.
COOPER: If somebody work at the FBI or CIA, what do you think?
MUDD: I step back and say OK, there's a reality on the campaign trail but there's also a reality in Syria. If you talk about declaration of war, I have to assume you mean we are going after the heart of people, the organization, that supports these attacks. That's Syria. That's also typically the use of American military force on the ground.
Two options I can see. I like a question for either candidate, which do you pick, number one, if you are going to use military force, do you support and we have not done this so far, a dictator who used chemicals against his own people to reassert control over Syria so you can destroy ISIS, a really bad option.
Bad option number two, do you support ousting that dictator with American military force as we did with Saddam Hussein.
COOPER: Right.
MUDD: And using American military power to try to control that country. Nice words about declaration of war. I don't know how we put that in practice.
COOPER: And Bob Baer, just in terms of what you would be looking for in the investigation at this point, what are that that the top things? And I should point out, you see on the bottom of the screen the room where France's President Francois Hollande is about to speak. We'll obviously bring you those comments live. Bob?
ROBERT BAER, FMR. CIA OFFICER: Well, I mean, when you get the meta data after an attack has occurred it makes a lot more sense than before. If he had a cell phone, if they can identify him, home phone, associates and we will find out there is probably some radicalization with other groups, maybe in a mosque. If indeed this was the Islamic State or even Al-Qaeda. I mean they'll be able to put this together and figure out if it was an organized attack.
But what we cannot forget is the visa-waiver program that French of North African origin, who are the main suspects in attacks like this, can come to the United States, they just apply for a visa online and they can come here.
And right now, the French do not share with us all of their intelligence. We do not have access to their data bases. So the FBI and customs don't really know about these people coming in from Europe. You know, again, I'm making an assumption here it had something to do with North Africans but so did "Charlie Hebdo" attack and as well as the Bataclan attack and the attacks in Belgium.
And this by the way, these group of people have been radicalized since the late '80s. There's been Algerian attacks in France. It's been a problem for the French to alienate and now, apparently if indeed weapons were used, just they can get weapons, at the Bataclan, they did which is, which is a new element. And whether they are inspired or directed by Raqqa, Syria, still poses a danger for France as well as the United States.
COOPER: Phil, I asked you about, you know, Donald Trump is thinking of declaring war. Let me ask about Secretary Clinton saying, talking about intelligence surge. But I had more time with her, I would have liked to pursue that more. What does that mean to you?
MUDD: Well Anderson, you and me both, I don't know what that means. I mean you're talking to a circumstance where we've been at war in that some sense with ISIS for years in terms of global intelligence assets, people on the ground cooperating with Iraqis, working with opposition forces in Syria. If you think the CIA, the defense intelligence agency, isn't focusing everything they have on ISIS, I don't know what they're doing.
I think the fundamental question though is, if you don't control the territory on the ground, that is, where ISIS controls territory in places like Raqqa, I don't care what kind of intelligence assets you put on the ground, they are periodically going to be able to defeat defenses. You have got to control territory to beat terror groups and we don't control the territory in Syria.
COOPER: And Peter Bergen, I mean, we keep coming back to this. You know, there are sophisticated attacks which can have a huge impact obviously as we have seen on 9/11 and others, and the Mumbai attacks and elsewhere. And then there are what appears to be I mean a relatively unsophisticated attack which is what we've seen tonight, which the person getting to, you know, a tractor truck and tractor trailer and moving people down.
[21:35:08] BERGEN: Yeah we used to worry about truck bombs. Now we have to worry about trucks being used as weapons. And, you know, certainly we've seen some of these types of attacks in the west.
We've seen them in the United States, by the way, I understand in 2006, an Iranian-American crashed a SUV into a group of students attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He injured nine of them and luckily he didn't kill anyone.
We saw this again at Glasgow Airport a year later where two British terrorists crashed a Jeep into the kind of arrivals area at Glasgow Airport. Luckily they didn't kill anyone.
But -- so this idea has been around for awhile but it's never, you know, achieved a lethality that we've just seen tonight. And that is, you know, going to be a big worry going forward.
COOPER: And Juliette Kayyem, in terms of -- I mean how worried should people in the United States, I mean I don't want to do anything to provoke fear, but just in terms of being aware for law enforcement in particular, you know, I think we're just -- Art pointed out how, you know, law enforcement in the wake of every kind of attack like this learns from the enemy, tries to adapt their tactics.
And we've certainly seen that in New York and Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. Is this new to law enforcement or is this something they have already gamed out, that kind of all played out?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, fortunately, there has already been a lot of gaming for this kind of attack. A lot of people don't know that those big planters you see in front of policy and sporting events, courthouses, are actually ways to stop trucks. We can't stop them on every street.
So I'm looking at this now as we have a short term issue which is of course the two conventions coming up. So you're going to see a lot of those planters, mobile barriers, ways to just stop a copycat. There's no reason to believe that, you know, that there's something in the works. But you do worry about copycats.
The longer strategic problem is obviously for France and for Europe is going to be can we get enough intelligence to begin to stop these. And so I want to add into the mix of sort of headaches that we have right now, vis-a-vis Europe is of course Brexit.
Now, what people are not talking about is that no one knows the implications for intelligence sharing that are often done through EU and bilateral agreement. That Brexit will also have on -- what we've been trying to do with Europe which is have sort of a unified European intelligence network.
It could be it has no impact but that's definitely something that people in the field are starting to try to get their head around.
So we have the short term which is just focus on these conventions, then the longer term which is of course try to minimize the risk.
COOPER: Is that is a concern for you, Phil?
MUDD: Sure it is. I think we have to pick up on the angle Juliette raised which is this issue of rising nationalism in Europe and the Brexit vote of Britain. You think there's no linkage to what happened here. Let me give you a direct linkage.
Countries in Europe are starting to say, more -- we're worried about borders, we're worried about raising borders to prevent these people from coming in.
Let me give you a scenario. A neighbor calls in Paris, says, "I think my neighbor might be sympathetic to ISIS." We find out in investigation that person has been looking at ISIS videos for a month.
Do you want to pass that to the Germans? Do you want to pass that to the British? The operational difficulty of this idea of let's share information about people under suspicion reaches a deadlock when reality intercedes.
Somebody's done a few things, looks at videos, maybe their neighbor says he smells kind of funny, is that the kind of information you want to share to prevent one of your citizens from traveling? Nice idea about information sharing in the age of race barrier is difficult to do.
COOPER: And again we're waiting to hear France's president Francois Hollande. You see the room on the side of your screen. We'll bring it to you as soon as he does begin to speak. Obviously with translation.
Why not share, I mean why not air either intelligence service in Britain -- and somebody raised a concern, why not just share that information with Germany or wherever else?
MUDD: Couple of things happened. First, you're sharing information about a sovereign citizen who has done nothing wrong. What is your bar for sharing that? Is it looking at ISIS videos? Is it having an ISIS flag on your Facebook account?
The second thing having served in government is a year later there's going to be an inspector general and a congressional investigation that says, excuse me, for our citizens who haven't violated American law, you prevented them from traveling Europe based on the suspicion of a neighbor calling in saying "I think they're ISIS. The realities of trying to implement this kind of stuff are very difficult.
COOPER: And Paul Cruickshank, I mean in -- how often, the intelligence services in places like Turkey, Morocco, elsewhere, how much is their sharing with their intelligence services with European intelligence?
CRUICKSHANK: There's some sharing, Anderson. But -- though I got to tell you, I have spoken to the officials across Europe, there is enormous frustration about the amount of information that's coming out of Turkey. It seems to have got better recently. This is the time -- the sort of wise up for the ISIS threat.
[21:40:11] But over the course of the last several years a lot of a lot of frustration about information coming back from the Turks and some frustration about information generally coming from the region, the western intelligence does not have good eyes and ears into places like Syria and Iraq in order to get intelligence about potential plots. That is slowly, slowly starting to change.
There's Special Forces are going in and they are arresting people, interrogating people from the so-called caliphate, getting some more understanding about how they run their operations and crucially, this external operations unit which they have set up. But it was a very slow start for western intelligence in terms understanding the threat from Syria and Iraq.
COOPER: We should point out it is 3:41 a.m. in Nice, where the wounded are in hospitals being cared for. The dead, still being accounted for. The death toll has continued to rise just over the last two hours. At least 80 people dead according to officials in Nice after a truck plowed into a crowd earlier tonight around 10:00 p.m. local time.
Some late news on the domestic security front here in the United States as we wait to hear from France's President Francois Hollande, New York Governor Andre Cuomo ordering tightened security at a variety of high profile locations throughout the state.
Juliette Kayyem, just in terms of law enforcement in the United States, I mean, we certainly seen in big cities, big city police forces being very adaptive to international terror events, particularly the New York police, Washington, D.C. police, LAPD. We've seen, you know, what they call Hercules teams in New York show up at key points, a kind of a heavy show of force. The idea that they would be able to respond much more quickly than previously with very serious fire power in the event of a Mumbai style attack or some other sort of terror attack. How much has that filtered down to other law enforcement in sort of, you know, cities that aren't quite as large?
KAYYEM: So I always, you know, from the Homeland Security perspective, New York is an island of the state and a state unto itself. No state or city has the resources or for that matter, is as significantly at risk as New York.
So New York in some ways has this down pat. And something like this happens either abroad or in the United States, you know, they have NYPD stationed abroad, they know how to ratchet up is what we call it or surge resources in a very sort of orchestrated manner. So part of why Andrew Cuomo, came out -- the governor came out with also essentially saying to New Yorkers look, we are now activating this response plan because we get that you all are nervous.
Other communities, it's harder because this is really a resource issue at this stage. I think you'll see major city mayors, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, as we saw them after Istanbul come out and put more presence at major sites. Yeah, some of that is security. I don't mind it so much. I've said that to you before. I don't mind it so much. You know, look, if it makes people feel comfortable, taking their kids out, going to concerts in the summer, I'm OK with that. But a lot of this is also part of what the 9/11 planning has been, you know, starting at DHS and then going down to the most local level.
COOPER: In an investigation like this, Art Roderick, how long does, I mean, sort of does it take to start to piece together the details, the web, the larger web around the perpetrator -- perpetrators if there is a larger web?
RODERICK: Well, I think the one big benefit here is that truck didn't explode. Obviously if the truck exploded we would -- they would have had a lot tougher time piecing everything together. So they have got a lot of evidence in that vehicle. You know, there was the vehicle rented, who owned it, you know, is there any I.D. on this individual whatsoever, any I.D. in the vehicle, what was in the back, were the explosives military grade explosives which can be traced, what kind of explosives were they were in the back? You know, did he have a phone on him. So there's a lot of things that can be tracked at this point since we have the body and the vehicle is intact.
COOPER: I just want to bring all of our viewers up to date, if you are recently joining us, because again, we are learning things kind of as the minutes go by. We certainly know more now than we did at the beginning of this broadcast some almost two hours ago. Still a lot yet to learn. We're waiting for France's president to speak any moment now. We're going to bring that to you live. We're told there's translation.
[21:45:03] I'm told there's some new video have actually just coming in have not seen it myself. This is sort of more of the aftermath I believe. Let's listen.
Give you a sense of the panic, as we talked to one person earlier who said that, you know, the crowd -- he was in just began running. He and his partner just began running as well. He wasn't even sure what they were running from.
But it is in a situation like this, Phil, you know, just as the situation was in Dallas, you don't know if you're running into something or running away from something. I mean it's -- you can say how you would react in any given, situation, but until you're in a situation like that, it's pretty hard to figure out exactly what to do.
MUDD: You can't. I mean, remember, these people have no idea what just happened.
COOPER: Right.
MUDD: And if you start thinking rationally, and a lot of these folks aren't. Let me run away from the fire power. There's a couple other things we've seen in instances like this that you might want to think about. Number one, we've seen cases where somebody has a multiple event attack. That is, bring the truck in, bring another truck in behind to go against the people who are trying to escape the event.
So I would be doing the same thing these individuals are doing, but if you look at the panic here, there's nothing you can do to plan for that. Somebody is simply going to say, "I've got to run away from what's happening on the ground even if there's a problem, that something else is going on."
COOPER: Here's France's President. Let's listen in.
PRES. FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, FRANCE (Through Translation): The horror, horror again has struck France and Nice during this night.
A lorry truck struck against a crowd of people celebrating the 14th of July, the Bastille Day, to crush and massacre. We deplore this time in speaking, 77 victims including several children and around 20 wounded who are in intensive care.
This is of -- an act of which a terrorist attack cannot be ignored and this is of absolute horror, and it is clear that we have to do everything to ensure that we can fight against the scourge of terrorism.
The driver was shot dead. We need to see if there are accomplices but we are insuring that his identification which is going to be checked can be looked at and the different leads.
France has been struck on the day of her national holiday, the 14th of July, Bastille Day, the symbol of liberty, because human rights are denied by fanatics and France is quite clearly their target.
I express on behalf of the nation that we show our solidarity towards the victims and their families.
All means are being deployed to help the wounded. The plan which is of white supremacist ensuring helping all the wounded. After Paris in January 2015, then in November last year with Saint-Denis.
Nice is in turn touched. France as a whole is under the threat of Islamist terrorism and so in these circumstances, we have to demonstrate absolute vigilance and show determination that is unfailing.
Numerous measures are being taken, legislative measures which are considerably reinforced and strengthened but we have to -- because this is a holiday time, we have to increase further our level of protection.
I have also decided that the proposal, under the proposal of the Prime Minister and with the Ministers concerned of defense and the interior, first of all that we are going to maintain the operation at a high level assumption for operation which ensures further soldiers, gendarmes and police have also decided to appeal on the operational reserves. [21:50:14] That is to say all those all those who at some time have been serving under flag of being in the gendarme staff to come and relieve this police gendarme staff.
We can deploy them in all places where we need them and in particular, for the control of borders. Finally, I've decided that the state of emergency which was supposed to end it on the 26th of July will be extended by three months.
A bill will be put forward in parliament next week. Nothing will lead us to give into our will to fight against terrorism. And again, we're going to strength and the New York force, our actions in Syria and the Iraq and to continue to confront those who are attacking us on our very soil.
I announced yesterday morning that a defense council would take place tomorrow. It will study all the measures that we've already taken and which I've just announced.
It would, thus make it possible time in deployment of all necessary stuff and all cites and all towns and cities will be need them from protection and vigilance.
Together, with the prime minister, I will go to Nice following this defense council to support the city, its elect members in this hardship this time.
France is afflicted by this new tragedy. Is this horrified, she is horrified by what just taken place, just taken place. This most atrocity of using a lorry to kill, deliberately kill dozens of people who just come to celebrate the 14th of July.
France is afflicted but she is strong and she will always be stronger, I assure you, will always be stronger than the fanatics who want to strike her today.
COOPER: France's President Francois Hollande saying a number of things. He began by saying horror, horror again has struck France.
He says France is under the threat of the Islamist terrorism. We have to increase our level of protection. He said they're going to maintain the current operations. They said they're going to call in reserves of police, particularly for control the borders.
The state of emergency, which was to have ended he said on 26th of July is going to be extended for three months. I'm going to try to strengthen and reinforce their actions in Syria and Iraq. Those were his words and he's going to be traveling to Nice.
We're back with the panel, Peter Bergen, Philip Mudd, Juliette Kayyem, Art Roderick, Bob Baer, Paul Cruickshank.
Paul, let's begin with you. Based on what you just heard, what do you make of what Hollande just said?
CRUICKSHANK: Well, clearly, that the president will also in many times that have to make this kind of speech in France. This is the third major attack now that they've faced extending this state of emergency all the way at now into until October beyond the 26th of July when it was meant to elapse.
I think one interesting thing he said was that they were looking into the question of whether the staff said had accomplished this. I think there's going to be a significant amount of concern for investigators. So there's a network behind this.
And given the fact that local officials in the South of France our own record saying that there were firebomb explosives and grenades in the back of that truck.
Raising a question of whether, perhaps, there were more people that were meant to be part of this attack, given what we are learning about the potential number of weapons in the back of that truck.
COOPER: Yeah. Paul, let me just interrupt you here. I've just learned that authorities now are attempting to determine whether the identity card of a 31 year old French-Tunisian man, which was found in the truck cab, actually matches the body of the driver.
There's a local paper reporting that actually was a resident of Nice. We have not been able to confirm that ourselves yet. But they have apparently found an identity card of a 31 year old French Tunisian. They're trying to figure out whether in the fact that does match the body of the driver. Phil, that would certainly be a huge first step.
[21:55:12] MUDD: There's a huge first step in two areas. One is practical, one is political. The practical pieces you can immediately good as simple questions like what apartments did he rent? What vehicles did he rent? What cell phone and e-mail coverage did he have? Neither as you go to service providers and say, who was e- mailing you? So, you can start to map the web of contacts to start proving the men (inaudible).
COOPER: Right, because even if it's not the driver himself, it's somebody ...
MUDD: That's correct. At some -- but I think the political question is interesting. I'm going to guess that if he's a French-Tunisian, he's a native citizen. His debates about immigration, immigration among Syrian refugees, immigration United States.
As Peter men -- Bergen mentioned earlier in the hour, what we're finding consistently is most of the people conducting these attacks aren't immigrants. They are the enemy within.
A neighborhood says, I've had enough. I'm going to do something against my own country.
COOPER: Peter Bergen, just in terms of what you heard from France's President and this information about the identity card, anything stand out?
BERGEN: Well, I mean, I'm focused on the issue. You know, we obviously don't know if he's part of a network or not. But, I think we can factually say that this is probably going to be the most deadly attack carried out by a lone terrorist ever.
There's no evidence of anybody else being involved in this attack. He may have connections to a terrorist organization. We'll find out. But just as a factual matter, this is almost certainly going to be the most deadly attack carried out by a lone terrorist in history.
COOPER: And Juliette Kayyem, in terms of what France's president had to say, I mean, extending the state of emergency allows what? Allows police to stop people without ...
KAYYEM: Yeah.
COOPER: ... the same kind of evidence that they might previously need?
KAYYEM: Yeah, that's exactly right. So, look, France already has -- I would say, right now under their emergency powers, a nice way to put it sort of less hurdles to jump for surveillance, for intelligence gathering internally, as well as arrests and what we might call just a preventive detention.
Those are all authorities given to France under a state of emergency. But one way that France controls these extreme powers it gives itself is that this tends to be on one, two, three months clocks.
And so, this is, obviously, a coincidence likely of timing that the ones that they were under before was stopping almost immediately and now is going to be extended.
COOPER: Yeah.
KAYYEM: But it also what likely mean is that whoever they have under detention, they can keep longer under the thing (ph) authorities.
COOPER: Right. I want to thank everybody on our panel tonight over these two hours. Quickly, the story that we were about to lead with before all this happened, the lead we wish we still could run.
Donald Trump's running mate choice, CNN has learned that Indiana Government Mike Pence has been offered the job and has accepted from tonight cancel the event schedule for tomorrow morning that was to announce all of this that was to take place at 11.
That does it for us tonight. Our coverage obviously though continues through out the evening, begins right now with "CNN Tonight" and Don Lemon was coming up after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
