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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
U.S. Ground Forces Enter Afghanistan
Aired October 19, 2001 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. Just when you thought it was going to be another night of anthrax this and cruise missile that, the story changed again. About dinner time, sources started saying that American troops are on the ground in Afghanistan and on the attack.
If the air war was somewhat low risk for U.S. forces, now it could get nasty. Now you have to start worrying about casualties. It would be a mistake to assume this phase of the war will be so neat and clean as the last two weeks.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld almost seemed to be preparing the country for the news of a ground battle earlier in the day. The straight-talking Midwesterner using some very stark language. "When will the war be over?" he was asked. "When the Taliban and al Qaeda are gone."
And tomorrow, "The New York Post," the paper you love to hate or hate to love, will report on itself. One of its employees is the latest media victim of the anthrax attacks.
We'll also look at the dangers of smallpox as if anthrax wasn't bad enough. And Hollywood goes to war.
Lots to do in the hour ahead. We begin with the headlines from around the world.
Pentagon first. CNN military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre -- Jamie.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The big headline out of here, Aaron, is that the United States has launched its first in-and-out commando raid into Afghanistan. We're told that all the U.S. troops and special operation helicopters have cleared Afghan air space. More than 100 commandos involved, including U.S. Army Rangers. We'll tell you more about it coming up in this hour.
BROWN: I gather we're scrambling for some detail there. The president probably already knows the details. He's in Shanghai. So is senior White House correspondent John King -- John.
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president updated on this operation in a one-hour-long secure video teleconference with his national security team. A senior administration official telling us just a few moments ago the president is quite satisfied with this operation, was told there were no problems with the operation. One official calling it a significant new phase in the war. Another downplaying that, saying, well, it is significant if you want to say these type of raids are finally under way, but we always envisioned them, there will be more -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, we'll back with you shortly, too. And to Islamabad, Pakistan, Christiane Amanpour. Christiane, the headline tonight?
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, our sources in Kandahar saying that there was heavy bombing overnight, plus they said they saw two AC-130s in operation, and with the morning they said that they were hearing from townspeople that they had seen helicopters and they had seen ground personnel.
We're also hearing from the Pakistani ambassador -- rather the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan that they are defiantly saying that their military has not yet been severely degraded.
BROWN: Christiane, we'll be back with you in a bit as well.
We're going to begin tonight with the start of something, something on the ground in Afghanistan. Clearly, this isn't Desert Storm. No big tanks rolling across some vast field of sand. This something is smaller, swooping into the country, some sort of engagement with the Taliban on their turf, their kind of fight.
This is the beginning of the kind of war the Taliban wants to fight, assuming they wanted to pick a fight with some of the toughest soldiers in the world, American special operation forces.
Back to CNN military affairs correspondent Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon -- Jamie.
MCINTYRE: Well, there's still a lot we don't know about the operation, Aaron, because the Pentagon isn't making clear any details. But a U.S. official, speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity, filled us in on some of the basics. And what happened was more than 100 special operations troops, presumably launched from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk in the Arabian Sea, went into Afghanistan, and we believe they went into the area near Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold. They went in at night with special operations helicopters and presumably escort helicopters as well and attacked a target that is believed to be some kind of Taliban leadership target.
Now, we don't know exactly what the mission was, but typically these troops would go in to either capture or kill forces on the ground in the most personal way.
What we are told is that a short time ago, about an hour or so ago, all of the U.S. helicopters cleared Afghan airspace on their way out. The entire mission in the overnight hours lasted just a couple of hours. They were backed up by AC-130 gunships, as Christiane referred to. And now presumably they're either en route back to their base, the floating helicopter pad the United States has used, the USS Kitty Hawk, normally an aircraft carrier, as a launching platform for special operations forces.
We're still awaiting word of whether there were any casualties, whether there was anyone captured, and exactly what the mission was and how successful it was. At this hour, we don't know.
BROWN: All right. The fact that all the helicopters came out doesn't necessarily mean there were no -- there were no casualties, so we'll wait on that.
You were there: Did you pick up signs all day today that something was about to happen or did this veil of secrecy that has been pretty good at the Pentagon hold?
MCINTYRE: No. It held pretty well. We did have some signals that something might be up, but when we tried to run it to ground, we didn't really get any feeling that anything was going on. I think part of that reason is, if the United States military wants to keep something secret, the way to do it is not to tell anybody. And this information was what's called highly compartmentalized. Only very few people knew about it.
Even the reporters who traveled with Secretary Rumsfeld to the B- 2 base at Whiteman Air Force Base had no inkling of what was going on until they landed back in Washington, fired up their cell phones and called their news desks, and then they got the word that there was an operation under way.
BROWN: And Jamie, there were reports when we woke up this morning that there were some special operations troops on the ground in Afghanistan, and there was some confusion about what they might be doing. Are those operations, do we know if those operations were connected?
MCINTYRE: We don't. We know that we confirmed that there are special operations troops in northern Afghanistan working with the Northern Alliance. But they were also reports, CNN's John King confirming, reports of some troops in southern Afghanistan.
Now, in retrospect, as we look back, we might surmise that those troops would have been scouting the locations, gathering last-minute intelligence for tonight's commando raid. That would seem likely given what we know now. But this morning it wasn't at all clear what the troops in the south might have been up to.
BROWN: And does the fact that this group went in tonight, tonight Afghan time at least and came out, does that indicate to you that we will now see a continuation of this, that this is the way it's going to go?
MCINTYRE: I think you're going to see a number of things. First of all, I think you'll continue to see the United States hit Taliban targets from the sky. I think you'll continue to see the U.S. doing more to aid the forces on the ground and try to get them, the opposition forces, both in the north and south to move against the Taliban, and you'll see these kinds of operations -- quick, in and out, hit-and-run, commando raids -- in which the United States acts on intelligence, but doesn't try to hold land or set up a base, or give, put any kind of forces on the ground that would then be a target for the Taliban.
You talked earlier about the kind of fight the Taliban wants to fight. This is not it, because they're not going to have anything to fight except when the United States chooses to go in and on its terms, and then it will be out again, and they'll have nothing to respond to.
BROWN: At least, though, from their side, it's on the ground as opposed to in the air, where they are outgunned absolutely. Jamie, thanks. I know it's been crazy over there for you tonight. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon.
As John King said to us a few moments ago, the president has been briefed on that. John and the president are both in Shanghai, and John joins us again to update us on what the president knows and what they are saying in Shanghai -- John.
KING: Well, Aaron, they are saying very little. As Jamie noted, they don't want us to know much about these operations, in part because we expect there will be future similar operations. But senior administration officials, some here in Shanghai with the president, some back in Washington, telling CNN Mr. Bush has been briefed on every detail of this operation.
A one-hour video teleconference wrapped up about an hour ago with his national security team. That, we are told, just as the operation was ending.
No indications of any trouble, says one senior administration official. Another saying the president was quite satisfied. And one, as I noted earlier, said this was a significant new phase in the operation. Another official saying, well, significant that this type of operation is now under way, but expect more in the days add.
Unusual perhaps for the commander in chief to be overseas as the U.S. entered a new phase of the operation in Afghanistan. But Mr. Bush saying this trip to Shanghai very important as he tries to maintain international support for the current phase of the campaign, but also to build more support as the war expands. Asia could be the next front of this war. Terrorist pockets in the Philippines and Malaysia -- I mean, Indonesia, excuse me.
The Malaysian president, the Japanese president, the prime minister, the sultan of Brunei, the leaders of Peru and Singapore all due for one-on-one meetings with the president today.
He also will deliver what we are told is a tough speech on terrorism to the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Conference here. The president expecting from this summit, Aaron, a strong statement condemning terrorism and promising to help the United States on one of the war's other fronts, not directly the military campaign, but the effort to crack down on financial support for terror groups. South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, all viewed as critical in the financial part of this war. We're told don't expect the president to say much about the ongoing campaign in any specific way in Afghanistan today, but he will once again serve notice, as he is here in Europe, that he will take all the international support that he can get, but that he is prepared to fight this war alone if necessary as long as it takes -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, do you know if the president had to give a specific order for this operation, this ground operation to take place? Or did the Pentagon have the authority to do it when it was ready?
KING: We are told the president is reviewing the plans on a day- by-day basis, but he has given in most cases, we are told -- and we don't know the details of this specific one -- but in most cases, we are told, he is briefed on the plan and gives the Pentagon the go- ahead.
I was told by the White House chief of staff the other day, Andy Card, that in the president's deliberations he is specifically going over detailed target lists. He's not micromanaging the war, chief of staff Andy Card said, but he is taking a very strong hand in looking at the targets, asking people to explain why this target or that target might be significant. So the president does know before every operation. And obviously, he has to give the go-ahead orders.
Whether he had to issue a very specific order for this one raid today we're not quite sure yet. The White House obviously trying to tell us very little, trying to make sure first, to get word back from Washington that all those helicopters and all those troops are out of Afghanistan.
BROWN: John, thanks. Senior White House correspondent John King in Shanghai tonight.
This phase of the war, this special operations phase is why we have retired General David Grange on the payroll. It's his area of expertise. General Grange joins us tonight from Chicago. Nice to see you.
You're all dressed up tonight.
RET. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes.
BROWN: What do you think they were doing in there? Can you tell from just the reports you've heard so far?
GRANGE: Well, obviously, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with some type of a raid. We don't know what the mission was, so we're not sure what type of forces were used. It's a classic Ranger-type operation, in fact, if it was a raid.
It does show resolve that we can put people on the ground, do whatever we had to do and then get back out. So it was a success not only operationally probably to destroy a target, but also psychologically.
BROWN: When you talk about destroy a target and the numbers we've heard is somewhere between 100 and 200 people went in, what kind of target might we be talking about?
GRANGE: It could be a command-and-control cell. It could have been some type of a camp.
BROWN: Why not -- General, why not do that from the air?
GRANGE: Well, again, on the ground you verify that you have taken out the type of target you went in for. A lot of the stuff you have seen on television that's hit by air strikes, you don't know what was destroyed with people, because people are usually moved after a hit takes place. So when you're on the ground face-to-face you know what you destroy.
BROWN: Is this more likely to be going after people or things?
GRANGE: My personal opinion, people.
BROWN: OK. And that's what -- that's what these units -- and we did see a report that it was in fact Rangers. We haven't been able to confirm that. But that would square with what you have been saying, I think, that they were probably rangers.
This is precisely the kind of thing they're trained to do, correct?
GRANGE: Trained constantly, every day of the year.
BROWN: How much notice would they have had that they were going in?
GRANGE: Well, most Ranger operations, there's a lot of rehearsal, a lot of training involved if they have the time. But they're also ready to go in a moment's notice. But ideally, you would rehearse a mission like this.
BROWN: And would you rehearse it in the way that you say, this should take us about 2 1/2 hours or 3 1/2 days or whatever it is? Is it rehearsed to that kind of detail?
GRANGE: It's rehearsed to that kind of detail. It's also, though, rehearsed where there may be a contingency where something goes -- it does not go exactly as planned. So you have what they call sequels to an operation or branch off the operation due to a change, and you have to adapt to that. So those things are trained for as well.
BROWN: Give me an example of what that might mean.
GRANGE: Well, an unexpected event. You have more casualties than you planned for that you have to extract, the extraction aircraft do not show up, they don't show up in the right place or time, aircraft are shot down, the objective has more enemy personnel than planned for. There's several reasons that can cause that.
BROWN: And would you guess that -- we were talking with Jamie about this a little bit ago, General -- that this is the first of a sort of rapid series of little incursions like this?
GRANGE: Possibly. But I think what's significant is that, you know, there's a lot of talk that we don't have the resolve, we don't have the guts to put troops on the ground, and I think that shows that psychologically not only to the enemy, but to our alliances that we do have that resolve.
BROWN: Let me ask you one more question. This is sort of an out-of-sequence question. I should have asked it earlier, I think.
If commanders had gotten word of let's say yesterday that there was a target there, could they have made this operation work in that short of time?
GRANGE: I believe so.
BROWN: OK. So they can react pretty quickly if they have to.
GRANGE: Yeah. Usually these type of forces are on a standby basis. I won't go into any more detail than that. But they are on a standby basis to hit fleeting targets, targets of opportunity.
BROWN: General Grange, nice to see you.
GRANGE: Same.
BROWN: We hope we didn't keep you from the event too long.
GRANGE: No, we're doing fine.
BROWN: Thank you. General David Grange from Chicago tonight.
Now to Islamabad, where the news of this is hitting as well. Christiane Amanpour is there.
Christiane, hello to you again.
AMANPOUR: Well, Aaron, we get hourly updates on evenings like these from our people inside Kandahar, and as morning broke, they were telling us today that townspeople had now been talking about last night. They said they saw helicopters and they said they saw U.S. troops or troops that were not Taliban troops on the outskirts of Kandahar.
They also said that last night there was heavy bombing plus action by what they said were two AC-130 gunships up there. So, that is what we're hearing from this action that you and others have been reporting overnight and early into the morning.
We've also been hearing from the Taliban itself. The Taliban ambassador who has been for several days in Kandahar holding talks with the leadership there has just come back. He came back yesterday afternoon. He said all sorts of things, making claims that the current air campaign, he claimed, had not significantly degraded Taliban military hardware. He said that the Taliban are conserving their assets, he said, because they believe they would be in for a long war, he said. And he also denied splits of any -- sorry, rumors of any splits in the Taliban hierarchy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MULLAH ABDUL SALAM ZAEEF, TALIBAN AMBASSADOR TO PAKISTAN: This was not true. This was completely lie. And this is a part of the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) against the Islamic community of Afghanistan. No difference nor any problem between the Islamic community of Afghanistan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Now, yesterday we also got, a small group of journalists got a briefing from a group of aid workers, local Afghans who work for an international agency -- we're not allowed to say which one -- whose job it is to monitor what's going on, on the ground. And they were in Kabul, and they came out saying that they had assessed that the total number of civilian casualties over the last two weeks of air campaign was 10.
This disputes very strongly the very high numbers of civilian casualties that the Taliban have been reporting.
They also said, these aid workers, that they felt that the people in Kabul, the majority of the residents, had welcomed the air campaign and the action by U.S. forces because they were hoping for a change in government, but that they were getting increasingly worried two weeks on that there was no political solution publicly stated or publicly in the offing. And they are getting increasingly worried about the future and what is envisioned for the future of Afghanistan. So, that was interesting information we heard yesterday.
BROWN: It was indeed. Christiane, very quickly, did your Kandahar sources have any idea what the target might have been in this raid?
AMANPOUR: No, they didn't.
BROWN: OK. That's very quick. Thank you. Christiane Amanpour in Islamabad. It is Saturday morning there.
When we come back, we'll have the latest on the anthrax investigation: more cases in New York and New Jersey. We'll update that. Much more ahead. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Today it was the "New York Post", the conservative tabloid here, that announced that one of its employees is infected with skin anthrax. They aren't sure how she got it yet.
Also, another postal employee in New Jersey has anthrax as well -- that makes two New Jersey postal workers.
What is not clear, in fact, what is so maddeningly unclear is whether the letters mailed in mid-September, and those are the ones that seem to be causing the illness now, are the end of something or just the beginning.
The anthrax investigation tonight from CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anthrax found in letters sent to Senator Tom Daschle's office in Washington, American Media in Florida, and NBC News in New York are indistinguishable, investigators say.
RIDGE: It does appear that it may have been from the same batch, but it may have been distributed to different individuals to infect and descend into different communities.
FEYERICK: Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge also said the strains do not appear to have been altered into a more contagious, airborne form of anthrax.
RIDGE: The tests have shown that these strains have not been -- quote/unquote -- "weaponized."
FEYERICK: This as two more people become infected with the disease, bringing the total number to eight with more than 30 others exposed.
COL ALLAN, EDITOR, "NEW YORK POST": Some blood samples were taken and those blood samples returned a positive to cutaneous anthrax.
FEYERICK: At the "New York Post" in Midtown Manhattan, an editorial assistant contracts skin anthrax.
And in West Trenton, New Jersey, where two of the letters were sent from, a second postal worker -- now infected.
FBI agents and police descend on the post office there and spread out along one carrier's route, hoping to find clues to the sender.
LINDA VIZI, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: We are going to probably be testing on various avenues for the potential that there is anthrax spores somewhere in that particular area and hopefully this will give us more lead information. We will be able to narrow down a little bit more and get to the source as soon as we can.
FEYERICK: In Washington, the Capitol remains closed. Teams from the Environmental Protection Agency and Defense Department test buildings in the area, as the worried there get checked.
DR. KEN MORITSUGU, DEPUTY SURGEON GENERAL: We now have the results of 1,400 nasal swabs. There are no new positives.
FEYERICK (on camera): Authorities around the country say they have been inundated with anthrax alerts. Now in Brazil, the "New York Times" says its Rio bureau has received a letter sent October 5 postmarked -- New York.
Unlike other anthrax-tainted letters, which had crude handwritten addresses, this one had a typed label. There was no return address.
Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The administration today, as you heard in a variety of ways, seemed to be trying to tamp down the dangers of these anthrax attacks. Officials point out only one person has died, that fewer than 10 people have been infected. And very few of the people exposed are in any danger at all.
All of this is true and understandable. Tamping down fear and panic is good public policy.
But are they correct? Here's CNN's national security correspondent, David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Richard Spertzel knows as much about anthrax as almost any American.
He worked on the U.S. biological weapons before they were scrapped 30 years ago. After the Gulf War, he made dozens of trips to Iraq to help the U.N. find and destroy its biological weapons.
The news that many people were found to have anthrax exposure, apparently from just one letter to Senator Daschle -- that one fact has Spertzel deeply alarmed.
RICHARD SPERTZEL, BIOWEAPONS EXPERT: The fact that so many of the individuals at least have evidence of exposure, direct exposure with material in their nostrils only from the opening of the letter, that's what you would expect from weapons-grade material.
ENSOR: Elisa Harris handled biological weapons issues for the Clinton White House.
ELISA HARRIS, BIOWEAPONS EXPERT: There are a number of what are called tricks of the trade that would make a quantity of anthrax spores able to aerosolize, to go into the air and remain aloft. And that information is not widely available.
ENSOR: The Daschle-office anthrax became airborne so easily that Spertzel says just getting it into the envelope was a dangerous operation requiring great skill.
SPERTZEL: That is so readily airborne that it would take special precautions to put it into the envelope without affecting the safety of the individual. And by safety I mean killing them.
ENSOR: Both say the timing of the attacks, so soon after September 11, suggests they were likely coordinated by the same people. After all, there was much to do to prepare for the anthrax attacks. HARRIS: It takes time to produce it and then you have to put it in the mail. So if you work the time line back, it corresponds in rough terms with, you know, the early -- the sort of middle part of September.
ENSOR: Finally, the nature of the anthrax attacks leave both experts with an ominous sense of unfinished business.
SPERTZEL: I would look at the letter that was sent to Senator Daschle's office as a shot across the bow. You know, "Look USA, here's what we are capable of doing and you guess what we are going to do next."
ENSOR (on camera): So while U.S. officials say the tests so far don't indicate -- quote/unquote -- "weaponized anthrax", these two experts remain concerned, both because of the number of people apparently exposed to anthrax in the Senate offices, and because of the timing of the letters.
For those two reasons alone, they say, there has to be real concern we may face more trouble from anthrax.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Correspondent Jamie McIntyre has been picking up more information at the Pentagon on this raid, if that's the right word, Jamie, into Afghanistan.
Jamie, what have you learned?
MCINTYRE: Well, we have the first word, Aaron, of casualties in connection with the operation -- Pentagon announcing tonight that two U.S. military personnel were killed today in a helicopter crash that took place in Pakistan.
Now, sources tell CNN that this helicopter was not among those that went into Afghanistan. It was a search-and-rescue helicopter that was in a support role. It was standing by in Pakistan in case it was needed to go in and rescue someone.
Instead, there was an accident. That helicopter crashed, two people were killed. They have not released the names of those people nor identified the specific type of helicopter or the unit it came from. But again, it is technically a casualty of the operation because it was up to support the special forces who went into Afghanistan. But it crashed in Pakistan and never entered Afghan air space.
And just to recap that operation, we have confirmed now that the target was an area near Kandahar and that the helicopters and their troops did come from the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk in the Arabian Sea and other bases in the region.
Also, there were fixed-wing planes that supported it including, as we said, an AC-130. Again, all of the helicopters that were part of the actual assault, which took a couple of hours, have cleared Afghan air space and are en route back to their bases or already back at their bases, and still no word on any casualties from the actual combat operation.
BROWN: And that was my next question -- the fact that we know there were two casualties does not mean there were not more. We just don't know.
MCINTYRE: That's correct.
BROWN: OK. Perhaps we'll know more before the hour is over.
Thank you, Jamie -- Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: You may remember this telling statement from one government official last week: "Thank God it's anthrax. It could be a lot worse." The a lot worse is smallpox, highly contagious, usually deadly, ancient. You can find scars on the mummified head of an Egyptian pharaoh. Historians think smallpox killed as many as half a billion people during the 20th century. That's the equivalent of killing every man, woman and child in America today and 200 million more.
This week the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, said the United States would "increase its stockpile of smallpox vaccine to 300 million doses." Here's CNN Medical Correspondent Rhonda Rowland.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RHONDA ROWLAND, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If smallpox were unleashed in the form of a biological weapon, the only defense against the highly contagious virus is the vaccine. Today the United States has a 25-year-old stockpile of just 15 million doses. Health officials say the first of an additional 300 million new doses should roll off the production line in December.
TOMMY THOMPSON, HHS SECRETARY: We've had FDA in. We've had the pharmaceutical companies that want to produce it. We've sat down, ironed out all the protocols, all the difficulties. And I can assure you that we are going to be able to start manufacturing smallpox vaccine this year.
ROWLAND: If there is a small position attack, who should get the vaccine first? Even before September 11th, CDC officials considered such an attack a remote but real threat, so they developed guidelines.
DR. NICKI PESICK, EMORY HOSPITAL: Anybody that's been within 6.5 feet, or approximately two meters, during the time that the patient was infectious, as well as health care workers, as well as first responders -- people that are transporting these patients to the hospital.
ROWLAND: But what if there was a smallpox attack tomorrow? Would there be enough vaccine to go around? Dr. D.A. Henderson led the global effort to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s.
DR. D.A. HENDERSON, CENTER FOR CIVILIAN BIODEFENSE: Our judgment has been that those stockpiles are sufficient to deal with at least a couple of major attacks, and let's say attacks involving major cities.
ROWLAND: Studies are underway at four medical centers to quickly determine if the current stockpile can be safely diluted to stretch the vaccine further if needed. Researchers are also investigating a drug called sidofivir, that could be used to treat smallpox.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: There's no guarantee it's going to work, but the animal data look rather striking.
Besides anthrax and smallpox, the CDC believes other lethal biological agents could be used in attack. One of the first priorities when it developed the nation's drug stockpile two year ago was to put in supplies and antibiotics to treat diseases like plague, hemorrhagic fever and tularemia.
ROWLAND (on camera): Most doctors, even in med school, have never seen cases of those diseases. So to assist frontline physicians in identifying a biological attack, this week the CDC published a list of the signs and symptoms of the most dangerous and deadly agents, so doctors can identify, treat and stop any potential breakout.
Rhonda Rowland, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: After a break we will talk with one of the country's foremost experts on smallpox. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: More now on the threat of smallpox. Dr. Craig Smith joins us from Atlanta tonight. He's on the work group on bioterrorism for the Infectious Disease Society of America. Dr. Smith was a bioterrorism doctor for the Army during Desert Storm. Thanks for coming in tonight.
Tell me if this makes sense. I read this today that the a terrorist might spread smallpox and create an epidemic is basically infect himself, suicidal, then walk through a city. Go to restaurants, take the subway, sneeze a little, cough a bit, breathe a lot. And before you know it, you have an epidemic. Could it work that way?
DR. CRAIG SMITH, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SOCIETY OF America: It actually could be easily worked that way. If you have people that are willing to get on airplanes and crash them, then taking smallpox and being infected -- you would be asymptomatic for the first week or so. And then you would start with maybe respiratory symptoms, so you would get through any kind of Customs check, any kind of security check until you became ill and presented yourself to a doctor or to a hospital.
BROWN: And it is so quickly contagious, isn't it?
SMITH: Well, it's a respiratory route, so when people sneeze or have their secretions then it's like any other cold-type virus that you see. With sneezing and coughing it's going to be spread through the air. And since most of us that were vaccinated in the past have had our vaccine in strength, essentially all of us are susceptible now.
BROWN: That was my next question, if you were about my age and did have smallpox vaccine, that probably is not good anymore?
SMITH: Well, we know from past experience where there are areas where the disease has been eradicated and reintroduced that the vaccine usually has an efficacy of at least 10 or 12 years or longer. So most of us that were vaccinated in the 70's or earlier, by now most of that would have worn down and not been completely protective anymore.
BROWN: The vaccine that's on the shelves is 25 years old or so. Is it still potent? Does it still work?
SMITH: There's been a lot of testing done on those vaccines, and most of it is still very potent. Storage is a problem, obviously. Thirty or forty years of storing a vaccine is not an easy accomplishment in itself. Plus part of that time we didn't even know we needed the vaccine in the future. But most of it is very potent. There are still researchers who have received it and animal studies, so that when Dr. Henderson talks about our store, we do definitely have a store of vaccine. Without question.
BROWN: Is there literally -- is there much smallpox out there we know of? I remember reading the Russians had some, we had some in the United States. Is that it?
SMITH: That's the ones that we know about officially. And under the Biological Warfare Convention and discussions in the late 1990's, there were discussions to destroy all of the sources. Other big research areas like the Pasteur Institute had stored some. And a lot of those stores were destroyed. But in the late '90s when the fear came of possible bioterrorism, and we realized that here is a disease that no one has immunity anymore, but we can't be exactly sure where it might be stored or not stored -- that the decision was made that it would be in our best interests not to destroy it. And we would have it ourselves to do research in the future if necessary.
BROWN: I want to avoid creating Cipro mania, where everybody runs out and starts demanding smallpox vaccines. It's actually -- this is kind of a downside here. It is -- like most vaccines it can have serious side effects?
SMITH: Very serious side effects. And there were childhood deaths associated with it. There's disfiguring vaccine problems, where people had the same kind of pox marks and scarring just from the vaccine itself. In present day, we think about going and getting a hepatitis shot or taking our children, and these have very few side effects. Not even a fever, for the most part.
This is a live vaccine that has side effects that go with it, so that just going out and vaccinating everybody because we are worried there might be a threat would not be the answer. And usually in those times, we keep the reserve and then do what's called strategic vaccination, so that if there is an outbreak or there is someone identified that has smallpox -- as has been done in the past many times -- you would go into that area and vaccinate the people at risk and try to hold the epidemic or whatever -- the spread at that one source without going any further.
BROWN: Dr. Smith, in all honesty I hope we never need to talk to you again. But if we do, we know exactly where to go. You did a terrific job tonight. Thanks for coming in.
SMITH: Thank you.
BROWN: Thank you. Dr. Craig Smith on smallpox. As we said, if you think the anthrax thing is scary. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The mayor of Oklahoma City was in New York today visiting with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Six and a half years to the day since the Oklahoma City bombing. And for many, the first impulse after Oklahoma City was to suspect Arab terrorists, not some kid from Buffalo. Could anthrax turn out the same? Home grown. History -- recent history at that -- says yes. Here's CNN's Brooks Jackson.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
BROOKS JACKSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was an Oregon-based cult. Followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh pulled off what's still the largest bioterrorist attack in U.S. history. It was August, 1984. According to records, several Rajneeshis spread a homegrown culture of salmonella bacteria in at least 10 local restaurants. They poured it in coffee creamers, stirred it into salad dressing.
JAVED ALI, CNN BIOTERRORISM CONSULTANT: Over 750 people became sick, about 40 or 50 of those people became with gastrointestinal disorders or symptoms.
JACKSON: It might have been worse. Witnesses said the Rajneeshis talked of producing typhoid as a weapon, far more lethal than salmonella.
And the Rajneeshis are not alone. History shows there's been no shortage of homegrown terrorists willing to use biological or chemical weapons.
In 1985, federal agents entered the Arkansas camp of a violent ultra- right group calling themselves the "Covenant Sword and Arm of the Lord." Besides grenades and automatic weapons, the group had 30 gallons of potassium cyanide, with which, according to later testimony, they planned to poison some big city's water supply.
JESSICA STERN, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: That an American anti- government group was willing to kill large numbers of Americans, in this case because they really believed they were carrying out God's judgments and they would persuade the Messiah to return more quickly.
JACKSON: And there have been others. In 1994, the FBI raided a right-wing group calling itself the Minnesota Patriot's Council and seized a small jar of ricin, a toxin from the castor bean that is two hundred times more deadly than cyanide.
According to trial testimony, members of the group talked of using the ricin to assassinate IRS officials, U.S. Marshals and the county sheriff.
JASON PATE, MONTEREY INSTITUTE: What is of concern about the Minnesota Patriot's Council is that it is was an anti-government group with strong ties to extremist Christian identity, Christian fanatical ideology, similar to the ideology that influenced Timothy McVeigh.
JACKSON: The FBI has found ricin in some other cases. And then in 1998 they arrested another anti-government extremist, Larry Wayne Harris for illegal possession of a biological weapon. This time, anthrax.
STERN: He showed up in Las Vegas claiming to have enough so- called military-grade anthrax to wipe out the entire city.
JACKSON: Harris's boast turned out empty. He had only harmless anthrax vaccine. But he was a trained microbiologist, and had earlier been convicted of a fraud in which he obtained freeze-dried black plague bacteria. All this leads some experts to say a home grown terrorist could well be responsible for the current anthrax attacks.
STERN: To be honest, the first thing I thought was, it must be a domestic group.
ALI: It's just as possible as saying that an international group was responsible for it. I don't think there's any clear trend or pattern yet.
JACKSON: So America waits to discover who did it: international terrorists or one of its own.
Brooks Jackson, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Up next, Hollywood signs on to the war effort. We will be joined by actor Ron Silver when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: The relationship between Hollywood and Washington has gone through plenty of rocky periods. Senator Joe McCarthy went after Hollywood in the '50s, hunting for a communist influence. Much more recently, politicians have pressured the entertainment business to back away from programming with sex and violence. But those battles, like so many other things, seem utterly forgotten in these weeks since September 11th.
And this week, Hollywood executives and actors met with White House officials to talk about what the industry can do. Ron Silver was among the group who participated and Mr. Silver joins us from Los Angeles tonight. Good evening.
RON SILVER, ACTOR: Hi there.
BROWN: What is it that Hollywood can do here, or ought to do?
SILVER: Well, I don't want to talk about imperatives, about what they ought to do. But I'd like to provide a context for this meeting yesterday. Like December 7th, 1941, when the nation was galvanized into war, I think 9/11/01 did the same thing.
And what it did was it kind of reacquainted people with civic involvement. Reminded us of who we are, what our ideals are. Everybody has wanted to do something. Everybody I speak to -- not only in my industry, but everywhere -- wants to know how to contribute and what to do. So this was an outgrowth of continuing discussions and a deluge of interest on the part of many people in the industry of what contribution we can make to this national challenge.
BROWN: What is the contribution? What are the skills that you bring? What is it you want -- what would you like to do?
SILVER: It's not only what we would like to do, but I think it's what's needed. We would like to contribute to whatever effort is needed. What do we do? We tell stories. Arguably, we tell stories more effectively and more persuasively and more emotionally, and deliver messages.
And that's what I'd like to get to. We've been reading a lot about delivering a message. We have Governor Ridge in charge of, I guess, being a spokesperson to deliver a coherent and consistent message on the domestic and the foreign fronts. And obviously the skills. Not only the software, the stories and the content and the entertainers, but the hardware that we employ.
A lot of these media executives -- not only CNN but all the rest of the media -- they have satellites and they can communicate with different areas of the world. They have footprints in local regions that, strangely enough, the government doesn't. VOA, for instance, the Voice of America, operates in the Mideast basically on a weak AM signal. And we don't have capability of going in there -- and VOA also has a mandate to be objective.
We can deliver a message emotionally. And the message we want to deliver domestically is one of national unity and tolerance and diversity and strength and resolve and our sense of our values. And we want to deliver that message and sustain that message not only for a domestic population, but see if we can effectively communicate that to disaffected populations in the world who have either not been getting the message or who don't understand it or don't agree with it.
BROWN: Is this -- nobody likes to use the word propaganda, actually. But do you see yourself...
SILVER: That's OK.
BROWN: No. But I think nobody is terribly comfortable with the word. Fair enough? But can you see yourself in that way? You're talking about selling a non-objective message, a point of view, to the world. Propaganda?
SILVER: Yeah, I'm comfortable with it, only because notwithstanding the derogatory connotation of propaganda, I have no problem selling the American story because it's something I believe in deeply. Many members of my community do. And if you're telling me about selling the values and valuing and reveling in the values and celebrating the values of diversity, of freedom, of autonomy, of compassion, of diversity and pluralism and what we are about -- if selling it is non objective, because I believe strongly in it, I have no problem with that at all and about neither do most of the members of my community.
BROWN: It sounds like a terrific idea. I hope it takes off.
SILVER: I do too.
BROWN: Good luck to you. Thanks for coming in tonight. Ron Silver on what -- how and what Hollywood might be able to do. We will take a look at the new normal -- whatever it's to be -- when we come back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My brother was a New York City firefighter for seven years, and he loved it from day one. He never intended to be a firefighter. He want to be a veterinarian because he loved animals. And he took the test just to take it, passed it, and I think he actually holds the agility record at the fire department.
And once he got hired it was like the best thing that ever happened to him. He loved the fire department with every hair of his body. He used to tell me -- because I became a cop before he became a fireman -- he was like, "Oh, now we are civilians. We can't talk to you now, blah." Then when he became a fireman, forget about it.
You can't talk nothing about the fire department. He was proud of his department. The challenge, he loved that. He loved rescuing people. He loved helping people. He died the way he wanted to die. He must of pulled out a lot of people before he went down. It was his heart. He bled FDNY.
(END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We've seen a remarkable degree of unity in the United States in the last six weeks and the polls show overwhelming support for America's new war. There may be one place in America where you might think there would be a different kind of unity: unity against the war. But Berkeley, California, has changed a lot since 1968 -- haven't we all -- and a lot more since September 11th.
So with the new normal tonight, CNN's Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a kind of political bazaar, a cacophony of causes and beliefs hawked a long a sidewalk. A blizzard of flyers and posters attesting to the fact the free speech movement, activism, and yes, anti-war sentiment, is alive and well at the university of California in Berkeley. But it is not the same.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was something happening in the late '60s that has not happened before or since, you know. It was really a magic time. I thought -- and most of the people working with me -- thought that this was the revolution and there was going to be peace and justice in about five years and we were starting in Berkeley and we would to take care of it.
CROWLEY: No, this is definitely not your father's peace movement.
ROBB MCFADDEN, COLLEGE REPUBLICANS: So you have people who are ready to protest before we've even bombed, who were putting up "Stop the War" before we even started the war. So there's definitely that group here, but I don't think most people fall into that. And this is 2001, not 1968. And this is isn't America kind of intervening in some foreign conflict. This is America being attacked and defending itself.
CROWLEY: And this is America without a draft. Young men are not being shipped overseas to perform a job they did not sign up for in a war they oppose.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are a peaceful demonstration. Everybody remember that. We are a peaceful demonstration.
CROWLEY: A high profile protester of the war in Vietnam, David Harris spent two years in jail for draft resistance.
DAVID HARRIS, FORMER ANTIWAR ACTIVIST: They spent 10 years in Southeast Asia trying to address political problems with armies, and it did not work. And I am not particularly confident it's going to work this time around.
CROWLEY: Do not misunderstand. David Harris wants Osama Bin Laden to pay, but he fears that bombing Afghanistan drives Islam into Bin Laden's corner and draws America into a larger bloodbath. HARRIS: For the only time in my lifetime, the United States had a window of opportunity there to credibly speak for the world's victims. We were one of them, you know. Another couple weeks of this bombing and that window is closed. And I think that's the window that was going to get us out.
CROWLEY: He is older, grayer, and living in a world he admits is not as black and white as he once saw it. But his is still a voice of protest.
HARRIS: I'm sure there will be attempts to set up the people who are not lining up to jump up and down for George Bush's policy as somehow unpatriotic, but we should stamp that one in the bud, too. No one has a corner on patriotism here. Everybody loves their country.
CROWLEY: Patriotism and protest are alive and well, living side- by-side in America.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Berkeley, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: When we come back, we will update the developments from Afghanistan tonight. A special operations raid near Kandahar. More on that in just a moment.
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