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CNN Connie Chung Tonight

Al Qaeda Tapes Found in Afghanistan; Police Search Chicago for Two Missing Girls

Aired August 19, 2002 - 20:00   ET

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

CONNIE CHUNG, HOST: Good evening. I'm Connie Chung. Tonight, the exclusive al Qaeda tapes.
ANNOUNCER: Terror on tape. A chilling cache of videotape uncovered inside Afghanistan. Tonight, exclusive. CNN's Nic Robertson gives you a revealing look inside the world of al Qaeda. What do these tapes represent? What were they used for? And who is watching them now? CNN's Mike Boettcher has the answers, with analysis and insight into the terror tapes.

Plus, one of the world's foremost authorities on al Qaeda and bin Laden, CNN's Peter Bergen looks at the threat the tapes might pose. CNN military analyst Brigadier General David Grange on the tape's impact on current strategies in the war on terror. And is the United States prepared for chemical warfare?

Missing in America. The desperate search for a 9-year-old girl in Virginia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll follow this case until we solve it. I just hope it's in time for the child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: And the story of two sisters missing from Chicago for over a year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every day I keep searching. Every day I keep searching. I search, I search until I can't search any more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: What happened to the Bradley girls?

This is CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT. Live from the CNN broadcast center in New York, Connie Chung.

CHUNG: Good evening. Tonight, we're going to look inside the large archive of al Qaeda terror training and behind the scenes videos. The tapes, 64 in all, offer a revealing look inside al Qaeda. One of the tapes is a never-before-shown video of Osama bin Laden in 1998, announcing a jihad against Americans. CNN was told the tapes were buried in the desert for almost a year. They were obtained in Afghanistan by CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson.

And Nic joins us from the CNN center in Atlanta with exclusive details. Nic, congratulations on your journalistic coup. These tapes are extraordinary. I'd like you to tell us the back story of how you came upon them.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'd been on a general news assignment in Kabul for about seven weeks, and somebody I'd known in Afghanistan for quite a long period of time came to our office there and he told me he had a number of tapes he thought I'd be interested in. He told me that he could show me one right there and then. We looked at it. It seemed very interesting. I asked him if I could see the others. He said I would have to come down to another location. We agreed to a time and a place, and I set off to do that.

CHUNG: Did you drive to this location? And how many hours were you on the road?

ROBERTSON: It was a long, long drive. The roads in Afghanistan, they're not like the highways here in the United States. Many of them don't -- are not paved, and it was a very, very bumpy, long, long journey, about 13 hours to get there and about 17 to get back.

CHUNG: Were you aware of the location that you were going to? And please, Nic, don't tell me anything that you think would be inappropriate for you to reveal.

ROBERTSON: No, I did know where I was going, and certainly when you set off on an journey in Afghanistan, although there are international peacekeepers in the capital, Kabul, the rest of the country is still relatively lawless. There isn't a war going on there, but there certainly are bandits. So you have to be very careful. When you're traveling, you have to have good confidence in knowing where you are going. So we were taking all the necessary precautions when traveling around Afghanistan. But I did feel reasonably safe about what we were doing.

CHUNG: When you say you took all the necessary precautions, what do you mean?

ROBERTSON: I traveled with a driver that I trusted, with a translator who is able to speak the two predominant languages in Afghanistan. And that enables you to be able to deal with any situation on the road. I've traveled this road many times before, so it wasn't unfamiliar to me. And that, again, is something you wouldn't want to venture off perhaps somewhere you don't know.

CHUNG: Well, that's what I was thinking. I mean, I could only think about what happened to Daniel Pearl, and I thought you had to have been a bit frightened for your safety, but you say you felt safe?

ROBERTSON: Well, in Daniel Pearl's situation, a very, very unfortunate situation, he was targeted and he was essentially, it appears, lured into a situation. In our case, I knew the person and had known the person that I was going to meet. I'd known them for some time, so I had a high degree of confidence in them. Of course, he could be being tricked as well, and you couldn't rule that out, but I wasn't expecting a similar sort of scenario. But you cannot rule it out. You'd be foolish not to bear that in mind.

CHUNG: Yes, and I'm sure you're always very careful. Now, when you got to the location, were you immediately shown the number of tapes, and did you just immediately sit down and begin looking at them?

ROBERTSON: Pretty much immediately. It was down back streets, parking -- back streets almost too narrow to get a vehicle down. Parking outside, going up a narrow staircase into a tiny room. VCR, television set, and I didn't want to spend a huge amount of time doing this. So we got to work right away, and spent a lot of time looking at all the tapes, all the tapes we believed were relevant.

CHUNG: And how many? Were they the 200? Did you look through all of them? And were they labeled in some way so that you knew what you wanted to look at?

ROBERTSON: Well, the labeling was all in Arabic, and that made it very, very difficult for me to know exactly what I was going to see when I put each cassette into the machine. So in some ways it was a surprise from what I was seeing.

But I was told by my contact that many of the tapes were, of the 251 tapes, were off-air recordings that al Qaeda had made of CNN, of BBC, of Al-Jazeera, news broadcasts of subjects of interest to them, of the situation in Chechnya perhaps, or the situation in the West Bank, or so -- or Gaza, so many of those tapes, they didn't seem, although very informative about al Qaeda's thinking, they didn't seem to be as important to us as the chemical testing, for example, as the explosives manufacturing, as the training.

CHUNG: Yes, and I'm sure you must have been taken aback as soon as you saw that dog, and we'll show this video now. The dog who is being attacked by believed to be a chemical substance, perhaps sarin, is that correct?

ROBERTSON: Some of our analysts who viewed the material thought it might be sarin, some -- one of them thought that it might be hydrogen cyanide. Another analyst said that he couldn't see enough information to know exactly what it was. The problem for the analysts is, if you're a scientist, unless you're actually there and able to monitor all the symptoms, very difficult to make a precise analyst.

For example, if it was a nerve agent, the dog's pupils would have contracted. We didn't see the dog's pupils, so difficult for our experts who viewed the tape to make a very, very thorough analysis. Hence, there was some disagreement, if you will, amongst the experts.

CHUNG: Was that videotape of the dog sort of the most shocking videotape, piece of videotape that you saw in the beginning? ROBERTSON: It certainly was, although when I was viewing the material, I had a job to do. I had to look through it all, find out what I thought was important. It wasn't until I was traveling back the next day that I saw a dog at the side of the road and it really just hit me then and there what I had seen, the knowledge that I had, the fact that, you know, as a journalist you need to impart but inform; the need therefore to get this material back to somewhere where analysts could look at it and we could make some informed comment about what we'd seen.

CHUNG: Yes, and that -- we will deal with that in just a moment. Could you describe what occurred to the dog? And we'll roll a little bit more of that tape.

ROBERTSON: There were three different sequences. In the first sequence, a white liquid appears to come across the floor, a white gas comes up off that liquid. The dog starts salivating, licking his lips, blinking his eyes. After about two, two and a half minutes, the dog's hind quarters appear to give away. The dog falls and rolls. He struggles to get up. He knows that there is something wrong. Then he begins to howl. His diaphragm appears to be going up and down. He's trying to breathe very hard. Eventually sort of kicks back and dies. It is a very tough sequence of tape to watch.

CHUNG: All right. Nic, stay with there. We'll be back with you in just a moment. Next, to CNN's national correspondent Mike Boettcher.

CNN showed the tapes to a panel of intelligence sources and analysts to help us authenticate the material and to put in it context. Mike, how did the panel authenticate the information?

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there were very small details that matched exactly intelligence information that they had had before -- the slam of a heavy door that matched intelligence information, that the door to this room where the tests were done was a very heavy door. One of the main things to them in looking at the body of the tapes is the fact that it was an al Qaeda camera shooting interviews done by CNN, by Peter Arnett and the ABC interview with John Miller. It shows those reporters doing those interviews. And there were a variety of small, little details that led them to know that this was authentic. From the beginning, there was never any question that it was.

CHUNG: How were they able to react? I mean, I would imagine that they were very surprised at what they saw.

BOETTCHER: They were shocked. Dumbfounded would be a better word, Connie. They told me that no intelligence agency in the world had such a video. They all had evidence, evidence from al Qaeda's own manuals that they were conducting tests. There had been satellite imagery of dead animals around a location, this particular location, which is known as the Abu-Kebab (ph) camp in the Durinto (ph) complex of camps near Jalalabad.

But what happened was you can have millions of words written about something like this, but to have al Qaeda's own camera take you within those walls, inside, to see what happened, they were dumbfounded and were really speculating, wondering what the world reaction would be and what the future political action would be.

CHUNG: Mike, I'm wondering why Osama bin Laden had this penchant for taping himself? Was he some sort of megalomaniac like Hitler? Was he anxious to see himself on videotape and document his history?

BOETTCHER: Well, actually, he was a micro manager, according to my sources. He liked to know what was going on in all of his various camps, with all the training, the experiments being done and with his cells around the world. And the way he did that was through videotape. You had cells around the world sending tapes, intelligence agencies know that to be a fact, and that shows up in the tapes that Nic retrieved from Afghanistan.

And so, he was a man who liked to keep track, and he did it with videotape. And that's why there is a strong suspicion that this may have come from his personal archives.

CHUNG: Mike, based on the videotapes that you saw with the panel of experts, how far along do the experts believe the al Qaeda is in terms of biological weapons?

BOETTCHER: Well, what they learned -- well, not biological, chemical weapons.

CHUNG: I'm sorry, chemical weapons.

BOETTCHER: Biological -- I mean, there has been a lot of talk about al Qaeda doing biological. What I'm told in that regard is, is that they examined doing biological, the man who is the al Qaeda top commander, scientist working on chem/bio, Abu Kebab Al-Masri (ph), he dreamed of having bio, but it was too hard to contain in such rudimentary conditions and there maybe blowback that would kill their own people. It was much easier to work with chemical weapons.

Now, al Qaeda has built upon their knowledge. Obviously, they've got to the point where they could test on animals. I'm told very reliably by my sources that al Qaeda even managed to put a chemical in a mortar shell, but they don't have to use a mortar shell to do this. They don't need a missile. Their missile is a human being who can walk into a building, a subway or a crowded street and drop a vial of this material. So it doesn't need to be that sophisticated.

CHUNG: All right, back to Nic Robertson. Nic, tell me, when were these tapes made? Was there a full range of years?

ROBERTSON: Well, some of the tapes and some of the more documentary tapes from, if you will, affiliated al Qaeda organizations around the world, at least organizations that al Qaeda appeared to be interested in, some of them dated back to 1990. The training tapes that we saw, some of them were dated 1998. We certainly know that one tape of Osama bin Laden announcing his jihad on the Western world, that was made 1998. We know specifically that date, but some of them, like the chemical testing on the dogs, we're not sure exactly when that was made.

CHUNG: Why were these tapes given to you exclusively, Nic?

ROBERTSON: The contact I have, I believe, certainly knew and understood how these would be of interest in the United States and to people around the world. He knew me. I had a very good relationship with him, I believe, and I believe that's perhaps why he approached me in the beginning, because he saw me as a vehicle for the rest of the world to be able to see exactly what al Qaeda had been doing.

CHUNG: So, do you see it as an agenda, that this person had an agenda? And as you left with them, were you concerned that you would be stopped in some way or another?

ROBERTSON: I don't believe the person who passed on these tapes had an agenda in that regard at all. He does not strike me as being that type of person. I have no reason to believe that, and I've known him for some time in a number of different locations and in a number of different situations, so I absolutely do not think that's the case.

CHUNG: Now, there were more than 200 -- how many total number of tapes were there available to you?

ROBERTSON: There were 251 tapes. And we obtained 64 of them.

CHUNG: Are there any of those tapes that you actually wish you had brought along, because you could only carry so many?

ROBERTSON: We -- some of the experts we talked to believe that the material we have is such core and important al Qaeda material, such an important record of what they had, what they were doing, what they were thinking, what they were practicing, what they were training for, what they were rehearsing, an insight, if you will, into their current mind-set, those experts believe it would be very, very valuable to have those other tapes. That's how importantly they believe this collection of videotapes to be.

CHUNG: No doubt, Nic, do you believe, as some have been saying, that this is documentation of the others who surround Osama bin Laden, photos of people we've never seen, or perhaps the U.S. government has never been able to identify as well?

ROBERTSON: Indeed, the tape we're looking at here is a -- the day that Osama bin Laden announces his jihad on the Western world. The only video cameras -- and there were two there that day -- the only video cameras belonged to al Qaeda. There were a group of other journalists there that day. They were told specifically they could only take photographs of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Mohammed Atta, his military commander who was sitting out there on the platform that day. They were forbidden from taking pictures of anyone else in that room.

This videotape shows the face of Osama bin Laden's personal bodyguard, it shows the face of a man who in that context was an interpreter. But we see him on other tapes as a senior, very respected military trainer within the al Qaeda regime. So clearly, there were people there that -- faces of people that al Qaeda were trying to protect that is seen on this videotape.

CHUNG: All right, Nic Robertson, we're very proud, and we appreciate your reporting, your superb reporting. And Mike Boettcher as well, thank you so much.

And now reaction from the Bush administration. John King is at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where the president is on vacation. John, was the administration aware of the existence of these tapes through U.S. intelligence, or did this just hit them right between the eyes?

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, this particular set of tapes hit them between the eyes, to use your words, Connie. The administration certainly aware, since we've gotten some tapes in the past, that there are tapes throughout Afghanistan. The administration says CIA operatives and others have collected some videotapes of their own during operations in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, for that matter, but this particular set of tapes, you can rest assured, if they knew they existed, the U.S. would have gone after them to try to get them into government hands, and they still hope to do that down the road.

Unique on this set of tapes, we're told by U.S. officials, are those pictures Nic has been describing, the disturbing pictures of the tests involving the dogs. Administration officials say that is the first video confirmation they have of their long held suspicions and other evidence that al Qaeda was conducting such tests. And the White House reacting today by saying, this yes, the administration believes it knew much about what al Qaeda was doing, but it believes now you have a vivid illustration in the administration's view of why the president said it was so important and still is so important to have U.S. troops in Afghanistan, making sure that al Qaeda can never regroup there again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It is an example of how organized al Qaeda was, the lengths that they have gone through in terms of training people. It was a real and still remains a real terrorist industry, organized for the sole purpose of training people in a very organized fashion for how to kill others. And even though we've inflicted tremendous damage on them, they are on the run, they've lost their training grounds in Afghanistan, we do have concerns about their efforts to regroup around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And it's one of the reasons, White House officials say, the president repeatedly stresses that the campaign could move on beyond Afghanistan and why the administration has put pressure, Connie, on countries like Yemen. They are concerned that al Qaeda will try to regroup somewhere else, try to reconstitute those labs where they were conducting such tests. That is why U.S. officials tell us repeatedly, this war against terrorism is in many ways just beginning -- Connie.

CHUNG: John, are Bush officials concerned about these tapes being shown?

KING: Well, they're concerned, because on the one hand, they think people could become frightened by them, but they do believe, especially overseas, the president still enjoys broad support from the American people when it comes to the war on terrorism, but you have seen in recent months from the key allies like the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, European public opinion, an anti-U.S. sentiment growing, a sentiment growing that perhaps President Bush is trying take advantage politically of the war on terrorism.

So, as these tapes are shown here in the United States and around the world, the administration believes they do help make the case the president has made from day one that al Qaeda was trying to acquire and develop weapons of mass destruction and that this administration will continue the war on terrorism until it is convinced that not only that al Qaeda cannot regroup, but that any others out there who might be trying to develop similar weapons are stopped as well.

CHUNG: Yes, John, I think some cynics would say that this was in some way an orchestration to achieve some sort of political gain on Bush administration's part. Thank you, John. Much more on the tapes coming up on "NEWSNIGHT" with Aaron Brown at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

When we come back, we'll talk with a man who is caught on one of these tapes.

ANNOUNCER: Still ahead -- fighting chemical warfare at home. Is the U.S. prepared for the worst? CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: The al Qaeda terror tapes raised the specter of a chemical attack against civilians. Such an attack did take place in 1995 when a Japanese doomsday cult released sarin nerve gas on a Tokyo subway. The gas killed 12 people and injured thousand of others. The cult, known as Aum Shinrikyo, combined Buddhist and Hindu teachings to forecast the end of the world. The seran attack was meant to usher in that apocalypse. Following the incident, the cult's guru was arrested, along with hundreds of his followers.

So what became of Aum Shinrikyo? The answer when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: So what became of the Aum Shinrikyo cult responsible for the 1995 nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway? Seven cult members await execution for their part in releasing the sarin gas, and the cult's guru is still on trial. The cult retains about 1,000 followers, who still believe in its teachings as a path to enlightenment. The group has disavowed violent tactics and changed its name.

CHUNG: The videotapes offer a wealth of information about the operations of al Qaeda. To help us make sense of these tapes, CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen. He wrote a biography of Osama bin Laden, and to his surprise, Bergen appears on one of the 64 tapes recorded as he conducted a 1997 interview with bin Laden. Was that disconcerting, Peter, to see yourself, or did you know that you had been taped?

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: I'm not surprised that we were being taped. Correspondent Peter Arnett and myself went to interview bin Laden in '97 and, you know, I came here on Tuesday to look at some of these tapes, and there I am on one of the tapes, and I mean, it's kind of -- it's just an odd experience, but they also were taping interviews conducted with ABC News a year later, and they were also filming their own press conferences. And I think that part of this impulse was -- al Qaeda was interested in documenting, you know, important moments for the group, and certainly doing interviews with Western news organizations was one of those moments, and a press conference where they really announced their plan to attack the United States in '98 was also one of those moments, and that's the story that CNN is going to run tomorrow.

CHUNG: I had asked Mike Boettcher this question -- why do you think Osama bin Laden has this penchant for videotaping himself?

BERGEN: It's gone on for a long time, and as early as 1987, an Egyptian journalist starting documenting al Qaeda, and that material was shown in the Middle East thereafter. Bin Laden, you know, he's sort of like he wanted a court photographer, I guess, and -- but you know, many groups want to document themselves. I don't think this represents any kind of megalomania on his part, necessarily. Bin Laden and his men think that they're doing something very important, and they decided to document that.

CHUNG: And you categorize each of these sections of tapes. Can you relate that to us?

BERGEN: I mean, the 64 tapes, I think they fall under three categories. The first category is sort of instructional videotapes, how to make TNT, how to shoot a rocket-propelled grenade, and these are real how-to tapes, I mean, meant for tuition people who are going to sit down and really learn how to do these things.

The second category is sort of documenting the history of the group, as I just mentioned, about the press conference in '98. They were shooting their own press conference. And the third category, interestingly, is that they were collecting videotapes from all around the world from groups that they sort of thought were of interest. They were collecting group -- videotapes from groups in Burma, Somalia, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Bosnia. All sorts of groups that might in some way be affiliated with al Qaeda or at least be of interest to al Qaeda.

CHUNG: So who would be the audience for groups two and three? The first would be training, of course. But who would want them? Who would want to see them?

BERGEN: I think two and three were really meant for internal consumption. They were really, you know, meant for the leadership of the group. They weren't -- we've seen other videotapes that al Qaeda produced earlier last year, which were really propaganda videotapes. All these groups -- all these videos we're seeing were not meant for public consumption. They were really meant for al Qaeda itself.

CHUNG: And the quality of the tapes?

BERGEN: Many of them were very well shot. I mean, in '97, we met with a guy who described himself as sort of media adviser to bin Laden, and he was sort of in charge of the camera equipment, and he took his job fairly seriously. And I imagine it was he that was filming our interview as it went on, and also filed a lot of these other situations.

CHUNG: Peter, what did these tapes tell you about Osama bin Laden that you didn't know?

BERGEN: I think they confirm a lot of things that we knew already. I mean, we knew that they were planning to do a chemical weapons program, but now we have the evidence with the pictures of the dogs. And in a way, they're a visual record of important moments in the organizations's history, and they bring alive a lot of things that we knew from, let's say, documents, but now you see them on video, and I think that's the importance of these tapes.

CHUNG: All right. Peter Bergen, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

BERGEN: Thanks, Connie.

CHUNG: The tapes also offer some valuable perspective on the military capabilities of al Qaeda. From Washington, we welcome CNN's military analyst, retired Brigadier General David Grange.

General Grange, what surprised you about these tapes?

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, like Peter said, I don't think anything surprised me or any counterterrorist forces in our military about what they do, what they've been doing. But it does -- the images -- it confirms the fact that they are evil, they are meant to do harm to other people, mainly the United States of America and our allies, and so it just reinforces that. A picture is worth a thousand words, and it just brings it home to you.

CHUNG: Well, how can the U.S. military use these tapes to its advantage, in terms of analyzing them?

GRANGE: Well, a couple of things. One, of course, on the intelligence side, you can identify some people. You know, if you look at the close-in security of bin Laden and his advance party that comes in before he arrives to secure the area and how they act, the equipment they carry, their techniques. Also...

CHUNG: And then, if you can see on the monitor now, this is, I believe, an ambush, an assassination attempt. You can learn a great deal from that. Tell us about that. GRANGE: Yeah, this is a hostage snatch there. They're kidnapping someone. Surprisingly, they don't want to injure the security or the drivers, the locals in this particular training scenario, so it's very selective on who you would kill, who you would capture, who you would let go.

This one, in fact, however, is a definite assassination tactic, a quick kill, something maybe you would do in Kabul, where you take out a leader and then leave the scene immediately.

CHUNG: Have you ever seen anything like this before? These kinds of training tapes?

GRANGE: These particular tapes are techniques that are used in other places in the word, for instance in Colombia. Some of the terrorists, paramilitary, drug, gang-related type operations. The same years ago in Europe, these techniques were used where you combine motorcycles with vehicles or automobiles or motorcycles alone. So that has been used before.

CHUNG: General, how prepared is the U.S. military to a chemical attack?

GRANGE: Well, our military is prepared very well, though we probably could increase the volume of response and capability, though the capability we have is excellent. Probably the best in the world.

CHUNG: But for the public?

GRANGE: Well, they support the public. In fact the military is integrated in other government agencies in a case of catastrophic terrorist attack, whether it be chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear. We're tied in with the Department of Energy, FEMA, FBI, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), other type of organizations. But that's where a lot of work still has to be done in homeland defense.

CHUNG: All right. Thank you so much, General Grange. We appreciate your being with us as well.

GRANGE: My pleasure.

CHUNG: Coming up, how prepared are we to respond to a chemical weapons attack? Stay with us.

ANNOUNCER: Coming up -- her parents were murdered, and she's not been seen since.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got a combination of a double murder and an obvious abduction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: The story of the 9-year-old girl who has vanished into thin air when CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT continues. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHUNG: We'll continue, but first, let's go to Aaron Brown at the CNN center in Atlanta for a look at tonight's developing stories to the minute.

(NEWSBREAK)

CHUNG: The chilling videotape of chemical weapons. How prepared are we to deal with it? When we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHUNG: The images on the videotapes present troubling questions about our capacity to respond to a chemical attack. The question is, is the U.S. prepared? And we are joined now by Bill Dee, who headed up research and development for the Army's chemical weapons program from 1981 to 1989. Thank you, Bill, for being with us.

BILL DEE, CHEMICAL ENGINEER: Thank you.

CHUNG: I'm sure you probably saw this dog being killed by some kind of -- possibly sarin gas. Just how prepared is the U.S. to protect the public against any such attack?

DEE: Well, I don't think we're ever totally prepared for something like this, but I think we're a lot better prepared than most people realize. There has been an effort over the years, over the last few years and a program called domestic preparedness to prepare fire, hazmat, police forces and medical personnel and communities around the country. There is an effort right now at the Justice Department to train particularly hazmat personnel and -- to deal with these incidents. It's not something we're totally unprepared for at all.

CHUNG: Well, but what does that mean? I mean, I have the fear that anyone else does out there, that there will be some kind of chemical attack, and that how will we identify it? How will city agencies identify it?

DEE: There are really a lot of tell-tale signs of a chemical attack. Just the response by the personnel involved. It's pretty difficult to totally prevent terrorists from attacking, but there is an awful lot you can do to ameliorate the situation.

CHUNG: But isn't it odorless and colorless?

DEE: No, no, it isn't, really. That's a myth.

CHUNG: All right.

DEE: Most of the chemicals that we're dealing really do have an odor. For example, sarin gas tends to smell like a rather fruity odor.

CHUNG: So I mean, what are the identifying symptoms that we would come down with?

DEE: Well, I guess the -- with something like, for example, sarin, the classic, of course, is pinpointing of the pupils. Later stages, you start salivating and things like that, types of things like that. You would look for generally an odor, particularly a fruity odor, unless the material was masked. For example, in the Aum Shinrikyo, it was a really poor quality material that was masked by another material, but was contained -- it was contained in it. Very low purity material.

CHUNG: Is there medication to combat it?

DEE: Yes, there is. You can give people atropin (ph). You can treat them with twotem chloride (ph). Again, particularly with sarin, you can bring them back after several lethal doses of the material, if properly treated and treated immediately. Obviously, you need to do something right away.

CHUNG: And are these medications in stock? Are they available?

DEE: They are available. I would seriously question whether there are large numbers of these stocks available in all places. Again, would depend very much on where you are.

CHUNG: Well, can you give us an idea? For instance, for large cities, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or whatever, how much of this chemical gas would have to be used to actually have an impact on U.S. citizens?

DEE: Surprisingly large number -- large amount of the chemical weapon.

CHUNG: Well, what does large mean?

DEE: Literally tons. It's not something that you're going to be able to use in a vial. I heard a question before, well, you can just drop a vial of it in there. Really isn't going to have a major effect on a large city like New York or Los Angeles. Just takes a lot more of that material to do something.

CHUNG: Go ahead.

DEE: Yeah, it would have to be used -- have to be disseminated in a proper manner.

CHUNG: And what would that be? We have no idea. You know, the average citizen has no idea of how it would be disseminated.

DEE: Well, classically, the one -- you know, remember the Aum Shinrikyo attack there in the subway.

CHUNG: Yes, in Japan, yeah.

DEE: Despite the fact that it did kill 12 and then later 13 people, it was very poorly disseminated.

CHUNG: Because it was put in -- what -- a plastic bag?

DEE: Put in a plastic bag on the floor. The bags were broken, there were several bags, actually, broken in different cars.

CHUNG: And the gas was heavier than air? Is that what it was?

DEE: Heavier than air and just stayed down on the ground. The people that were seriously hurt are those that tried to move the bags.

CHUNG: Who were trying to protect the individuals and remove the bag, is that correct?

DEE: Exactly.

CHUNG: So, I mean, based on what you have seen that CNN has been reporting all day, watching that dog experience his demise through, perhaps, some kind of nerve gas, what are the chances? I mean, do we have any clue that we might be attacked with some chemical gas?

DEE: Well, it's hard to totally prevent something like this. But again, there is an awful lot you can do to mitigate it, simply because it takes a fair amount of material, particularly in a large city. You know, we talked about attacking New York or perhaps Los Angeles or Chicago. That's not a very easy thing to do. It would require a fairly large amount of material to -- for a serious attack. I think it's going to be rather difficult to sneak into the city with hundreds of gallons of the material. It is not a vial, it's not something that you can dump a vial of the material in the water or anything like that. Doesn't work that way.

CHUNG: Thank you, Bill Dee, we really appreciate your being with us.

And coming up, missing in America. We'll talk about a case in Chicago you might not have heard of lately. And we'll be right back with that story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHUNG: We have some late developments now about possible U.S. action against Iraq. CNN's Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon live with the details -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Connie, U.S. officials are saying that no attack against Iraq is imminent, but they are confirming to CNN that in the last several weeks, senior Bush administration officials have looked at the possibility of a covert mission by the CIA and the U.S. military to strike at a suspected al Qaeda chemical facility in northern Iraq.

Now, this facility is believed to be fairly primitive. It's not clear what its current status is, and is believed to be -- it's being run by al Qaeda members that may have slipped across the border into northern Iraq from Iran. This the part of Iraq that is not controlled by Saddam Hussein. This is Kurdish territory, and it is known to the U.S. intelligence community that al Qaeda have slipped into the region and are working with some radical Kurdish elements in this part of northern Iraq.

It's not clear that the military had ever put a formal attack plan on the table. We are told at least by one official, however, that any military action is not imminent, and in fact, has been called off. But this certainly of concern to the United States. It indicates some chemical weapons testing of some sort in northern Iraq, and as some sources say, even if it's Kurdish-controlled Iraq, Iraq is Iraq, and Saddam Hussein should be held accountable -- Connie.

CHUNG: All right. CNN's Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Thank you. We'll have more on that story later as the developments occur.

And now, missing in America. The search for a missing Virginia girl pressed on today, but no substantive leads emerged. Jennifer Short disappeared last week, her parents were found shot to death in their home.

Police revealed some details of their house search. They said that the phone lines had been cut and that shell casings had been found near the bodies of the couple. Authorities also announce reports that a vehicle may have been seen leaving the Short home not long before the bodies were discovered.

While this story continues to get national attention, others have faded from the spotlight. And tonight, we look back at the case of two little girls, Tionda and Diamond Bradley. The sisters vanished one year ago. Jeff Flock has their story from Chicago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a wall, a giant timeline tracts the hours before and after they disappeared. Aerial photographs map their apartment and the school where they were headed. More than 900 police reports fill blue binders and spill into boxes, and an entire room at the Chicago police headquarters devoted to case of now 4-year-old Diamond and 11-year-old Tionda Bradley, missing without a trace for over a year.

LT. DALIA PADGURSKIS, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT: It's become one of the largest cases in volume that the Chicago Police Department has had.

FLOCK: Lieutenant Dalia Padgurskis, sensitive to criticism that missing inner city black children don't get the attention white suburban ones do eagerly documents police efforts.

PADGURSKIS: It becomes like an obsession, if I could say that.

FLOCK: But a failed one so far. July 6, 2001. Tracey Bradley leaves her daughters home alone while she goes to work. She returns to find a note saying they were headed for this school. They never made it.

TRACEY BRADLEY: I'm just wishing my kids, wherever at they got my kids, please, return back, let them go home. FLOCK: Police treated it as a stranger abduction and searched frantically, combing dense forest preserves, poking through the underbrush on a shore of a lake, questioning family members, including the fathers of the two girls.

"America's Most Wanted" runs their pictures. Nothing.

Fast forward a year. Monthly vigils are still held for the girls, now three full-time investigators work the case, and hotline calls have trickled to two or three a week.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators are preparing for the worst.

FLOCK: Once the lead story on the local news, covered has faded too. The only thing that hasn't changed, the answer to the question I put to the Chicago police chief of detectives.

(on camera): Do you have any suspects in the case?

CHIEF PHILIP CLINE, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT: Well, we have a lot of people we're looking at, but no one I can call directly a suspect.

FLOCK (voice-over): As hope fades, neighborhood kids leave messages outside the girls' apartment. Their older sister Rita writes simply, "I hope Tionda and Diamond come back home."

I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, in Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHUNG: For more on the family's struggle to find Diamond and Tionda, I spoke earlier today with Tracey Bradley, the mother of the girls, and Mary Bradley, the girls' grandmother. join us from Chicago.

Tracey, I know it's been more than a year now since your girls have been gone. Tell me how you are.

T. BRADLEY: At this point, it's been a year of Diamond and Tionda, my kids, have been missing, so it's been very frustrating for me and my family.

CHUNG: Mary, I know this has to be hard on you as the grandmother.

MARY BRADLEY, GIRLS' GRANDMOTHER: Most definitely. It's very -- it's stressful. It's painful. I haven't seen my babies in over a year now. And it's really, really hard. It's really, really hard.

CHUNG: Mary, tell me about your grand daughters.

M. BRADLEY: Well, Diamond, she was really -- I mean, she was -- I'm sorry, she is, she's a really smart girl, and Tionda, she was -- she is creative and talented. All the things that you would find in a young girl. You know, I have some beautiful grand daughters and I miss them so much. So much.

CHUNG: Mary, isn't it hard not to say "she was" and instead say "she is," it's hard to keep that hope up?

M. BRADLEY: You know what, I have -- when I be talking that was, it comes into play, but I really don't mean it. I really mean is. Because I consider them my grand daughters, they are alive and they are well. We just can't find them right now, but I'm still hoping and I'm still praying, and like I still appeal to the public, if anybody knows anything, just call. You know, we're still pleading, Tracey and I, my family, you know. We're just asking for the public cooperation in finding my babies, because we miss them dearly.

CHUNG: Tracey, tell me about your girls.

T. BRADLEY: Diamond, she's 4 years old, she'll be 5, and she's the type of little girl you'd think she's 14 and she's only 4 years old. And she's active, too. Tionda, she loves dancing, she loves playing. Also, you know, jumping rope, normal things that children would do, a child would do.

CHUNG: Do you remember, what was it like the last time you saw your girls? Was it just an ordinary morning?

T. BRADLEY: Yes, actually it was an ordinary morning when I left at 6:30 in the morning, going to work. And it was just normal. They were just sleeping when I left.

CHUNG: Mary, do you remember the last time you saw your grand daughters?

M. BRADLEY: Yes, I do. It was on a Thursday. And I went over to Tracey's house, and they were getting their little things together to go on a trip. And Diamond, the last thing she told me, she always tell me, "Tiny, I love you," that's my nickname. "Tiny, I love you." And Tionda, she was getting me water pop, and little treats so I could take to work with me.

CHUNG: Mary, do you think that the media is treating your case differently?

M. BRADLEY: No, not really. When the kids first became missing, there was a lot of attention. All of a sudden, you know and I know as you have been in the business, that things will dwindle if you don't keep it in the public eye.

T. BRADLEY: Actually, I would like to say something on that part. In sort of such a situation, I kind of -- I love my mother, but I disagree with some of the things that's been very -- actually have been happening, you know, as far as paying attention to them. They need to do more.

CHUNG: If your daughters are watching now, Tracey, what would you like to say to them?

T. BRADLEY: I love them and wish they would come home. CHUNG: Mary, do you want to say anything to your grand daughters?

M. BRADLEY: I miss you, I love you. And pray some day that you can come back and I can hold you, I can kiss you and I can tell you how much I really, really love you.

CHUNG: All right. Mary and Tracey, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

We have an update now on two British girls who disappeared outside London. Authorities discovered two bodies over the weekend, and police say they believe they are the two girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Initial examinations could not confirm the identities of the bodies or the cause of death. Police continue to hold two suspects on suspicion of murder, but had not charged them. A 28-year-old school caretaker and his 25-year-old girlfriend were due to be released from detention tomorrow, but police were granted an extension until Wednesday, during which they could detain the male suspect without charge.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHUNG: Tomorrow, a high-tech look at what parents can do to keep track and protect their children.

And coming up next on LARRY KING LIVE, the 13th anniversary of the Menendez murders. Thank you for joining us, and for all of us at CNN, good night and we'll see you tomorrow.

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