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CNN Crossfire
America Under Attack: How Should the Nation Respond?
Aired September 13, 2001 - 19:20 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.
JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: And CNN continuing to watch on all fronts the latest developments. Of course, we will bring those to you as soon as they come in to us. Right now, another group watching over all that has been happening shaping up since Tuesday is our "CROSSFIRE" gang and CNN's Bill Press.
BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Thank you, Joie, very much. Together with all the sorrow and the anger and the rage that Americans feel about Tuesday's terrorist attacks against this country, we also have a lot of questions about how something like this could happen and how we might respond.
Tonight, we turn for answers to two United States senators. Joining us, first, Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican from the state of Nebraska and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senator Bob Graham, the Democrat from Florida, who's chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- Bob Novak.
ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: Senator Graham, we have had some interest developments today. The Senate was evacuated. The House of Representatives was evacuated. Several government buildings downtown were evacuated. Several blocks have been cordoned off downtown. Now we hear the word that Reagan National Airport may be closed indefinitely, and the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney, was scooted off to Camp David. Can you tell us, as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, is something going on, or are we just a bit nervous after the catastrophe on Tuesday?
SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-FL), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Bob, I can tell you that Tuesday was not a single-chapter event, that there is still the possibility of further events -- terrorist attacks -- not necessarily of the same form, directed against the American people. And therefore this heightened sense of alert that we have seen so much of today is very much warranted.
No specific event. No specific target of where, when, who or how.
NOVAK: Senator Graham, as far as a retaliation goes, are we talking about a surgical Delta Force taking out some terrorists or are we talking of a military operation, heavy bombing, cruise missiles? .
PRESS: Senator, I'm sorry, we have to interrupt. We have to go back to CNN for breaking news and CNN's Jamie McIntyre -- Jamie. JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Bill, in an interview that's going to air tonight on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the United States has fighter planes on 15-minute strip alert at 26 bases around the country. And Pentagon sources tell me tonight that the Pentagon is considering a substantial call-up of reservists, in part to provide air crews and pilots to continue to man those planes as they sit on the runway in preparation, just in case something happens.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld does say that he has discontinued the combat air patrols, the fighter planes over most U.S. metropolitan areas. However, those fighter planes are still flying in the New York to Washington corridor. Again, it appears the Pentagon is considering a call-up of a significant number of reservists, not just the pilots and aircrews but other areas of specialty where they need assistance.
Already about 10,000 National Guard troops have been called up by the state's governors, by governors in 31 states. But the activation of reservists is something that can only be done by presidential order. The last time it was done was in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when over 200,000 Reservists were called up -- Bill.
PRESS: Thank you, Jamie. Bob, pick up there.
NOVAK: Back to that question. Are we considering a commando- type Delta Force raid on the guerrillas or a big military operation?
GRAHAM: This is not going to be a pinprick, Bob. Our nation was struck in a way we have not experienced since Pearl Harbor. More loss of life in a single day since Antietam in the Civil War within the continental United States. This is a crushing blow directed at the American people and there will be equivalent response. And those who have harbored and supported and assisted and allowed these terrorists to act will be treated as terrorists.
PRESS: Senator Hagel, I'd like to -- we heard Jamie McIntyre's report about these planes and people being called up. Is this the proper response? Are you surprised at this? Did you know about this?
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: I did not know about it specifically. We were told generally this was a very viable option. It is an appropriate response. What Senator Graham has laid out here is exactly right. I think we have to face the facts here, that not only do we have a short-term issue here, but probably more importantly, this is a long-term fight against organized terrorism worldwide. All the appropriate responses that we must put together now to deal with this, we have to consider. So what they're doing, I think, is exactly the right thing.
PRESS: Senators, we're going bring in CNN's Jamie McIntyre back into our discussion. Jamie, can you tell us again when is this effective?.
MCINTYRE: For right now there has not actually been a final decision made, but Pentagon sources say that they are working the process of drawing up a plan to call up several thousand reserves to fill in some of these positions. Part of this may depend on whether Defense Secretary Rumsfeld believes it is necessary to continue to have these fighter planes on what's called strip alert at base across the country.
Even if that is discontinued, there are some special areas in which the U.S. military has some specialty, some water purification, perhaps in air traffic control or logisticians or medical support that might be needed and the Pentagon is considering a call-up of reserves for those kinds of tasks as well.
PRESS: Is this accompanied by any increased activity or cause for alert for U.S. forces around the world -- Jamie.
MCINTYRE: U.S. forces have been on pretty high alert across the world. In fact, Pentagon sources tell me that yesterday the U.S. was at what's called DefCon 3, which is the third highest level of alert, according to sources. We've come down to DefCon 4 today. 5 being the lowest. 1 being the highest level of alert. The U.S. military is still on pretty high alert around the country. I think that this call-up of reservists is more tied to getting people with special skills into areas where they can be some help as we've beefed up the military presence around the world.
PRESS: And I guess final question. Is this any sign that any military response on the part of the United States is imminent?
MCINTYRE: Well, the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House have all dropped lots of signs that a military response is in the future. I'm not sure how imminent it is. I think this is really just a signal of the fact the military is getting a lot more attention. It's going to be getting a lot more funding. They're going to try to bring everything up to a greater state of readiness, so when the United States feels it is capable of acting it will be ready to act.
PRESS: Thanks, Jamie. Thank you very much. Back to Senator Hagel and Senator Graham.
NOVAK: I'd like to ask both senators, both familiar with intelligence. Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey has said he thinks there is a state supporting this terrorism which struck us on Tuesday. And he said a suspect, a good suspect, is Iraq. Senator Hagel, do you think that Iraq may be involved in this?
HAGEL: I don't know, but I think we need to take what Mr. Woolsey says very seriously. It seems to me we must include all possibilities in this net, as we examine the facts and get the facts, so that we can react with facts. I don't know if Iraq was involved or not, but they certainly should be examined pretty closely.
NOVAK: What is this (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?
GRAHAM: The pattern of terrorism, Bob, is that most of the significant terrorist cells around the world do have some linkage back to a sovereign nation that can provide them with financial support, with safe havens if those are required. Our policy is, as it should be, that a state which provides support to a terrorist is treated as a terrorist, and the retaliation will be the same.
NOVAK: We've had a long history with Iraq, though. I just wondered if you think that is a possibility. A lot of people say that Saddam Hussein may be a bad guy, but he's not crazy, and to be involved in this is signing his own death warrant, considering our power. How do you gentlemen feel about that?
HAGEL: One thing is quite obvious, and it was very clear Tuesday evening. This was a very sophisticated operation, unlike anything the world, quite frankly, has ever seen. The infrastructure, the training, the financing, all the information-gathering intelligence that went into this was pretty significant. Now, that could very well lead to a state-sponsored involvement, not maybe the front line of this, but maybe something in the dark recesses of the background.
NOVAK: Speaking of...
HAGEL: In answer to your question, I would say Iraq has to be on the short list of suspect states providing that support.
PRESS: Speaking of intelligence, that's one area where many people feel that we were let down. I'd like you to listen to one of your colleagues, Congressman James Traficant, colorfully had to say about the failure of our intelligence community. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMES TRAFICANT (D), OHIO: America gives $60 billion a year to the FBI and CIA for intelligence. The truth is, we learned of every one of these tragedies from Fox News and CNN.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PRESS: Zero intelligence on our part, Senator?
HAGEL: Refer to the chairman first.
PRESS: Mr. Chairman?
GRAHAM: First, we may well find when all the facts are in that there has been a serious failure of intelligence. We have known for some time that there were areas of considerable weakness in our intelligence capacity, particularly spies, the fact that our listening devices were becoming technologically out of date. And we were not able to analyze but a small percentage of the information we collected. Those are serious deficiencies, which I am pleased to say that we started several months ago, identifying and developing a five- year plan to correct. And I imagine that the events of Tuesday are going to accelerate that five-year plan.
PRESS: Let me ask you this, Senator. A couple of Republican senators are reportedly seeking support to call for the resignation of CIA Director George Tenet, because of the fact we were caught flat- footed. Do you join that call tonight? HAGEL: No, I don't. I think that is premature. We will get the facts through, obviously, the appropriate hearings and means. And Senator Graham and other committee chairmen will be involved in that, as will all the appropriate committee members. But I would only make this observation.
It has been 25 years, over the last 25 years, that we have seen a constant erosion of human intelligence. That term gets bandied around often, and Senator Graham knows an awful lot about this business. But in fact, I think because we are so without human intelligence, it may very well be that that was one of the prime factors here that has produced this gap, Somewhat.
GRAHAM: Just for people who haven't been listening, we're talking about spies.
NOVAK: Yes.
GRAHAM: And we're talking about different types of spies. We're talking about those that are U.S. nationals who are employees of our intelligence agencies. We're also talking about spies who we recruit, who are foreign nationals. And there we have some legal limitations. Today, if a potential foreign spy who has offered himself to work for us has had a bad background -- and frankly, most of these people didn't come out of monasteries -- then they are rendered ineligible to be hired by the United States.
PRESS: That's a bad policy, isn't it, Senator?
GRAHAM: If you are going to attack terrorists, you are going to be dealing with people...
PRESS: Is that going to be changed?
GRAHAM: Dealing with people who are dirty or they wouldn't have the access to get inside themselves.
NOVAK: Is that going to be changed?
GRAHAM: I hope so. That is not a law. That is policy of the CIA.
NOVAK: Senator Graham, William Bennett, who was a former cabinet member, a man I respect, was on this network last night. And he said something which rather startled me about the possible targets of retaliation. Let's just listen to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BENNETT, CO-DIRECTOR, EMPOWER AMERICA: It's not just these individuals and groups, but it's these nations and states that sponsor or support, that could be a lot of people. That could be Syria. That could be Libya. That could be Lebanon. That could be Iraq and Iran. It could be China.
(END VIDEO CLIP) NOVAK: Now I have General Bennett declaring war against Islam and China. If you add them all up, that's about 2 billion people. I know he didn't mean to attack them all at once. Is that something we have to be careful about? Isolating ourselves so that we are against -- separating ourselves from a large part of humanity in this?
GRAHAM: What we need to do is to be very careful that when we have identified the perpetrator of this horrific event, that we are able to establish beyond a doubt who it was. Because we're going to be trying to get the world community, starting with NATO, to come together in a common cause against terrorism.
We can't attack two billion people around the world. But we can attack a nation that we have uncontested evidence that has been harboring and supporting terrorists.
NOVAK: If we -- can't attack them just because we don't like them.
GRAHAM: That's right. We have go to have the irrefutable evidence.
PRESS: My question to you, Senator Hagel, is we huffed and puffed after the bombing of our embassies in Africa. And we bombed Sudan and Afghanistan. And it turns out we bombed the wrong targets and we killed a lot of innocent people. How do we know we will get it right this time?
HAGEL: We don't, is the quick answer. I am confident that the maximum effort and focus and resources will be put into this. It must be put into this. Using our international coalition that's being put together -- essentially it's the coalition of that civilized world, Bill, that we're dealing with here -- that we must put together in order to drive a stake through the heart of this scourge terrorism.
PRESS: Here's what I've seen happen. We get angry and we strike -- maybe a pinprick or something -- Osama bin Laden, but he's still on the prowl. Go after Saddam Hussein, he's still in power. Will we have the resolve this time to stick with it and finish the job?
HAGEL: Bill, we must. I said earlier -- and Senator Graham has said the same thing. This is a long-term effort. We must make no mistake. America must understand, a free world, this isn't a one-month project.
GRAHAM: I think what we have to also understand, is this is not a passing event that occurred on Tuesday. I think this was a real turning of the pages of history. The last page had words like innocence and assumption of invulnerability. This new page has under attack, and we've got to act as a nation which is under attack on our own soil.
NOVAK: Gentlemen, we've been talking about an intelligence failure, there is also a security failure. You have four hijackings in one day, and, of course, as we -- today tremendously tight security restrictions were being put into effect on American airports. How intelligent they were, I'm not sure. Do you have any concern, either of you, that the victim of all this is going to be the American air traveler, and that you won't have appreciably more security but it will make traveling a lot more difficult?
HAGEL: Well, I would make one observation. We're the most open, mobile society, probably in the history of mankind. We cherish our individual rights and liberties. And conveniences, quite frankly. What we must find is a balance between preserving those individual liberties and the security of our institutions, our state, and our people.
NOVAK: Just quickly, do you have any comment on that?
GRAHAM: I think clearly we are going to see -- and other airports are probably going to be one of the first places that we're going to be living in this different era. I personally will not question if they look a second or third time at my bag as it goes on the airplane.
NOVAK: Senator Bob Graham, thank you very much. Senator Chuck Hagel. Thank you. And back to Bill Hemmer in Atlanta.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Bob and Bill and the senators. Thank you very much.
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