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Panel Discusses Potential Involvement of Saddam Hussein in Anthrax Scare and Whether Congress Should be Shut Down Temporarily

Aired October 17, 2001 - 19:30   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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: I am absolutely determined to ensure the Senate continues to do its work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), SPEAKER: The best effort for the House of Representatives is to stay in today, do our business, and then adjourn the house tonight, and allow members to go home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Anthrax scares and mixed messages on Capitol Hill. Is America prepared or panicking? This is CROSSFIRE.

Good evening. Welcome to CROSSFIRE. Another day, another round of anthrax scares, most of them centered right here in Washington. After 30 some Senate employees in or around senator Daschle's office tested positive for exposure to anthrax, the Senate closed down its three office buildings, while senators remain in session.

The House of Representatives didn't stop there. They not only shut down all house office buildings, all House members will get out of Dodge until next Tuesday while emergency teams check out their offices.

But Washington wasn't the only hot spot. In New York City traces of anthrax were found in the Manhattan office of Governor George Pataki, though no employees there tested positive. And today, the CDC's preliminary reports state that letters received by a media firm in Florida and by NBC's Tom Brokaw came from the same strain.

What's it all mean? Is there a madman on the loose? Or a terrorist network still at large? Are we being careful or overreacting? Joining our debate tonight, Amy Smithson, director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Project at the Stimson Center here in Washington D.C.; and Congressman Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, chairman of the subcommittee on national security -- Bob Novak. ROBERT NOVAK, CO- HOST: Congressman Shays, there is nobody -- I repeat nobody -- sick on Capitol Hill as a result of anthrax. Public Health Service says that the exposure is limited to a small part of the Hart building. The Earlier report that the anthrax had gotten into the ventilation system was wrong and withdrawn. Aren't you overreacting by closing down Congress?

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R-CT), NATL. SEC. SUBCOMMITTEE CHMN: Maybe we are. There were some who would have liked to have kept it open and take each building as it came, but what the speaker heard this morning was that it was in the ventilation, and if it was...

NOVAK: That was wrong, though.

SHAYS: Well, but if he was right, and that's when the decision was made, then you are talking about a weaponized anthrax.

PRESS: Ms. Smithson, for the last 11 days since the first case of anthrax was reported from Florida, experts like you have been telling us there is no reason to panic. And yet every day there are more cases reported and every day they seem to be getting more serious and affecting more people. Are you willing to admit you have been wrong all this time, and you are wrong today?

AMY SMITHSON, STIMSON CENTER: Absolutely not. There are over 280 million Americans out there who have that have not suffered any physical harm from these events. They have certainly been terrorized, and that's exactly the objective of whoever is behind this -- individual, group, domestic, international -- we don't know the answers to these questions, but no, sir, we still have isolated events with exposures. We have three people who have come down with the disease and one who has died.

NOVAK: Congressman Shays, I want to follow up on what Miss Smithson says. I want to read you an editorial from "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution."

Quote, "It's not likely that this form of terrorism is going to do much damage in direct human terms, it already seems however, to be achieving the goal of sowing fear and trepidation among the American people and that is weakening us as a society and as a nation."

How can you disagree with that?

SHAYS: First off, there is no panic in the Hill. There may have been a decision to close down the buildings and check it out, but there's not panic. We were working there today and we just left our buildings at 7:00 tonight. So, I agree. Panic would be the last thing you want to have happen.

But, one thing I also feel very strongly about, it's not a question of if there will be a chemical or biological attack, it's question of when, where and of what magnitude. Our basic belief is that the magnitude is going to be fairly low, but don't be surprised if you see one that is more significant. NOVAK: Of course you have said the decision to close down, and it is closed down until next Tuesday. And you say the decision was made on incorrect information, that it was in the ventilating system. But I want you to listen to what Senator Richard Durban, my good friend, my fellow Illinoisan from Illinois said on the Senate floor today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: The precautions that are being taken here I think are the right precautions. But, to have the press characterize this as some television stations have, as an evacuation of Capitol Hill is just plain wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: Give me a break, Christopher Shays. When you leave the buildings for five days, that is an evacuation, is it not?

SHAYS: I think it is. Let me just say, we basically finished up our business today. We did what we were basically going to do up until tomorrow. So the staffs are the ones that are being let go. But when the decision was made there was the fear that it was in the ventilating system. And if you think it's in the ventilating system, then you are going to be reacting the way you did.

PRESS: Miss Smithson, let's talk about what happened on the Hill today. Because we have been told that the strain of anthrax found in Senator Daschle's office is the most lethal that we have seen yet, much more finely ground than the one in Florida, the one in New York.

And there are also samples of the same found in the mail room in the Dirkson Senate Building, Senator Daschle's office being in the Hart building. So just given that, isn't it reasonable to assume that other buildings can be hit, that other members of Congress could be hit, so to protect all the people who work in those buildings, wasn't it the right thing to do to shut them down and check them out?

SMITHSON: I think we are all going to have to learn to take some new precaution with the way we go about receiving things through the mail. It's just like we learned how put on our seat belts in order not to serve, you know, get injured in a car crash.

We are going to have to learn to look at out mail items differently. I am not going second-guess these decisions because I wasn't there with the information making the decision. So, again, we are going to have to learn to deal with this and remain calm throughout because actually I think there will be more things coming our way and what is going to be very difficult is sorting out the wheat from the chaff.

PRESS: Let me try again: There were, I think, some 23 members, more or less, of Senator Daschle's office, staff members, who were in his office, who were found to have been exposed to anthrax. But there were three members, three staff people who work for Senator Feingold in a different office adjacent, who didn't even go inside of Senator Daschle's office and they were found to have been exposed to these anthrax spores.

Doesn't that indicate that this stuff can move around and a lot of other people can be infected. We don't know where it is, how it is getting around these buildings, so I want to ask you again, if you were the employer and you had all these employees potentially at risk, wouldn't you do the safe thing the prophylactic thing, and say, let's shut them down and search them and scrub them?

SMITHSON: What we need to do is to wait for people who are looking at these microorganisms under microscopes and hear from them what is going on. These are epidemioligical investigations. They will give you some answers if you will just be patient about what is going on here and how things are spreading from place to place.

PRESS: But aren't you putting other people at risk while you are doing that?

SMITHSON: There are precautions that should be taken under the advice of public health officials and law enforcement officials. I'm not going to second-guess their judgment in situations where I am not present.

SHAYS: And let me make the point the speaker to us this morning said the public officials felt we should shut down the buildings. They were the ones who made that recommendation. I will readily agree with you that lawyers can keep you out of jail, but in the end you look guilty as hell. And people in security are apt to want you to be more cautious than you should be, and then you give the impression of being too cautious, almost frightened.

That is the end result, so sometimes we might have to overrule the health people and the security people and in this case, we didn't.

NOVAK: Congressman Shays, you know as well as I do that the security people, long before this, would have created a mote around the Congress with concertina (ph) wire and all. And it is not been widely reported but you know that the Capitol police a couple weeks ago said Congress should adjourn right now and leave, pass a continuing resolution...

SHAYS: And we didn't listen to them.

NOVAK: And since you are not passing anything anyway, and not doing any work, any useful work anyway, and you are so frightened, why didn't you leave then?

SMITHSON: Let me just say, this is a new ball game for everybody. Some of us may have wanted to us stay open...

NOVAK: Did you?

SMITHSON: Yes, absolutely. I wanted to us stay open and close each building as they inspected it. But I will tell you this: The speaker of the House had to make this decision with the advice of the health care people and they were basically saying to him, get out of town. Let's check it out and let's make sure our procedures are better so it doesn't happen again.

The thing that concerns me is there are a million ways to attack us. I have had 20 hearings plus, and there are 100 different ways to attack us. We are at war. I would have liked to us stay in town.

NOVAK: Let me just say something that is a little blunt, I don't like to...

SMITHSON: When have you ever been blunt?

(LAUGHTER)

PRESS: First time.

NOVAK: All of us are people, millions of Americans work for a living. We go to work every day, worried about this terrorism. But, don't the 435 members of Congress, with all the security guards and all the precautions -- I was suppose to have lunch on the Hill...

SHAYS: You have got to be blunt, we are waiting for you here.

NOVAK: Don't you look yellow?

SHAYS: I think we look very cautious.

NOVAK: Yellow?

SHAYS: I think we look too cautious.

NOVAK: Yellow?

SHAYS: No, just too cautious.

PRESS: Amy Smithson, I get a kick every day out of Secretary Thompson going on the air saying, we are ready, we got the supplies, we got a plan. And yet, you look at what happened. Let's take New York. I mean, the FBI -- this is reported what happened on NBC Tom Brokaw's office -- they reported to the FBI and to the police authorities, nothing happened for like two weeks.

The FBI said, it can't be anthrax. The health officials said no, it can't be anthrax. It wasn't until two weeks later when a private doctor, this woman went to the doctor, and he diagnosed it as anthrax, that they finally got their butts in gear. Isn't it pretty clear, we don't know what the hell we are doing? We are doing a case by case.

SHAYS: I think you are overstating it, though.

PRESS: Well, I am asking her.

SMITHSON: Yes, you are vastly overstating that because what preceded the first case in Florida were literally hundreds of hoaxes involving threats with anthrax sent through the mail. And so the fact that they considered that a threat until there was an index case, the first case of genuine anthrax found in Florida, then the whole system changed. And that is what is going to make it so difficult from here on out is to separate the genuine cases from the roughly 3,000 hoaxes that have occurred that the FBI has investigated since the 11th of September.

SHAYS: And that's why we need to treat those hoaxes as if they were terrorist attacks and hold people accountable.

SMITHSON: Absolutely!

PRESS: Now I do want to ask you just then about one response, since you say that we know what we are doing. Governor Pataki today, just to shift a little bit, Washington is not the only place this is happening, it has been happening three cases now in New York City, Governor Pataki's office has indicated there are traces of anthrax today, and here is what here is what the governor said he is doing -- Governor Pataki.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GEORGE PATAKI (R), NEW YORK: I'm not going to get tested. I imagine the vast majority of the people in my offices aren't going to be tested. The people in my offices are being given Cipro as a prophylactic. I, too, will be taking Cipro.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: So, he not getting tested but is taking Cipro -- panic?

SMITHSON: He has made his own personal decision. If I were him I would be listening to his doctors and the public health officials and following their instructions and that is what we have to do.

PRESS: But you wouldn't suggest to the American people that they ought not get tested and run out and start taking Cipro.

SMITHSON: You are absolutely right. He has made his own decision. I don't believe that these circumstances warrant Americans stockpiling antibiotics and certainly they do not warrant Americans popping them like they are candy.

There are several bad things that fall out of that. One, there can be adverse side effects, especially if you start medicating your children. Two, it is going to weaken the ability of these drugs to work for you if you actually have a true health problem in the future, and then it feeds back into the whole business of making these strains more antibiotic resistant. So, triple bad, no, no.

NOVAK: We have to take a break. And when we come back we will explore whether the person responsible for the anthrax is none other than our old enemy Saddam Hussein.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. With everything on Capitol Hill but the Senate shut down because of an anthrax infusion, investigators are asking where the germs are coming from. Is this biological terrorism perhaps from the same people who are guilty of the September 11 attacks? Is it state sponsored terrorism? And if so, what state? We're asking Republican Congressman Christopher Shays of Connecticut, chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security; and Amy Smithson, director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Project at the Stimson Center -- Bill press.

PRESS: Miss Smithson, we are not sure where the stuff came from. We know it wasn't Betty Crocker. Here is what Richard Butler, former chief inspector for the U.N., said this morning on CNN -- his theory. Please listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD BUTLER, FMR. U.N. CHIEF WEAPONS INSPECTOR: This wasn't the stuff that some amateur cooked up in a fermenter in his bathroom. This is a person who had pretty sophisticated equipment at his disposal, or I think more likely, a foreign country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: More likely a foreign country. We know that Mohamed Atta who was a pilot on the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center met in Prague last year once, probably twice, with an Iraqi foreign intelligence agent. We know Saddam Hussein has had a anthrax. Isn't ROSS: responsible to suspect that Saddam Hussein's fingers are in this pie?

SMITHSON: Let's put a few facts into this. We have heard now from the United States Armey Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, that this is a strain from nature, a garden-variety strain of anthrax. It is not something -- I would associate that conclusion with something Saddam Hussein might have in a vile somewhere in Iraq.

Granted he's got a weapons program, granted Iraq is a state sponsor of terrorism. I'm not sure they have crossed that line. I would not grant you that.

PRESS: I hear them say that, by the way, about the samples in Florida. You may be correct -- I have not heard them say that about samples in Senator Daschle's office -- but even assuming you are correct, I mean, Saddam Hussein we know in the '80s started making anthrax or whatever they do, developing it in the labs.

At first it was a very unsophisticated kind, and the U.N. people tell us that he got into the most sophisticated and the most lethal kind of anthrax. Why would he have been developing that if not to use it against the United States, and if Osama bin Laden's agents in fact did come to him and say, we be want it to use against the United States, why shouldn't we assume that he is an agent here?

SMITHSON: You can go ahead and jump to conclusions if you would like...

PRESS: But isn't there reasonable evidence? SMITHSON: No, I don't necessarily think that that is the case. And listen, he didn't use these -- yes, it is irrelevant. And he did not use the weapons that he had at his disposal, biological or chemical during the Persian Gulf War against alliance forces.

And to say that he will train them, he will finance them is one thing. To say that he will hand over to them weapons capability that would increase the size of the target on his head, which is already pretty large, is something else entirely.

NOVAK: Congressman Shays, I am going to ask you...

SHAYS: I would love to be able to respond to that.

NOVAK: All right, go ahead.

SHAYS: I just want to make the point to you that whoever is doing this is basically in bed with Saddam Hussein in the sense that it is a terrorist act continuing this process. We are at war with terrorism. This isn't a criminal act. This is a war and we need to confront it as a war.

And let me just make another point to you. Saddam Hussein basically has anthrax. He has weaponized it. And He has no mind set that says that he is not willing to use it as has been...

NOVAK: Congressman, I understand what you are saying. But I want to ask you a relevant question, you call it irrelevant, I call it relevant.

SHAYS: OK.

NOVAK: Apart from the speculation we have heard constantly today on television and from Bill Press just a minute ago, is there one scintilla of evidence linking Iraq and Saddam Hussein to this anthrax infusion?

SHAYS: No, not at all. That I know of. But I don't really care.

NOVAK: You don't care. I understand that. I want you to listen to something from another guy who doesn't care from Connecticut, who is really all over television and he is tougher than hell. I want you to listen to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: If anybody has got a hostile intent against us and who we know is working on biological, chemical weapons, it's Saddam Hussein. We ought to do everything we can get him out of power before he does very serious damage to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: Congressman, I'm not going ask you if you want to get into the cockpit with tailgunner Joe there on a bombing raid, but -- just a minute, I am going to ask you a question -- do you think we should attack Iraq without any evidence of their complicity?

SHAYS: We know that they have been very much involved with terrorist activities. We know that they have helped train them, helped fund them. We know they have weapons of mass destruction. We know he is willing to use it. He did in Iran. So I don't need a lot more...

NOVAK: Is that a yes?

SHAYS: No. My point is to turn one stone over at time. We need to deal with Afghanistan -- let me finish -- we need to deal with Afghanistan and when we have done our work there, then we have deal with the other countries that have sponsored terrorism and Iraq is one of them.

NOVAK: Is that a yes? We should attack them without any evidence of complicity?

SHAYS: The answer is very simply that in time we have deal with him. You shake you head, but...

NOVAK: Well you didn't answer my question.

SHAYS: This is what I wants to say for the record for both of you. We are in a race with terrorists to stop them from getting the delivery system for chemical and biological agents to get nuclear waste that they can put in a bomb in a very toxic way, and to get a nuclear weapon, Heaven forbid. That is what they are attempting to do and there is no red line.

Let me make this point again, there is no red line. They were willing to go after 6,000 people, no red line. They would use all of what I mentioned.

PRESS: All right, but I want to get back to this outrageous statement that both of you made that if Saddam Hussein is involved it is irrelevant. Now I don't know that he is. I think there is reason to suspect that he is, but there are two phases here as you just pointed out: One is the people who took these planes and ran them into the Pentagon and World Trade Center. We are pretty sure that is Osama bin Laden's network and we are after him right now as we should be.

If we discover that in fact Saddam Hussein is behind the second wave of terrorism, which is a bioterrorist attack on the United States using anthrax, how can you say that is irrelevant? That means we have a second enemy and we should go after him, correct?

SMITHSON: I did not say...

PRESS: You said it is irrelevant whether he is or not.

(CROSSTALK)

SHAYS: You twisted the answer.

NOVAK: He said they should go after him whether he is guilty or not.

SHAYS: No, I am saying this: He is sponsoring terrorist activity. He is developing biological and chemical, he is looking for a nuclear bomb, and when he gets it, he will use it.

PRESS: All I am saying is, you would have to agree, that if there is evidence that he is there, that is certainly relevant.

SMITHSON: When I see evidence that a strain has passed from one place to another, then all bets go off, absolutely. But I have not seen that evidence yet. I know he has got a program, but I haven't seen that evidence yet.

PRESS: I want to ask you one quick thing -- excuse me, we are almost out of time, Congressman. One other quick thing in terms of how prepared we are: Senator Bayh has said there are other places that this could happen, food supply, air supply. Let's talk about the food supply. Senator Bayh says that less than one percent of the food that comes into this country is inspected. Are we really prepared for a possible (UNINTELLIGIBLE) terrorist attack?

SMITHSON: That is such a huge question, I think I am going to not hang myself with it. What I can tell you is that they are going to use food as the root, but that is a vastly different around the elbow to get to your knee way to kill people.

The situation would be detected fairly quickly because people would start to get ill and there would be precautions taken, there would be an epidemiological investigation. And we would be able to contain that situation fairly early.

SHAYS: And we liked you guys better when you disagreed.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

SHAYS: No, no, you guys agreed too much tonight -- geez.

PRESS: We like you whether you agree or disagree, Congressman Christopher Shays. Thanks for coming back to CROSSFIRE. Amy Smithson, good to have you on the show, hope to get you back and there is a lot to talk about. I am sure we will.

Robert Novak and I have more to say. We will be back with some nonlethal closing comments coming up. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOVAK: Bill, I give Chris Shays credit for admitting that the leadership made a mistake in closing down the Congress. But my problem is a lot of people who want to get rid of Saddam Hussein, maybe for good reason, have really no interest in connecting him to these anthrax infusions. They just want to bomb the hell out of him and they wanted to before we had one anthrax case. PRESS: Well, I certainly agree, there is no reason -- I mean they should not jump without evidence for saying bomb Saddam Hussein. But you know, Bob, we talked about this last week and last week I agreed with you for the most part that I thought we were overreacting as a people.

I have to tell you, this week I think it's a lot more serious. There have been more cases. And you know what, Bob, they are coming after people in the mail. They are coming after people who are unpopular.

NOVAK: Are they coming after you -- unpopular people?

PRESS: They are coming after people who would turn people off. If I were you, Bob, I would watch your mail.

NOVAK: Are you stoking up on antibiotics?

PRESS: No, but watch your mail, Bob. From the left I'm Bill Press. Good night for CROSSFIRE.

NOVAK: From the right I'm Robert Novak. Join us again next time for another edition of CROSSFIRE.

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