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CNN Live Saturday

Security Remains Priority for Travelers

Aired December 06, 2003 - 12:11   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.


RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Police in and U.S. troops in Afghanistan are investigating a bomb blast that wounded 15 people in the city of Kandahar. The bicycle bomb went off in the city's central square damaging a number of buildings but no deaths are reported.
A source tells CNN a man arrested last month in London likely planned to hide explosives in his socks. The suspect, Sajiv Badatt (ph), is said to have been plotting an attack on airliners in conjunction with convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid.

The plan was conceal weapons by filling the socks with explosive material and wearing the socks around their necks.

Security remains paramount for travelers these days with news of actual bombings and foiled attempts. The threat even extends far beyond airports to so-called soft targets everywhere, malls arenas, any place the public gathers. Here's our Security Analyst Kelly McCann, joins us live on the phone.

Kelly, good to talk to with you again.

KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Hi, Renay.

SAN MIGUEL: More people traveling, obviously, presents more targets of opportunity, in the parlance of law enforcement, and more work for the Transportation Security Administration. What specifically are they doing right now in the December, around the holiday season, to make sure that nothing happens?

MCCANN: There's a couple of good points to make. One of which, of course, is that crime always increases around the period of Thanksgiving to Christmas, anyway. So, there is always and uptick in security, just generally speaking, even if you take terrorism out of the equation.

But right now, of course, they're looking at air marshal saturation on the planes. The routes that would be most probably used if any precedence has been set we have seen. There is 100 percent baggage screening, both in checked and carried on bags, so that's a huge increase than what it was pre-9/11. There's an increased presence, you'll see more police in the area. You'll seem more patrolling inside the airports, outside.

And also the introduction of K-9s, there will be a random introduction of K-9 sniffing animals in order to basically introduce that variable that can't be predicted. So all of these things combine to make a fairly secure environment.

SAN MIGUEL: Let's move to the shopping mall situation, which had raised some concerns from the Homeland Security earlier this week. There's an incident that is dramatized in the new Tom Clancy book, "The Teeth of the Tiger", at a shopping mall. And there's a lot of talk in the book about the security or lack of at shopping malls. Is that the main concern here?

MCCANN: There is. In review of all the al Qaeda tapes that were confiscated in Afghanistan there were tactics that were totally offensive that appear to be those that could be used, where shooters would arrive at a very populated site and engage people and then leave, or not.

Of course, without any direct indicators that there is intelligence showing that this could happen, Renay, it's just another one of the many things that could happen. People have to remember, if we just roll over and don't live our lives, they really do win, that's the old cliche. But it's true.

So, I think, it's wise to say the only real thing you can exercise at this point is personal choice, whether you should go to those highly populated places, whether you should fly or not fly, and make an intelligent decision.

SAN MIGUEL: And also just a heightened sense of vigilance, as I think you were getting at there.

But if the problem for authorities is separating legitimate intelligence from the rest of the chatter they're hearing, how do you go about doing that? Is that easier or harder in the two years since 9/11?

MCCANN: It's difficult, because there could be also discussion of glory days. We have to remember this opponent is likely to want to celebrate previous successes. We see an increased chatter around things successfully conducted previously. You have to draw that out of the equation and then you have to dig down and look for corroborating kind of information that says they're talking about a new event or possible new event, rather than a glory days nice idea.

It is a very difficult job. But in a post-9/11 world, intelligence has -- and the machine that creates intelligence has gotten much better.

SAN MIGUEL: Finally, a lot written about al Qaeda waiting a year or two between major attacks, also uppermost on the minds of authorities?

MCCANN: They're very patient and they don't like to leave tasks undone. This is a threat that will not go away until we see this thing through. I mean, you'd heard me say before, I don't necessarily agree you win a war on terrorism. I think you endure it. And you endure it through vigilance and preemptive kind of actions based on good actionable intelligence. I think we're in this thing now.

SAN MIGUEL: CNN Security Analyst Kelly McCann, thanks so much for your time.

MCCANN: Thanks, Renay.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 6, 2003 - 12:11   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Police in and U.S. troops in Afghanistan are investigating a bomb blast that wounded 15 people in the city of Kandahar. The bicycle bomb went off in the city's central square damaging a number of buildings but no deaths are reported.
A source tells CNN a man arrested last month in London likely planned to hide explosives in his socks. The suspect, Sajiv Badatt (ph), is said to have been plotting an attack on airliners in conjunction with convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid.

The plan was conceal weapons by filling the socks with explosive material and wearing the socks around their necks.

Security remains paramount for travelers these days with news of actual bombings and foiled attempts. The threat even extends far beyond airports to so-called soft targets everywhere, malls arenas, any place the public gathers. Here's our Security Analyst Kelly McCann, joins us live on the phone.

Kelly, good to talk to with you again.

KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Hi, Renay.

SAN MIGUEL: More people traveling, obviously, presents more targets of opportunity, in the parlance of law enforcement, and more work for the Transportation Security Administration. What specifically are they doing right now in the December, around the holiday season, to make sure that nothing happens?

MCCANN: There's a couple of good points to make. One of which, of course, is that crime always increases around the period of Thanksgiving to Christmas, anyway. So, there is always and uptick in security, just generally speaking, even if you take terrorism out of the equation.

But right now, of course, they're looking at air marshal saturation on the planes. The routes that would be most probably used if any precedence has been set we have seen. There is 100 percent baggage screening, both in checked and carried on bags, so that's a huge increase than what it was pre-9/11. There's an increased presence, you'll see more police in the area. You'll seem more patrolling inside the airports, outside.

And also the introduction of K-9s, there will be a random introduction of K-9 sniffing animals in order to basically introduce that variable that can't be predicted. So all of these things combine to make a fairly secure environment.

SAN MIGUEL: Let's move to the shopping mall situation, which had raised some concerns from the Homeland Security earlier this week. There's an incident that is dramatized in the new Tom Clancy book, "The Teeth of the Tiger", at a shopping mall. And there's a lot of talk in the book about the security or lack of at shopping malls. Is that the main concern here?

MCCANN: There is. In review of all the al Qaeda tapes that were confiscated in Afghanistan there were tactics that were totally offensive that appear to be those that could be used, where shooters would arrive at a very populated site and engage people and then leave, or not.

Of course, without any direct indicators that there is intelligence showing that this could happen, Renay, it's just another one of the many things that could happen. People have to remember, if we just roll over and don't live our lives, they really do win, that's the old cliche. But it's true.

So, I think, it's wise to say the only real thing you can exercise at this point is personal choice, whether you should go to those highly populated places, whether you should fly or not fly, and make an intelligent decision.

SAN MIGUEL: And also just a heightened sense of vigilance, as I think you were getting at there.

But if the problem for authorities is separating legitimate intelligence from the rest of the chatter they're hearing, how do you go about doing that? Is that easier or harder in the two years since 9/11?

MCCANN: It's difficult, because there could be also discussion of glory days. We have to remember this opponent is likely to want to celebrate previous successes. We see an increased chatter around things successfully conducted previously. You have to draw that out of the equation and then you have to dig down and look for corroborating kind of information that says they're talking about a new event or possible new event, rather than a glory days nice idea.

It is a very difficult job. But in a post-9/11 world, intelligence has -- and the machine that creates intelligence has gotten much better.

SAN MIGUEL: Finally, a lot written about al Qaeda waiting a year or two between major attacks, also uppermost on the minds of authorities?

MCCANN: They're very patient and they don't like to leave tasks undone. This is a threat that will not go away until we see this thing through. I mean, you'd heard me say before, I don't necessarily agree you win a war on terrorism. I think you endure it. And you endure it through vigilance and preemptive kind of actions based on good actionable intelligence. I think we're in this thing now.

SAN MIGUEL: CNN Security Analyst Kelly McCann, thanks so much for your time.

MCCANN: Thanks, Renay.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com