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CNN Live At Daybreak

Target: Terrorism: Discussion with Former Senator Sam Nunn

Aired October 02, 2001 - 08:35   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now it's time to get the latest on the investigation into these attacks.

For that, we go to CNN's Eileen O'Connor who joins us from Washington -- Eileen.

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, the Bush administration has begun it's -- to present it's case to it's allies, and they say it is a compelling case of evidence that Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network were behind the September 11th attacks. One source telling me that they are almost there, in fact, in proving the financial links to Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network, proving financially that it was backed by his Al Qaeda network. What is happening is the Bush administration is sending out diplomatic cables to the U.S. embassies in the countries of the allies. Diplomats will then present that case, that evidence, to the allies, and already, the NATO secretary general says he has seen that evidence, and he says it is compelling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE ROBERTS, NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL: The facts are clear and compelling. The information presented points conclusively to an Al Qaeda role in the 11th of September attacks. We know that the individual that's carried out the attacks were part of the worldwide terrorist network, Al Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenants and protected by the Taliban.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'CONNOR: The allies will be presented with most detailed evidence, and then others will be getting less detailed, declassified evidence. In addition, the United States is presenting eyeball to eyeball, an administration official said the evidence to the leadership in Pakistan, but already, the NATO secretary general, as you said, said that this -- as you saw, said this evidence is so compelling that it, in fact, it is up to the standard to invoke article five of the NATO charter, which means that an attack on an ally is considered to be an attack on all of NATO -- Zahn.

ZAHN: Eileen O'Connor, thanks for the update.

The September 11th attacks drive home the point that terrorism may now be America's number one threat, demanding a permanent response. That threat has been a red flag for former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia for years. Nunn is now CEO of a foundation called Nuclear Threat Initiative. He joins me from Washington this morning.

Welcome.

SAM NUNN, NUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: So, Mr. Nunn, what are you most concerned about right now, as we continue to debate the potential of chemical or biological warfare here?

NUNN: Well, I think that the administration is doing a very good job. They are mobilizing the world. They are presenting evidence in a way that protects our sources and methods, so we can continue to gather crucial intelligence. They are taking their time and planning, and making sure, I am certain, that we really hit the targets with the rifled shots rather than a lot of collateral damage with a lot of innocent people being killed. So I think they are going about it in the right way.

I also believe that we have to understand that the weapons that terrorists use are limited only by what they have in their possession, and that means that we have to do everything we can to make sure that we do not let them get weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, but also certainly including biological and chemical weapons, and that we prepare not just the federal government, but our national structure of public health, that we have our policemen and firemen, that we have our emergency health officials, that we do all of that to prepare for that, and that most of all, we do all we can to prevent it, by keeping dangerous pathogens and dangerous materials, and nuclear materials out of the hands of any terrorist group, and that has a lot of implications.

ZAHN: So if you were to grade the U.S.'s ability to respond to these attacks you just outlined, where are we on a one to 10 scale, 10 being the highest level of readiness?

NUNN: There are a lot of gradations here. Chemical, we have been prepared for years for dealing with hazardous materials. Chemical attack would be like dealing with hazardous material. We have not prepared extensively for biological in the past, but beginning in 1995-96, after the Omshin Riko (ph) attack with the chemicals in Tokyo, we also started working on biological. We passed major legislation, which is the foundation for our efforts. Back in 1996, President Clinton and his administration started paying attention to the biothreat during his latter years. There were a number of things done thing then, including ordering extra vaccines and beginning to train officials at the local level, and beginning to he equip, although we have a long way to go there.

When the Bush administration came in, Secretary Thompson, I think, assumed a strong leadership. He appointed top officials to focus on this.

So I would say that summarizing it, Paula, the foundation is laid, but the house needs to be built. And we have to understand, this is not only the federal government going in with a emergency account of medical capability, which we are prepared to do, this is a matter of preparing state and local people, the people who will be on the scene, the doctors and nurses, so that they will understand and have early detection of any kind of outbreak of infectious diseases, certainly manmade or otherwise; and to make sure that we have the surge capability in our public health system, and also to have the kind of vaccines and the kind of antibiotics that are absolutely essential.

But let me back up and say one other thing. Prevention is absolutely essential here. We want to be able to deal with it if it occurs, but prevention means better intelligence. Prevention means that we need to get health officials working with our intelligence community and vice versa. Prevention means, I think, working with the Russians, engaging their biological scientists, so they don't end up in other countries, and also working with the Russians and others on defensive efforts.

ZAHN: Well, let's talk about that, because that is one of your chief concerns, sort of trying to track the activities of former nuclear scientists. How advanced are our efforts in that regard?

NUNN: We have done a great deal in what we call the Nunn-Lugar program and other programs related to protecting nuclear material. We have helped the Russians secure a lot of their material, but we have a long way to go in that regard, and it ought to be a top priority. We ought to have as a top priority to have all the excess plutonium and highly enriched uranium under security and safeguard cooperating with the Russians and with the international community.

On the chemical side, we have just started to try to destroy a huge portion of that chemical inventory, both in the former Soviet Union and here. We have a lot of destruction left.

On the biological side, we've made less progress. We are just beginning to have the kind of cooperation that's essential with Russia. They've had secret programs, they've built up vast stockpiles. Now their biological scientists are underemployed. Many of them do not know how to make a living, so we have a really great opportunity here, coming out of the attacks and this terrible tragedy to build a bilateral defense effort with the Russians. They are very receptive. They had terrorist attacks. They are very knowledgeable in this area, and this can be the beginning of a real worldwide effort.

ZAHN: Senator, in closing, I'd like to talk to you about a bioterrorist exercise that took place several months ago, in fact, at the beginning of the summer, where you actually played president at Andrew's Air Force Base. What did you learn from that exercise?

NUNN: Paula, it was a worst case, because it was smallpox, and of all of our preparation, that's the one that has the longest to go. We learned we didn't have enough vaccine, and that is being...

ZAHN: But we still don't?

NUNN: We still don't, but to Secretary Thompson's credit, he has accelerated what has started in the Clinton administration. We are going to have a lot more vaccine in 2002. We did not have public health officials trained for early recognition. We did not have early-detection technology so we would know when an attack occurred. We need to have that. It needs to be cheap and mobile, so we can have it in all of the buildings that are central and in large gatherings, so we can detect it early.

We need to do everything we can to provide surge capabilities in our hospitals to deal with this, and this is not going to be done on a market basis. It's going to require governmental leadership. We need to understand that our doctors need to be able to recognize, and our pharmacists needs to be able to recognize symptoms, so at a early stage, we step up and start dealing with this, and I would include veterinarians in that. So all of these things are going to have to take place.

But the good news is that we had a greatly accelerated kind of awareness here. I suspect more has been done in the last six months to a year than we have done in the previous two years, and probably more has been done the last three weeks than the last year or two, so we are doing a lot more now, and it again has to be stressed, this is not simply the federal government, it has to be the whole network of health officials, dealing with security officials and law enforcement throughout the country. We should not panic.

We should not channel our energies into fruitless causes, like going out and buying gas masks. Nobody would know when to use them. We need to channel our energies into building the kind of cooperation at every level, beginning at local, led by the federal government in preparing for this kind of attack, but for any kind of attack that would involves weapons of mass destruction. The more we prepare, Paula, the less likely it is these kind of events will happen.

ZAHN: Senator, you raised a very interesting point about the local effort, because I know Senator Fritz was on the show yesterday, and he was saying the same thing, that in a lot of local hospitals, they do not even have fax machines where they would be able to receive information from other doctors about these symptoms.

So a lot of work to be done. Senator Nunn, thank you for bringing us up to date on all the plans being considered. Appreciate your time.

NUNN: Thank you.

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