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CNN Live At Daybreak
Homeland Defense: Government Officials Continue to Warn of Terrorist Attacks
Aired October 26, 2001 - 05:15 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. officials tell CNN that Russia is just about to put some military muscle behind the Northern Alliance in its war against Taliban forces. Russia has agreed to send 40 T-55 tanks and about a hundred armored vehicles to aid the opposition on the ground.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, a deployment of British ground troops is expected to be backing U.S. troops in Afghanistan. That announcement is expected within the next hour in the British parliament's House of Commons.
HARRIS: And here at home, some sobering words from Vice President Dick Cheney. He tells a gathering of Republican governors that in this war on terrorism, there may be more casualties among Americans at home than there will be among the troops overseas.
KAGAN: Well, on that note, let's go ahead and check on the latest news concerning anthrax. That threat has hit yet another arm of the federal government. Officials say that traces of anthrax have turned up in a mail facility at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
It was during a sweep of 31 different sites and was the only area that tested positive. The amount is described as medically insignificant. But the building has been shut down for more tests and cleaning. No CIA personnel have tested positive, but staff who are concerned about exposure have been offered antibiotics.
Let's go ahead and look at the latest numbers in the anthrax investigation. A total of 13 people have been infected. Of those, three died of inhaled anthrax. Four are being treated for inhalation infection. Six people are being treated for cutaneous. That's the skin form of anthrax. Thirty-two others are confirmed to have been exposed to the bacteria.
HARRIS: Well, another day, another confirmed case of anthrax. Attorney General John Ashcroft did not lessen our anxiety by warning that terrorists are "plotting, waiting, planning to kill Americans again." And Vice President Dick Cheney says that homeland security is no temporary measure. He calls it the new normalcy.
We get more on that now from CNN's John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This White House briefing is part of a new administration effort to better coordinate its handling of the anthrax scare.
TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY DIRECTOR: Good afternoon.
KING: More information on the mailings, but no answer to the most important question of all.
RIDGE: We still don't know who is responsible.
KING: The anthrax found in Florida, New York and Washington is from the same strain.
MAJ. GEN. JOHN PARKER, MEDICAL RESEARCH & MATERIAL COMMANDER: The good news is that this strain is susceptible to all of the antibiotics that we have in the United States.
KING: But the anthrax in the letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was especially potent.
RIDGE: It is pure and the spores are smaller. Therefore, they're more dangerous, because they can be more easily absorbed in a person's respiratory system.
KING: The Daschle letter is the only known source of anthrax in Washington, and for now, the suspected cause of anthrax exposure at four locations -- the Brentwood mail processing center, where two workers died; the Capitol complex; the remote facility that processes White House mail; and a remote State Department mail room, where a worker was diagnosed with anthrax Thursday.
Authorities assume the contents of the Daschle letter were spread when it was squeezed in mail sorting machines and perhaps when those machines are were cleaned with high-powered blowers.
PARKER: These individual spores are very light and if given some energy from, say, wind, or clapping or motion of air in a room, they will drift in the air and then fall to the ground.
KING: A senior administration official says tests so far have not narrowed the field of potential sources.
(on camera): More tests are under way and one key goal is to determine, if possible, whether the anthrax originated here in the United States or from some overseas source, say, Iraq, or former Soviet stockpiles. The hope is for a breakthrough soon. But officials concede there is no guarantee additional testing will provide a definitive answer.
John King, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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